Hello, madgardener here,
Just dropping by the back fence to see who's out here sweltering in
the heat with me. I'm still insane enough to enjoy the dripping down
the crack of me butt and into me eyes. That's yet another reason I
wear the wide brimmed Wally Fart hat! Sady, Sugar chewed the really
nice one that I got one year up in Michigan when she was a puppers and
I've never found the like of it since....so the wider brimmed ones
that the Fart of Wall has upon occasions does me fine. covers me
little ears and shades me eyes and soaks up the excess sweaties.......
So you heard right, I went to the local overpriced nursery and
decided that what I REALLY wanted to grow was the varigated leafed
pelargoniums. The white edged deep green one (yes, I have forgotten
the name as the tag is at home and I'm at the library) that will have
a coral flower, and to compliment it in the same pot for textural and
color contrasts (I do this all the time) the tri-color one that
apparently has a deep red flower. great.....the leaves of tri-color
are incredible and there's that awesome familiar deja' vu smell of
geraniums I associate them with anyway. I potted them up in the wrong
pot when I got home because most of my extra pots are.......yep, at
Karol's 48 miles away......but then located anotherpot that was much
larger and that I was able to fill around both root balls more
comfortably with the Black Kow composted soil that I had left and now
they'll thrive for me on the front porch residing in the iron curtain
plant holder I've positioned on the western side of the porch.
I am resolved to find that rabbit stew receipe.......apparently I
have Bugs slipping into the back yard while we sleep oblivious to
their selected munchings. I have no longer bean plants.....$
%^&*( bastages!!!! every last blessed one of them gnawed to the
stems.........so I replanted more (three in each hole, thank you very
much) and will dust them with cayenne pepper but MY luck I will have
Mexican rabbits...........or Cajun.........lol........but I WILL dust
the emerging plants with ground cayenne, and hope this lights the
little assholes up good. I have another blessing I didn't realize, I
apparently have two trees growing close to each other and one is the
hated hackberry, but the other one is a heavily loaded mulberry tree.
so I will be munching mulberries and maybe making crepes for breakfast
in the next two days before the grackles and other birds spot the
bounty.
the first pepper has dropped off, and I think it's just from being
the first and too early one. No loss, although it was sad to see it
go. There are now FIVE leaves on the rhubarb that James planted once
he got his gift, and there are now more radish plants to shake a stick
at from EVERY seed that germinated when I tossed them around the feet
of the tomato's. And oh oh oh oh oh , I have tomato flowers!! Soon I
will be winding the soft yarn around the stakes to gently support the
vines, and I'm considering just sowing the Sungold seeds I finally
located in teh many overwhelming boxes that are still unpacked here in
the green bowl.........
I have top dressed the daylily that has decide to forgive me my
ignorance of it sitting in a pot just bare rhizomey toes, and it's
started to send me a flower shoot. The Amber Waves heuchera and Lime
Rickey are blooming, and I'm still in love with the many varieties of
sedums and semps that I seem addicted to and plant altogether in one
or two or however many container gardens. Now I need to tuck in
little bulbs, and I see John Sheepers has my new address and just got
the first teasing bulb fall catalog, although I love the complete one
and keep it for the garden book collection as it's the most complete
and beautifully photographed catalog there is on bulbs that I've seen
so far. more than worthy to have for wanting to know what a bulb's
flowers look like. Now I gotta get the McClure and Zimmerman company
to send me THEIRS as their line drawings are awesome but they sell the
more elusive wilder varieties of tulipia and narcissus........(nursery
propigated, not stolen from the wild).
I still need unlimited supplies of soil to suppliment the endeavors
here in the historical rental house, but until I either hit the
lottery for a few hundred, or get an inheritance from a passed on
relative, I am resolved to hold my water until I can get to Karol's
and retrieve pots whether or not the plant has survived or not......
I have also got growing burgundy okra unless Bugs has a taste for
those too, and the Nose twisters as James calls then (Nasturtiums) are
going great guns. and yes......I DELIBERATELY planted a zuchini plant.
just one, maybe I shoulda planted three...........anyone know a source
for English cukes? I would love to plant three plants of them as I
adore them better than straight 8's. and my green dragon's never
germinated for me at all. either the seed aren't viable or they're
just stubborn.
My Tithonia seeds are all germinated now and I'll tuck them into
the soil out front among the pink primrose plants that came with the
rental house. Anyone know if there is a variagated variety of pink
primrose that has yellow spots? I don't believe this is a fungus or
disease. it's not on all the leaves, it seems there might be a
different variety growing and if that's the case......then it will be
marked for taking with me when I move into my own house when that
comes about. (in the next two years for sure).
we finally purchased a lawnmower which I never needed one while living
in the former faerie holler because grass refused to grow on the steep
slopes but the raised beds did just fine, no grasses though unless it
was ornamental ones. we got one with a bag so at least I can keep a
good green supply of compost for the two bins I have working in the
back yard. With the potting up of the two varigated geraniums, I now
have broken the block that I had with gardening and have cut every
shoot off the split leaf philodendrum (vining variety, not my bush
split leaf phil) and am rooting everyone one of them for a fuller pot
of viney plants. I've also combined the Brasil variegated leaved heart
shaped philodendrum with the darker Nigra heart leafed philodendrum
and the combination of colorations is really wonderful. I'm also
tucking in the satin pothos plant in with them as well as it's a
smaller leafed pothos and the silver and white-cream will contrast
nicely with the other two leaves colorations. I'm always doing this
with textures and colors.
One thing I noticed was the faeries are more hesitant to show
themselves to me right now, as I suspect that they are still miffed at
me for pulling up stakes and hauling them into the city. Granted,
it's a quiet place and I am seeing signs of flying dinosaurs that I
feared I'd never see again here where I am currently residing (yellow
finches and at least wrens!) and I might have stranded some of the
other faeries that look out over my perennials.......I'm hoping they
forgive me and hunker in until I can rejoin them with their
brethern......I'm longing to see if my 'Ghost' fern and Japanese
painted fern's have endured and survived. and I'm longing to see if
my caryopteris has thrived. I had two that defied what they were
capable of enduring. One loved full sun, and the other on insisted on
dappled shade.......someone take up a gasoline collection! LOL
I will stop here and go back to the temporaray homestead and get
back to work. there's grass clippings to put into the black
composter, more burgundy okra seeds to sow and potting up of
pereninals that I got from Diane in Oregon Friday. luckily I have a
wee bit o' Black Kow composted soil to pot them. I'd rather pot them
for now and get them to living. I'm still open for any care packages
of anything from my garden friends out there. Updates on tomatos and
whatnot will come forth as I am able to say. Receipes for rabbit stew
are welcome, but I have an old tried and true one......the squirrels
apparently know better, and they recognize that Sugar would be their
demise, and I'm tempted to let her stay out one or two nights to deter
Bugs........

