The Battle Joined

They first arrived Saturday.Gently at first, gaining strength as the day wore on. They paused on Sunday, as if to catch their breath. Then, successive waves Monday, Tuesday and today. Cold fronts! Born in the shortening, cooling days far to the north, they trek across Canada, gathering moisture over the lakes and deposit it here in NE Ohio: Misty fog, drizzle and showers in equal measure

The battle is joined. It will be fought here over the next month or so. Cold winds from the north versus warm breezes out of the south. The outcome is inevitable. The warmth will retreat to rest and rejuvenate in the South like snowbird on a Florida beach. The victory will be temporary. The warm air will return next year, but for now the battle.

The earth, parched by a few weeks of dry weather soaks up the rains. The trees, shrubs and especially the evergreens soak up the moisture to help fend off the drying winds of the coming winter.

The ground, dry and hard a few days ago is spongy moist underfoot. Squirrels plant their nuts and moles, voles and groundhogs dig their winter tunnels in the soft earth.

Salad Bar

For the past few years, impatiens formed a ring around the Cherry tree. With its demise this spring, I combined the bed that once surrounded it with the one around a young pin oak. The backside of this bed became a 20 foot curved home to the impatiens. Viewed from the kitchen window in the morning light , backed by Hydrangeas they are quite a sight. These are my wife Leigh’s favorites and I use them frequently in pots and as a fill in in new beds. A truly easy annual.

Thought they sometimes get a little ratty in the fall they normally last well into the fall,right up to the first frosts. Not this year. Over a period of three nights they have been given a severe haircut by what I assume are deer. The flowers are gone but the stalks remain,upright and unbent.

Having gardened in the “big city” prior to moving here, deer damage in the garden is something new that I have had to deal with in this yard. The impatiens gave a good three months of bloom and though I have plenty other late season color from asters,sedum,solidago etc., another few weeks of the impatiens would have been nice.

It really would not bother me that much if there wasn’t a three acre field/community garden directly behind my yard. I would think that the pickings would be much better there. Better still why can’t they just eat weeds?

I’m Back-but only temporarily

Having been on the road for seven or eight of the last few weeks, the summer has seemed to fly by. Most people have been complaining about the cooler and wetter conditions that this summer brought, but I am partial to that type of weather. This weekend ,Labor Day, will bring the usual end of summer remarks and complaints, though I have always felt that around here the best of the summer weather comes the first three weeks of September.

The garden has survived my absences, even thrived in many areas, but whether that is due to the milder weather or my absence I will leave to others to decide.

Sitting on the deck in the cool evenings gives one time to assess the successes and failures of the yard. Early plans for next year already being mulled about, though nothing concrete just yet. The gradual extension of the beds will continue this fall. Areas dug this spring are already beginning to be populated
by late season bargain plants and shrubs. The space left empty by the removal of the Cherry tree is now home to a variegated hydrangea, a butterfly bush,some perennial hyssop,a phlox that had languished in the dry shade of a maple and is edged with day-lilies from other ares of the yard as well as some newer varieties from the clearance racks.
The bed in the center of the yard has a group of three Rose of Sharon,self-sowers from another bed, some asters and bits and pieces of other things from around the yard. These are most certainly are not the final configuration of these beds. I am a habitual mover of plants and shrubs. Trying different things out then changing them around, sometimes from year to year. This is a gardening practice that I learned from my true gardening mentor, my mother. She rearranges plants in the yard as one would shift furniture in a living room.

I have tried in the past to lay out beds on paper as I see done in gardening magazines and books, but that approach has never really worked for me. The basic concept for the bed; shapes, forms heights, color and the like may be penciled in, but the actual plant lay out for me tends to be more off-the cuff in style. And in the end most beds do not truly end up as I originally envisioned them. However I still enjoy reading the magazines and laying out beds on paper since in this climate there is little else to do in the winter from a gardening standpoint.

After this week or two of gardening catch-up it is off to Saratoga NY for the weekend to watch a little horse racing, then down to Newport RI to tour a few of the “gilded age” mansions on the Conn. coast. And when I get back summer will still have a few more weeks to go.

A Waiting Game

Few things happen fast in the garden. Procrastination can be a virtue. Gardeners learn this lesson sooner or later. Gardens develop in weeks,months and years. No micro or nano prefixes here.

A few years ago, I purchased a clematis serratifolia off of a clearance rack marked “distressed plants”. It was. Thin yellow stems with dried brown leaves filled the three inch pot, but from the center of the dead material poked a few bright stems of new growth. I bought it, popped it in the ground, and forgot it. The next spring it sprouted and grew a bit. A one foot high metal hoop trellis supported it. Optimistically, I erected a six foot wood trellis above it and I waited.

It survived and grew a bit fuller, adding maybe a foot in height over the next two years never blooming, stagnant it seemed to be. Often, I wondered what I could plant in its place and I waited.

This year it exploded, out growing the trellis by mid July. It bloomed last week:small,yellow flowers. At least a hundred more buds wait their turns.

Possibly the spurt of growth was due to little more light this year. The now gone cherry tree had shaded it a bit in the mornings and the shed blocked the evening sun. Possibly not. Possibly my gardening abilities? Certainly, that must be it! Fifty cents and three years of benign neglect makes many a gardeners reputation.

A waiting lesson learned.

Lincoln Street’s MOST WANTED

CAPTURED

Big Daddy,the last (I hope) member of the GROUNDHOG GANG was captured today.