Christmas Notebook

i don’t think this is summertime…

July 17, 2009 – 11:44 pm

The weather this weekend is gorgeous. Not regular July weather at all. I think the high today was all of 76*. What’s with that?? We would expect it to be much warmer. But I’m not complaining! It was a beautiful day and Saturday is supposed to have a high of around 70*. Wow. As we drove through the country today, I took this picture of the fluffy clouds.

Though the daylily season is on the downhill side, the yard is still full of lovely blossoms.

‘Dragon King’

‘Modern Love’

‘Cherry Cheeks’

‘Swelling Anthem’
I love the subtle blending of colors on this bloom. I’d like to collect more of Brother Charles Reckamp‘s daylilies. ‘Little Rainbow’ and ‘Techny Breeze’ are two of my favorites in our garden.

Tiny blue butterfly.

Someone nearby must have bee hives. We see quite a few honeybees in our yard.

I don’t know which hosta this is, but it’s looking very good this year.

This is the most sun ‘Daybreak’ gets all day, yet it maintains its beautiful pale yellow green color and brightens this dark corner.

We’ve neglected our hostas this year and they seem to be thriving on the neglect. Or they are bouncing back from the hard freeze they
experienced two years ago. Anyway, they’re looking good!

‘Paradigm’

Before you go, click on over to Tootsie’s place and visit other gardens to see what’s blooming there.

Now get out there and enjoy the weekend!! ~~Rhonda 🙂

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in garden 2009, our garden | Tagged daylilies, garden, hosta | Comments (3)

wednesday is garden day

July 15, 2009 – 11:11 pm

More than most other days of the week, Wednesdays tend to concentrate on the garden. DH is off work (other than spending much of the morning doing paperwork) and we often host plant sales on Wednesday afternoons, as DH is here to dig for our customers.

It’s cloudy today and only 75*, though humid. Sprinkled this morning, so everything is wet. Here’s a picture of just outside the back door. Most of this is shaded by a very large old oak tree, so we have a lot of hostas here.

DH was home earlier than usual today, so he went out and worked in the garden pulling weeds. Our garden helper Eliot was working in the fenced garden which had become overgrown, so DH worked there, too. He dug lemon balm from the garden, inside and out. That pile in the lower left of the picture is all lemon balm.

And he pulled some miscellaneous weeds and small trees from this nearby garden under a redbud tree.

We hire Eliot to pull weeds in the garden five hours a week. We couldn’t keep up with the chore without his cheerful help!

The fenced garden looks great now. And you can walk through it without forcing the weeds aside. 🙂 We love this Rubbermaid wheelbarrow. What a work horse! We’ve used it for years and it just keeps going. A plus is that it carries water without leaking. All kinds of useful applications from hauling water to holding plants until they can be placed in the ground.

We went to the front fence to write plant sale times on the sign and I took this picture, looking back toward the house. I still need to do something about those upstairs window treatments. They look so stark. Didn’t show from the road until we took out two big pines last year, so I never noticed what those windows looked like from the yard before then.

The recent rain has done a number on the Russian sage.

This is one of our “unknown” daylilies. If you know the name, give me a shout!

Some of the hostas are still blooming.

Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’ is one of my favorite grasses in the yard. It’s beautiful every season of the year.

We had a plant sale this afternoon. All the monies we raise from plant sales goes into the mission fund at church.

Between customers, DH weeded around the redbud tree. We put two wagon loads of wood chips on the bed after DH finished pulling the weeds. He also dug out the irises and the daylilies that were growing here. They need to be moved to sunnier locations.

The tiger lilies always bloom in July and they are so pretty right now.

If you enjoy being outside, you may like to see what others did outside today. Take a look at Outdoor Wednesday.

And to enjoy perusing what is blooming in others’ gardens, visit July 2009 Bloom Day. Lots to see there!

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in garden 2009, our garden | Tagged bloom day, garden, outdoor wednesday | Comments (20)

unusual weather for july

July 14, 2009 – 10:29 pm

We’re enjoying this unusually cool weather. July tends to be hot and humid. Today, I think we had a high of 79* and the sun peeked out just once at the end of the day.

Most of the day, though, was cloudy in the garden.

After all the rain we’ve had, the weeds are tall but very easy to pull. We get tons of redbud volunteers and the rain made pulling them easy, too, as DH shows.

Even though the daylily season is waning, there is still a lot of color in the garden. The purple cone flowers certainly help with that.

The daylily ‘Flasher’ is at its peak right now. You can see this one all the way across the yard! Great color!

Need a place to rest or somewhere to enjoy the view? There’s a bench waiting for you under the dogwood tree.

Aren’t these colors yummy?