Thanks for letting me share. always listening and wondering how YOU
all are.....and there's a glass of sweet iced tea for visitors,
Maddie, up in the green bowl, surrounded by the Cherokee National
Forest and the Appalachian mountain in historical Greeneville,
Tennessee, gardening in zone 6b- 7a

In article
,
wrote:

So you heard right, I went to the local overpriced nursery and
decided that what I REALLY wanted to grow was the varigated leafed
pelargoniums. The white edged deep green one (yes, I have forgotten
the name as the tag is at home and I'm at the library) that will have
a coral flower, and to compliment it in the same pot for textural and
color contrasts (I do this all the time) the tri-color one that
apparently has a deep red flower. great.....the leaves of tri-color
are incredible and there's that awesome familiar deja' vu smell of
geraniums I associate them with anyway.
I went out and got myself three Pelargonium graveolens. All the way
home the van smelled like an old lady had exploded in it. Made a stop at
my CSA and my shepard went to look out the passenger window (where she
could see what I was doing) and broke off two branches. With any luck
I'll get four for the price of two.

I have no longer bean plants.....$
%^&*( bastages!!!! every last blessed one of them gnawed to the
stems.........so I replanted more (three in each hole, thank you very
much) and will dust them with cayenne pepper but MY luck I will have
Mexican rabbits...........or Cajun.........lol........but I WILL dust
the emerging plants with ground cayenne, and hope this lights the
little assholes up good.
Wonder if that would work on my gopher. The little schmuck is nibbling
on my sweet corn that I just planted.

And oh oh oh oh oh , I have tomato flowers!
I have never seen flowers so early. I'm gonna have tomatoes by July 1st,
unless the sky falls on my head first but this is only a third of my
tomatoes.

It seems as if it is taking for ever for the trombonchini and the bitter
melons to get enough size to plant. The trailing petunias are less than
an inch tall. The leeks are the thickness of pencil lead and the few
peas that survived are just beginning to show a profit. I'm keeping the
peanuts under plastic for the time being but once they go into pots I'll
probably have to tent them. Most of my tomatoes are less than 2 inches
and the peppers are 1/4" to two inches tall( I was barely in the
ground by this time last year but now it is 18 days to the solstice and
I feel like I'm in slow motion. A sign of my black thumb is that none of
my purslane survived. Fortunately, a six pack of them germinated with
little effort.

On the up side, most of my herbs survived from last year and I'm in the
process of moving them into larger pots, whatever they are. One
forgotten herb, at the back of my plant table has the most beautiful 1/2
inch blue flower and the calendula can't seem to make flowers fast
enough. I was hoping the garden yarrow would split. I think it did but
the original seems to have died. No luck so far in getting the echinacea
to spread. (Back to the germination trays.) I moved the passion fruit to
an area of more sun, next to an oak tree, and cut a bamboo cane as a
ladder from its' pot to the tree. If it likes the location, I can make
it permanent. A garden elcampane came back from last year last and I
have four more coming along in case I get a bad cough. I moved my
largest hyssop down into the shadows of the cabbage patch, hoping it
will cheer the cabbages on to a greater effort.

Still there are large areas of my garden that haven't been filled in yet.
One thing I noticed was the faeries are more hesitant to show
themselves to me right now, as I suspect that they are still miffed at
me for pulling up stakes and hauling them into the city. Granted,
it's a quiet place and I am seeing signs of flying dinosaurs that I
feared I'd never see again here where I am currently residing (yellow
finches and at least wrens!) and I might have stranded some of the
other faeries that look out over my perennials.......I'm hoping they
forgive me and hunker in until I can rejoin them with their
brethern......

Omens, how quickly we revert to animism when confronting the natural
world. Divination from ephemeral experiences. Trying to be one with the
great mystery. Listening for any voice of counsel, metaphysical or not.

Thanks for letting me share. always listening and wondering how YOU
all are.....and there's a glass of sweet iced tea for visitors,
Maddie, up in the green bowl, surrounded by the Cherokee National
Forest and the Appalachian mountain in historical Greeneville,
Tennessee, gardening in zone 6b- 7a

Mine is a handful of mint leaves (spear or pepper), plus a handful of
prunella, a lemon sliced thinly, and a pitcher of water. Sitting under
the oaks enjoying the wrens and bush-tits, and squirrels that come to
the small offerings that I make to them.

Time to go toes up. House guest tomorrow))
--

Billy
Bush Behind Bars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo...eature=related

Glad to hear from you here too Maddy. That box of sedums will head out soon!

Cheryl