Thursday, July 03, 2008

Things To Do




Move healthy morning glory seedlings to pot with dead tree--so they can climb it.

Divide up young snapdragon plants and use to fill in other planters.

One day: divide campanula & coreopsis.

Trim foliage of nasturtiums.

Reorganize planters, retiring spent plants and showcasing others.

Stage Sweet Pea protest.

Water/Fertilize.

Post photos of client garden on steroids.

Make rustic twig trellis; become millionaire selling rustic twig trellises to wealthy Brooklynites.

--L&G

Sunday, June 29, 2008

The Bathroom Series Continues



Rose, Zinnias, Pinks, Poppies, etc. Like this one.

The "Body Bag" Rose




This is a new term I learned on I believe, GardenWeb. Of course, invoked derisively. I bought two last year--why? unclear. One died, but that's not surprising as I treated them, uh, poorly. This red climbing rose wasn't having any of it, and has returned, as you can see, quite vigorously. What is it? Wish I knew. I have made a point of saving all plant tags to reference, and I seem to have them all...except the ones I really need. At this point, I'm doing my best to contain this sucker. (To my credit, I did transplant this this spring, ammend with bone meal and fertilizer, and mulch well. Beyond that, I think the conditions--i.e. where it is on the deck--are ideal, kind of by accident. The thing is, I'm going to move it...)

Lean & Green!

Actually Current Photos!





Just took these, after a hard rain--lots of hard rain going on right now...

Peonies, etc.





So this is a little late, but whatever. Some shots of the peonies as they were opening. Delightful. Also, another impromptu arrangement for my office featuring some poppies. Lovely flowers, those.


A musing, albeit not a very original one: The thing about gardens and plants is that they do amazing, wonderful things. But so often, they are not the things we try to make them do, lovingly coax them to do, etc. Good stuff is happening in the garden now (pics, as always, to come...) but as usual, the garden has a mind of its own. The planter that was artfully arranged and labored over becomes totally jammed and chaotic; the plant that was supposed to climb and cover something (a trellis, a fence, an obelisk) poops out and is (literally) not up to the challenge; the easy-to-grow seeds are suprisingly not all that easy to grow. (Nevermind the cilantro that insists on flowering EVERY YEAR at the expense of tasty leaves.) It is maddening. Meanwhile, the "body bag" climbing rose, bought at Home Depot on a whim last year, after a bout with aphids, is large and in charge; the orphaned mail-order plants stuffed in a container in a hodge podge are thriving, and the hastily transplanted Bee Balm are just fine. (You know what I don't need? More Bee Balm.)Screed on sweet peas to follow...