Getting ready

Kendra and James get married in 16 days.  You can only imagine the bustle around our house.  We're having the rehearsal dinner there, as well as brunch the day after.  I can't say that, other than planting extra annuals (so the gardens fill in faster), we're doing anything we wouldn't be doing anyway, but we're not usually on a timeline with such deadlines!  The weather hasn't helped any, with 7 of the last 8 Saturdays being rainy...  But we've made significant progress.  As of Tuesday night, everything is in the ground.  Besides planting, we've swept, washed, and decluttered the garage (what a yucky job that was), touched up window and door paint, reseeded some areas disturbed by last year's construction where the seeding last fall didn't take, finished the electrical work on the shed, and unclogged gutters (told you much of it was routine work! -  no one is going to see inside our gutters, but with all the rain and maple tree helicopters it had to be done NOW).  And, of course, the regular work of weeding and mowing - we've been busy. And what an odd year for weather!  So little snow, warm so early, then cold again, from drought to flood (over 9" in May)...  92 on Sunday, 62 Tuesday - the poor plants are so confused!  And I vary from cool summer clothing at home to practically winter wear when I'm at work.



Our original garden, all grown up.



Thankfully, things keep on growing.  I've noticed that not only are most things early, their bloom time seems shortened.  My bleeding heart was all but done in 2-3 weeks, and usually it's over a month.  Other lilacs seemed to do well, but ours only lasted a few days and were done in April.  Of course, they were loaded last year and tend to have fewer blooms the year after a big one, but they were SO early this year.  I sure noticed the lilies of the valley more.  They bloomed, I think, pretty much like they always do, but now that we have the patio, we're right next to them when we're out there.  Oh, what a lovely scent!  We thought we'd have to buy more after so many were dug up last year - silly us.  They've nearly filled in everywhere we lost them.  And we're going to have to keep a close eye on them in future years.  We now have garden where we used to have grass.  Joe just mowed them down until they died, but you don't mow a garden!  So we'll have to pull them when they go too far.  I transplanted some behind the shed this year, along with some hostas.  A fern made its way under our neighbor's fence, and I'm sure will spread from there (Joe used to mow those down, too).  In a few years, this will all fill in and not need us to do much but clean it out in spring - yeah!

The native garden is really coming into its own during this third summer.  I've replanted a few things, and transplanted others, but the original plants are starting to reach their mature size.  We planned pathways through the area, but they were hard to see the first couple of years.  They're still hard to see in spring, as a number of the plants completely disappear over the winter and take a while to pop up again.  Butterfly bush is one of these, and it comes up late, so we have a good sized chunk that looked empty that really wasn't.  But when it comes up, it does it in a hurry!

I put in Prairie Smoke not so much for the flowers as for what they do after they're done blooming.  They're supposed to look like little puffs of smoke - hence the name.  But mine just refuse to do this.  They bloom and shrivel up.  I got one that "smoked" this year!  Sure wish the rest did...

Sure like this shot of Shooting Star!



Total side note: Joe and I actually took a day off and went on an art tour.  We had a lovely day and ate lots of good food - brought good stuff home, too.  We toured a courthouse - I have to confess I can't remember the town name.  The guy was great - took us to the jail and showed us the graffiti and all.  The courthouse, over 100 years old, has been remodeled time and time again, sometimes with better taste than others.  They don't have the money to restore it, so, for now, are keeping the remodelings in place to show what was done.  We particularly noticed this floor in one small room - it's just about identical to our original kitchen floor.  It's in better shape than ours was. You can see why we replaced it... more than 20 years ago!