Christmas Notebook

Man, I feel awful. Head/chest cold. Coughing, sneezing, throat hurts so much I have to whisper. I’m in the recliner for the second day in a row. To my left are the necessities…kleenex, decongestant, glass of iced tea because I have to have it and a glass of room temp water for a drink when the cold stuff makes me cough, bag of cough drops, sleeve of crackers, wastebasket, miscellaneous remotes for the tv, a fan, and my cell phone. And my laptop which should just be surgically attached somehow. I’d have DD take a picture for you, but you might not come back if I posted that!

So, instead of pictures of me being sick, I’ll post the rest of the garden pictures I took Tuesday. These are from the front yard. I hope you enjoy the tour. You’ll be the only one touring the yard today. I, for one, can’t make it.

In the front yard, on the west side of the driveway is a flower bed, edged in granite rocks. We have a friend who used to work on the docks at the Mississippi River where these granite rocks are used as ballast on barges. They had piles of them there and he brought us some one time. Wish I had more!

Lovely, right? Well, lest you think our yard is “too perfect,” on the other side of that hedge in the background is a parking lot. I like the way the camera can edit photos before they are even taken, but it can leave out a lot of info, too, can’t it? 🙂 A bit more on top that picture and you’d have wires, a bit to the left and you’d see the parked cars. But the photo is better without all the ugly truth. Right?

Part of that hedge behind the flower bed has red stem dogwood in it. It flowers beautifully, as you can see below, and the berries are very attractive to the birds, but ours has never been as red-stemmed as we see elsewhere. We may need to cut it way back…the newer growth has better color.

This is the backside of the granite lined flower bed. The daylilies are ‘Bitsy’ and ‘Stella d’Oro.’

This veronica is a lovely shade of blue. I should have DH dig and divide it…can you do that to veronica? Love the color.

[OK, I paused and googled < propagate veronica > and read that you can take cuttings in the summer or divide the plant in the fall. Just in case you were wondering… And, if I try taking cuttings, I’ll let you know how it goes.]

This picture shows the back of the granite lined bed again, along with Zak, my personal kitty. To the right is another flower bed and to the right of that is the parking lot. No hedge between us in this part. We like the fact that the people visiting next door can get a look at the yard as they swing by. Privacy isn’t an issue right here. Though we ought to drive through ourselves now and then and get a gander at what they are really seeing…we might want to change some things, clean up some things, fix a few things…

Oh, and the above picture also shares the fact that it had been a week since I mowed the lawn. Just look at all that clover. The honeybees love us. I did mow the east side of the front yard Tuesday. But my cold was coming on and it hit me hard Tuesday afternoon. The lawn will have to wait. Maybe by Saturday, I’ll feel able to mow.

Here’s Oreo, enjoying the hosta bed. He’s a sweet cat who came along and adopted us a few years ago. “Oreo”…how do the kids come up with these great names?

By the front porch, the hydrangeas are budding out. We brought the two hydrangeas on the west side of the front porch from our previous home. They have smaller blossoms than the other hydrangeas in the yard and the blossoms waver between pink and blue, giving them a lovely pinky lavender color when they are in full bloom. Those hydrangeas are probably five feet tall now.

And the heliopsis is blooming.

‘Mini Stella’ is out, too. This is an after-the-rain-at-the-end-of-the-day shot, but isn’t she cute? Just over an inch across, the blossoms are a clear yellow. Very pretty.

The first “ditch lily” (Hemerocallis fulva) bloomed Tuesday, also. This picture is from the back yard, though. not the front yard. If you knew our yard, you might be able to decipher the playground and the garage in the background. Gardeners are often warned against this plant, because some find it aggressive. I think there’s a place for everything, IF you have the room. And we actually do not find this plant to be an aggressive bully in our garden. Give it the right place, somewhere you need fill perhaps, or a place you can’t plant something else…it works. It’s hardy and the blooms are lovely.

Back to the front yard… Johnny Jump-Ups jumped up near the 2004 daylily bed. Where’d those come from??

Coreopsis ‘Moonbeam.’ Love it. Compact, colorful, takes care of itself. And in the background is the evening primrose. Now that’s an aggressive plant! Those blooms are in the path and have to be exterminated after they bloom. Next year, they’ll be back. But aren’t they pretty?! When they are done blooming, DH will mow them off for some control, and then spray them with roundup [which happens to be my personal favorite garden tool]. But like I said, next year they will creep back from the fence row and fill the path again. Don’t plant this stuff in your flower beds. Give it solitary confinement somewhere. It’s beautiful and worth having IF you have space to keep it to itself.

Here’s DD heading back to the house after bringing a drink of ice water to our favorite weeder, Eliot. Eliot gives us five hours of weed pulling a week. He’s hard working, honest, pleasant, polite. His parents deserve a lot of credit for raising three such young men. And we couldn’t keep the gardens as nice as they are without him. Thanks, Eliot! BTW, he doesn’t really “give” us the weed pulling, we pay him for it. But he’s worth every penny! And no, you can’t have him. I need him. I know he’s going to wander off to a full time job someday and then I’ll be really, really sad.

DD didn’t know I took this picture. She gives permission only if I promise not to post her to the blog. Sheesh. Hope she doesn’t mind this shot. DH gave me a lovely telephoto lens for my birthday a few weeks ago and now I may be able to get a few more pics of DD on the sly. LOL

Anyhoo, let’s follow her back and I’ll show you two more things from the back yard. Then I’m taking a nap. Touring is exhausting.

Some people (maybe they’re plant snobs) try to tell others not to use spirea. “Overdone” is their word. But I love spireas and who wouldn’t love this beautiful shrub, ‘Neon Flash.’ We may have planted it in too shady a spot at the northwest corner of the garage. We’ll have to wait and see. But the color is beautiful!

And yesterday, DH went out after work to walk the yard alone (boohoo!) and came back with this beautiful shot of the Japanese iris ‘Imperial Magic.’

We should get more Japanese iris. They bloom after the bearded iris and extend the iris season quite a bit. Something else to add to that lengthy list of “ought to do” in the garden notebook. Hope you enjoyed the tour. This may have been my chattiest post ever. Is that because I’m too sick to do anything else?? Maybe it’s because I have to whisper to talk so need an outlet. Not sure… 🙂

~~Rhonda