Sometimes, daylilies will have four petals and four sepals rather than the usual three each. Blossoms like this are called polytepal. ‘Cosmic Pinwheel’ had two polytepal blossoms. A third blossom had one extra sepal.

In the fenced garden, another bench waits for you. This bench is usually a sunny place to sit, but not today.

The daylily ‘Frans Hals’ is at its peak right now, too. How pretty is that?

The phlox makes a great splash of purple in the background. If you have the space, plant in drifts of color. So pretty!

At the back of the garden, a bed of daylilies separates two entrances into the woods. Which way do you want to go?

Coming out of the woods, you can rest under the mulberry tree…just push that elderberry out of the way. It’s beginning to overshadow the bench. Time to get out the pruners.

In the back yard, near the daylily propagation bed, the pure white of the Southern Magnolia blossom looks so beautiful against the dark glossy green leaves. And the scent as you walk by? Wonderful!

The redbud tree by the wood chip pile was a volunteer. It sits at the end of the parking area and, at one time, was backed over by the car. But it bounced back. 🙂 I decided to leave it there as a guide to keep the wood chips from being dumped too close to the fenced garden

Coming back from the garden, I’m confronted by the kitties. “Where’s supper??” they want to know. Left to right: Happy, Zak and Zilli. Oreo is nearby. He’s waiting, too.

I hope you enjoyed the garden this evening. If you would like to see other gardens, click on over to Jean’s place for Bloomin’ Tuesday. Enjoy!

~~Rhonda 🙂

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in garden 2009, our garden | Tagged garden, summer | Comments (4)

lots of rain for the garden

July 13, 2009 – 6:41 pm

We had a lot of rain both Saturday and Sunday. Three inches on Saturday, and probably at least two more inches between Saturday pm and Sunday afternoon. In the early evening, we went outside to catch a few shots via the light of the setting sun.

Another lake in the center of the driveway.

And lots of puddles.

The fragrance from the garden phlox is heavenly.

The ribbon grass adds great texture to the garden. This is so pretty in the fading evening light.

Everything in the garden glistens with rain drops.

The color of the purple cone flowers ties the garden beds together as the daylily color begins to decline. Purple cone flowers reseed themselves with great abandon and have spread across the garden. Not a bad thing, if you have room for them. Otherwise, just pull them out and pass them on to someone else. They are native to the prairie and are great plants that require little care and no watering.

We are asked about this a lot, so I’ll tell you (in case you’ve wondered) that we do not water our garden. We do water plants when first planted, but other than that, they have to fend for themselves. If they can’t survive without watering, they won’t be in our garden. Of course, that’s not an issue this year with all the rain we’ve had! We do put down a lot of mulch and that helps tremendously. The soil condition improves with the mulching and that helps hold moisture. We use wood chips as mulch. A friend has a tree trimming business and he keeps us well supplied. Thanks, Paul!!

I can hear the barn swallows chattering like crazy on the front porch. Sounds like the babies are fledging!

I’ve worked on this post off and on all day. Now it’s after 6:00 and DH is on his way home from work. We’ll have a quick supper, then check on the barn swallows and take another walk around the yard. 🙂

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in garden 2009, our garden, summer | Tagged garden, rain, summer | Comments (1)

menu plan monday ~ july 13, 2009

July 13, 2009 – 1:46 pm

We said goodbye to DH and his family very early Saturday morning. I’m going to miss them all, but especially these little faces.

::sigh::

But back to the subject at hand…the week’s menu.

Monday
Roast beef (leftovers from Sunday dinner)
homemade rolls
veggies / dip

Tuesday
tortellini
homemade rolls
green beans
cauliflower / broccoli / carrots
green salad

Wednesday
fridge food

Thursday
spaghetti
focaccia
corn
peas
tomatoes / cucumber

Friday
eat out

Saturday
fridge food

Sunday
chicken / rice
corn
asparagus
green salad

Not planning much for Monday, in the way of supper (leftovers) OR activities. Sometimes it’s nice to take time to smell the roses. Or any other available blossoms.

You can find a lot of recipes and menu ideas for planning your own week’s menu at Menu Plan Monday.

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in menu | Tagged menu, menu plan monday | Comments (0)

rain, rain, go away…

July 12, 2009 – 4:43 pm

It continues to rain. Yesterday we had 3″. It rained again last night and poured this afternoon as we had dinner. The thunder is rumbling as I type.

I took this picture from the front porch yesterday afternoon. The ground was too wet for traipsing through the garden.

