Hot Hot Hot!

As cold as it has been this spring, suddenly, overnight, it is hot. Today was in the 90's and humidity was high. I spent most of the day in an air-conditioned office building of course, but was gloriously free to spend some time outdoors after dinner tonight.

First order of the evening was to water the VIPs. The hanging baskets are up of course, as are the window boxes. They are settling in nicely. Jeff fixed up the automatic watering tonight - unfortunately it was cut somehow - and they should all start getting watered twice a day. Last year we tried this but the emitters were too slow and hardly any water trickled out. This year sees new emitters and hopefully better automated watering.

The flower pot out front with the living curly willow is looking very nice planted with red salvia. The green of the willow is getting bigger all the time, and I wonder what it will look like by fall. I wonder what would happen if I planted it in the ground come autumn? That might be a fun experiment to try this winter.

I did some weeding of course. Thistles, nettles, and grass, oh my. The pleasant part of weeding tonight was that I was doing it near this big Miss Kim lilac bush. The scent kept drifting over to me as I crouched next to an enthusiastic William Baffin rosebush, carefully yanking nettle and prying up thistles and doing my best to avoid getting poked by William. I planted this bush years ago right beneath our dining room window - you can see the window - with the sole purpose of having that lovely scent drift into the house through that open window. Years later, it actually works as planned. How sweet it is.

Another chore I accomplished tonight is the tying up of peonies in the front yard. "What?" you exclaim in horror, "Tying up peonies? Everyone knows you use peony cages and stick them over the plant early in spring!" No, no, little grasshoppers. Let me show you a better way.

All you need are the tools pictured here: garden twine and a sharp scissors. Dull scissors will do in a pinch, and so will any kind of string for that matter, but garden twine and sharp scissors are best.

Pull a length of string out of the can. This depends on the size of the peony, so eyeball the diameter of the bush and cut it off at that length. This isn't spaceship trajectory calculation, don't worry about being super accurate. Then take the twine and pull it around the peony, keeping toward the upper third of the plant. Hold onto both ends and then tie them together for the amount of tied-togetherness that appeals to you. This simple technique will hold the bush up for the entire season, is completely hidden by the leaves, and easily cleans up in the fall with no peony cages to store over winter. Nothing could be simpler. I've done this for years and it always works. Try it, you'll never do cages again.

I took a few snapshots tonight of some things that are looking good in the garden. This peony is always the first to open in my yard, it sits on the west side of the house and always blooms about a week before the others.

The alium is one of three that are up this year. I planted maybe 6 a few years ago, and it seems they are slowly dwindling. I really like these plants, and may have to order more of them this year. I've never had the actual Globemaster, but this may be the year to get one.

My little brunnera is still blooming and looking pretty with its cloud of blue flowers above nice green foliage. It's been blooming for at least 6 weeks and is one of my favorite plants. I saw they had these at Sargeants this spring, and am tempted to get another, but have resisted so far.

The sad stick-tree is a lilac tree. One of those balls-on-a-stick looking things, which hasn't looked very ball like in a number of years because I haven't been a very effective pruner. This spring I went after it with the clippers, and now it's not looking too good. As in, not many leaves, not many blooms. Whole branches are clearly dead. I don't know if it's because I trimmed it up, or if it's because we had such late frosts, but the poor thing is clearly struggling. After bloom time is done I'll trim out the dead parts, leave the growing parts alone, and then hope for the best. I do love my lilacs, I'd hate to lose it.