But I get ahead of myself. Again this year, we went to the Friends School Plant Sale. I've written about it so many times I won't bore you with details. Suffice it to say I've never been to one so wet. The floor in the Grandstand was so slick I was terrified I'd slip and fall. Water was running in rivers through the parking lot when we arrived, although that was fortunately at the end of the storm. It was so bad I think they let folks in early so they didn't have to stand in the deluge! And it was the most expensive one for us, too. I'm doing more pots this year, so getting more plants. Lastly, more crop failures than I've ever seen. Instead of 1 or 2, there were at least half a dozen, and sadly for me, they tended to be the flowers I wanted most and didn't have good subs for.
Anyway, did the sale. Got up early the next morning and finished planting the hay bale garden. Why the rush? Because we had to leave for the airport at 2 pm and I wanted the stuff in so it could take advantage of the warmth of the bales and get going. Did it ever! That'll happen when the hay is 92 degrees (I'm guessing the ground was more like 65, so the extra heat certainly gives plants a jump start on the season). And so did everything else - we came home to a veritable jungle. Just look at the tomato plant! It already has flowers on it. The big rhubarb is also at least another foot across, probably more. (I started this entry May 28. It's now June 13, and the tomato is out the top of the cage and setting fruit already! I also have peppers setting, a head of broccoli nearly ready, and herbs close to past their prime.) A hint if you're trying organic gardening: Don't add fertilizer and then try to work nearby. The one I used smells like dead fish. Not my favorite aroma... I have to check and see if it really contains some kind of fish emulsion!
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| May 8 |
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| May 25 |
The garden took off all over - no surprise there. These aren't precisely from the same vantage point (I think I couldn't get there anymore!), but you can certainly see more explosions of growth here, too. May 8 is on the top and the 25th on the bottom. 
And of course growth of plants you want also means growth of plants you don't want. These rhubarb seedheads are at least 6 feet long. I've never had them that long before - we tend to get to them well before this stage. We had at least a dozen. June 13 update: I've picked at least 12 cups off the biggest plant, plus removed some nasty stalks, and the thing is still huge. The largest leaf I saw was close to three feet across! This is now the second year I've gotten rotting leaves and soft, sometimes slimy, stalks on this plant. I don't know if it's all the rain so far this year, or something particular to this plant. But it's gross.
Allium is one of my favorite flowers - they look like fireworks! I planted more this year, but so far haven't seen flowers. Maybe they take a year? Or maybe the blasted rabbits eating (I think, anyway) the very top tip of the plant took off the flower bud? (Update: looks like they'll bloom soon.) In any case, these flowers retain interest even after the bloom is gone, with a fun seedhead. 
And my Prairie Smoke finally smoked! We'll see how long it lasts, but it's more smoke than I've had in all the previous years combined.
My two baskets from Gertens! I love getting a custom basket already full grown.
And the bridal wreath - for years we couldn't get it to droop over the way we saw so many others. But then it started drooping a couple of years ago. No idea why or what we might have done differently. Quite the show this year. Our lilacs were gorgeous, too, although we barely saw them in bloom before leaving. Oh, well, we saw more whilst traveling!June 13: One thing doing extremely well? The fourlined plant bug. I can't say the blasted thing has decimated my daisy, as that would mean it only heavily damaged 10% of it. It's more like 75%. And it happened fast. I cut off much of the damage and applied a pesticide that I'm not sure will work on the adult form of the pest. I'm sure there are better pesticides out there in terms of their effectiveness in killing bugs, but perhaps not that are neonicotinoid free. The bugs shouldn't last much longer before they fly away. I don't think the daisy will die, but I do wonder if it will bloom, or if I cut too much off. Sure hope it blooms, as daisies rank amongst my favorite flowers. The bug has chewed on my cranesbill, too, or something has.
I'm not entirely sure, but it seems leaving my seedlings in their pots for an extra two weeks did them a lot of good! I'm sure proper watering and reasonable weather helped, but perhaps they got warmer in the pots than they would have in the soil? At any rate, we both feel the annuals are ahead of their usual pace. Absolutely not complaining!
I did plant a few more natives - again. I'm having a lot of trouble getting things to grow under the trees. Yes, I could do hostas (and have a few). But the point in this particular garden is to do natives. There aren't many that like shade that don't fade away to nothing in summer, and then I might as well plant nothing. A native fern called the Christmas Fern that's supposed to not spread all over (a real problem with ferns, IMHO) had a crop failure, so couldn't do that. I'll try again next year. I did get Starry Solomon's Seal, Pennsylvania Sedge, and May Apple that say they do well in the conditions I have, plus I replaced my Cardinal Flower (didn't know it's a short-lived native, but I like it too well to give up on it), and added two kinds of Coneflowers. Just can't have a native garden without them. I chopped my asters way back (they're about triple the size they were billed as reaching) and added the Coneflowers there. The asters bloom too late in the year and for too short a time to take as much of a prime spot as they have, which is part of the reason for that choice. The other? Coneflowers need a reasonable amount of sun, and that's where they can get it!
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