The tiger lilies are from DH’s family farm, which is about ten miles north of where we live. We’ve brought a lot of plants from there to our own garden. Tiger lilies, several varieties of daffodils, shrubs, old roses, Bouncing Bet, peonies, irises…

The goldfinches are beginning to check out the purple cone flowers. The seeds are a favorite food for them. From now through autumn, as we turn into our driveway, we will see swarms of these beautiful little yellow and black birds fly up from the cone flowers.

Yesterday, we enjoyed a break in the rain during the early afternoon. DH collected the mail, checked a few daylilies, and then went on a 27 mile bike ride. Next weekend, he will take his bicycle across Indiana, 160 miles, in one long day.

The rain has certainly given the gardens a lush full look! So lush that it hides the garden bench in front of the phlox in the fenced garden. At least from this view point. 🙂

The garden phlox was a gift from a local gardening friend, who found it too invasive for his garden. We have so much room in our yard that plants that spread are quite welcome. There is always a good place for them.

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in garden 2009, our garden | Tagged garden, garden 2009, rain | Comments (3)

babies in the garden

July 11, 2009 – 1:52 pm

Next time the twins visit the garden, they will no longer be babies, so indulge me, please. They are still sort of babies… 🙂

“Grandma said we could pick all the flowers we wanted.”

Grandma’s future gardeners…

They are headed back home today. Fourteen hours in the car (give or take, depending on the quality of cooperation from the above gardeners). We are basically slouching today. Got up at 4:30 to say goodbye, so we’re movin’ kind of slow. Company coming for dinner tomorrow after church, so I do need to bake a pie and make some homemade vanilla ice cream today. Not doing much else, though!

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in family, garden 2009, our garden, twins | Tagged family, garden, twins | Comments (3)

don’t say autumn

July 10, 2009 – 2:45 pm

We’ve had lots of rain this garden season. The yard is overflowing with plant life. Good and bad. The weeds are certainly enjoying all the wet and warm days as much as the flowers are. The fenced garden looks stuffed. Lots of green there!

Outside the fence, on the northwest corner, ‘Second Hand Rose’ (daylily) is still blooming strongly. It seems *all* the daylilies have extraordinary color this year. The subtle tones and patterns are more prominent, the colors more vivid, the shadings more lovely than other years. I wonder if other daylily gardeners found the same to be true in their own gardens.

Don’t the daisies look like they are peeking over the fence? I guess they want to check out the lovely phlox.

The color of this blue spruce against the many shades of green makes me happy every time I see it. The tree sits north of the fenced garden. When we bought the house, there were three spruces planted in the front yard, near the porch. They were just a few feet high. We decided to move them. One died, but the other two thrived. This one has the prettier blue color. It used to stand alone, but the garden has grown up around it.

Moving north from the spruce, we enter the east side of the front yard. The black eyed susans are beginning to brighten the beds with vivid splashes of summer gold.

On the west side of the front yard, there is a much smaller space between the drive and the edge of the yard than on the east side. But we manage to pack a lot in. 🙂 The hosta in this picture lost it’s sheltering redbud tree last year, so it’s showing signs of a bit too much sun. Seems to be doing fine other than that. All the rain we’ve had this year has helped, I’m sure.

I like the way the ribbon grass adds a light spot in the flower bed. Especially at this late afternoon hour of the day.

This patch of phlox is just beginning to open. Last year, it didn’t bloom well. There was something wrong with the patch…not sure what. I almost had DH dig it out but this year it seems fine, so I’m glad we didn’t get rid of it!

It makes me sad to know we are on the decline side of things in the garden. Even if it doesn’t show a lot just yet. When I mow, I see the first few leaves fallen from the trees. Just that tiny hint that autumn is coming, whether we’re ready or not. Sure, we have two months of summer left, but those months will fly by. Sad, sad, sad.

All over the yard, the volunteer honesty (money plant) has gone to seed and is ready to pick for dried arrangements and bouquets. What we pull to discard, we will scatter in the woods at the back end of the garden or sprinkle along the west fence for more volunteers. They make such large and lovely swathes of purple in the spring. You can see the honesty in the foreground of this picture.

But let’s put autumn on the back burner and ignore those signs for now. We’ll enjoy every moment of delicious summer as long as we can. Perhaps in two more months we will be ready for a refreshing change, for cooler crisper air, for falling leaves, and asters and mums. But for now, it’s still summer.

And if you would like to enjoy other lovely summer gardens, head over to Tootsie’s place and follow the links.

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in garden 2009, our garden | Tagged flowers, garden | Comments (15)

congratulations, lucinda and dave!

July 9, 2009 – 8:52 pm

My niece was married last weekend. Our love and congratulations to you, Dave and Lucinda! May God bless you with many years of happiness, serving Him through your marriage and family.

dave and lucinda