August Bonanza

The garden has been having a bonanza of a summer. It has been a season of excessive rain followed by extraordinary heat and sun, and the garden went wild for a time, growing abundantly and spreading in all directions. I, meanwhile, have been having a difficult and stressful summer. My mother was in the hospital during June, eventually entering hospice and passing away on June 26th. Her funeral was held the first week of July, followed by working through the estate distributions, including holding a big garage sale and selling some things online. Plus work continued on, plus soccer and gymnastics, plus everything else of life.

Because of the pressing needs, then, to be elsewhere this summer, I have not been able to spend a lot of time in the garden. That hasn't deterred its wild abundance, and for a while it had a crazy wild-jungle-foliage vibe going on. Fortunately - well, fortunately in the end, though at the time I did not appreciate it - hubby turned 50 this summer. I threw him a big birthday bash - "50 friends for 50 years" he called it, though it was probably closer to 70 friends than to 50.

Anyway, in preparation for the bash I did the equivalent of cramming for a final, only in this case it was a gardening final. Starting about three weeks before the party I took every spare moment and began weeding, tying up, trimming, shaping, and mulching. That may sound like it could be excessive but you have to understand that the number of spare moments I had was only a couple hours each week, and of course it was always the hottest, stillest, muggiest hours of the week. I yanked a thousand thistles, and dumped about 75 bags of mulch. I pruned enough greenery to fill our 90 gallon yard waste container so full that I had to smash it down over and over to get it all to fit.

And it was ready. On the day of the party the yard looked awesome. Sunflowers blooming, tomatoes and peppers on the vine, VIPs in stellar shape. Fountain bubbling sweetly. Ahh, it was sweet. There were things that didn't get done - those mostly dead lilacs, for example, are still just mostly dead and not yet totally dead and dug out - but still it was good. The party was great, good food, good friends, a storm that briefly blew through and brought Heaven's blessing of cooler weather at last. Kids in the jumper, babies on the arm, keg out back, plenty of laughter, and Fifty Years of Jeff in the living room (photos from birth on up, and some hysterically amusing).

And on the next day I was able to relax. Sweet.

So now I'm back to writing, which I love, although I'm bummed that I missed a couple months. Next summer maybe will be saner.

So my first update, now that you've been caught up on the events of the last few weeks, is to revisit my VIPs and the front of the house. The new petunia type - the Rays - are performing well and I would be happy to do them again. The automatic watering is not enough to keep them moist, but that's okay because I like to feed them heavily to keep them big and beautiful, and I do that via watering can anyway. The hanging baskets look good with their usual red, white and blue color scheme, but the window boxes could use something. I did white petunias and African daisies this year, and while they're all healthy the petunias have far outgrown the daisies, and you can barely see the purple daisies in there for all the white petunias. I never really have found my mojo on the window boxes and keep changing them up each year. It's hard to be too wild with them because a) they need to coordinate with the hanging baskets above, b) the feeding and watering needs to benefit all resident flowers, and c) try to avoid yellow because the house is yellow. Next year maybe I'll just do all white petunias. Then again, maybe not. :)

Out front there are purple petunias with light centers in the raised bed, and that looks stellar. I will be happy to do that again next year. There are a few coleus in there too, but they aren't doing so well, and not worthy of repeating.

Along the front sidewalk is the usual parade of dusty miller and alyssum, and that looks great as always. They are joined this year by a bright orange marigold volunteer, and it looks kind of neat having that bright punch of bold color. I love love love this alyssum, it returns year after year and is a little bit bushy and has a sweet scent. I forget if this is Snow Crystals or Carpet of Snow. I bought some alyssum from the nursery this year and it's very small and tidy, but I like the big blowsy stuff better. I need to capture the seed and grow my own next year to have it in more spaces in the garden. Interestingly, I just went looking on the web to see if I can identify the right name of my alyssum, and some of the websites mention that it is good in window boxes. Hmmmm... hmmmmm. Gathering ideas for next year. :)

Coleus on either side of the front door are doing well. I tried a few new varieties this year, and they aren't doing as well as in years past. That is probably more related to the fact that I have been lazy about feeding them, rather than due to the new varieties.

One other update from the front of the house is about the curly willow branches. If you remember, these sprouted unexpectedly this spring after being used for winter decoration all last season. They have grown quite a bit and are now tall and green. Kind of a fun thing actually, and it even looks good having those green branchy things with the flowers at the base. I'd like to repeat this again but I'm not sure if it will be possible. What are the chances that this would repeat?

All things considered, the front is looking pretty good. There are things I want to change of course, namely the lamium-gone-wild that exists in the raised bed, but I already have a plan to snag a hosta or two from Ian's crowded garden. Despite the neglect, despite the heat, despite the humongous storms that have plowed through our area time after time this year, the front is cheerful and vibrant and welcoming. What more could a gardener ask?