Well it's been a long time, friends. But I thought I'd catch you up on some
of the going's on back in Fairy Holler. The last few days has seen deluges
of rains brought about by the warm winds of spring swept up across the Gulf
of Mexico and because of those warm winds, the rains have come in buckets.

Just in the last three days I have stood under the ? protection of the
greenhouse roof at Lowes watching lightening strike a pole just feet from
us, smelling ozone and feeling my skin prickle up, and driving rains shoving
sideways to such a degree that I didn't have to water underneath the shade
cover.....

My wheelbarrow at home has filled up over night with downpours that must
measure at least 8 inches and my fearless and never erring forecaster, Matt
HInkin on the local station says more is coming our way. I need to break out
the John boat, or pea row to tred down the long driveway to check the mail
as the ruts in the drive by Miz Mary's has started showing signs of catfish
or blue gill.

As I drove out this morning to check the downtown postal box for Squire, I
startled three fat, corn fed hens of wild turkey decent running off in
overweight lunacy. Miz Mary is feeding her birds, despite any warnings from
well meaning but over bearing family. She's not drawing them to butcher
them (I'd LOVE to have a little wild turkey, but she'd kill MEG) but feels
a kind of benevolence towards them and they've decided she's a sorta
safe/hazard refuge and come when they feel safe to eat of the many boulders
she's piled the cracked corn upon for them. Every blackbird, crow, and
mourning dove for miles has put out the word........

I kept pulling out of the driveway and watched as the hens decided it was
time for more drastic fleeing measures and took flight towards the woods at
the bottom of the hillside pasture, leaving their nests or eggs or babies
with whomever they have left them with for the moment. I don't know the
ways of wild turkeys.

I just considered it neat that we have them in the driveway at all, and hope
the poacher tries to do harm to them. My shotgun is loaded for his ass. And
I tend to hit what I aim at, too.

With all the rains, Rose has taken to sulking and lying about all sad eyed
and sullen as she still hates to get wet, running outside with me only when
I walk with her in rain coat, and then stops close by the end of the wooden
mini deck to take her pee and get back where it's dry to rub the cushions
off the couch trying to dry off.

Saturday the red oriental poppies started filling out their hilarious hairy
green pods and I awaited the almost perceptive "pop!" of them opening up. I
didn't have to wait long. Saturday morning there was one, just barely open,
revealing a powdery blue throat and deep deep red silken petals. I ran to
get the camera and captured her beauty and then went to work. Sunday there
was two. And Monday during the storms and lightening and winds gusting over
40 mph, Squire informed me when I came home there was three and almost four.

I hastened to drive support wires into the soaked hard soil to slip the
hairy stems thru the loops to hold the flowers up as they were now all prone
in the winds and rains. One already had lost her blossoms and stood naked
with her sisters.

The madness continues on the ongoing pond/bbq pit project that Squire
started a few weeks ago. Such is the way of men I think. As I sit here
picturing his creation, it's truely inspiring how he really does see how it
should turn out, and given some set backs like blue slate falling and
gouging holes in the 6 mil plastic of the trough, and replanting the
perennials twice when he decided the blue ceramic bowl the goddess fountain
was emptying into wasn't pouring right, then buying a bowl specifically for
that one thing, replanting the perennials one last time, and another hole in
the waterbed mattress we had used in the trough.........then the last
indignity, he has me help him while he lifted the overhang roof on the side
porch while I slipped in a 4x4 and then he removed a bracing post, put
another board to supply support instead and moved the support post to the
edge of the deck, opening up the whole space that looks at the garden
pond.............but now his back is out and he's soooo much fun......

But now all that is holding us back is replacing the trough plastic with an
actual liner, Squire has replaced the original goddess fountain piece
(placing her at the first basin of water that flows across and over a little
waterfall into the trough on the north side running along side the BBQ wall
he had oldest son dig down to two foot) with a little winged fairy perching
on the back wall of the partially dismantled pit holding a sea shell that
trickles three rivulets of water into that basin he got last weekend. The
sound draws birds around it, but they haven't decided yet if it's safe for
them to drink or not. I think they need to pay attention to my goofy feline
boys who step carefully into the Veronica that I planted in the pocket near
the bottom basin is a perfectplace for perching to drink from the
water........

I walk outside my nook door and the NSSG thrills me with textures everyday.
The lightening feeds the greens, and now the varigated red twig dogwood
sisters wow me with their dissimilar leaf patterns. The strange pink of the
emerging Japanese knotweed has now evened out to a striking creamy color
with paint speckles of green along knotty stems.

Under the cedar trunk that lays against the raised soil, silly little red
veined begonia leaves assure me they have indeed returned for me from the
seeds in the triangular pods of last year. That makes me smile to think of
all those women last year who got garbage bags of Mary Emma's plants loaded
with pods on the upper portions of the plants.

Everywhere once you notice them, like red veined wings on juicy red stems,
they seem to appear everywhere. My Jackmanii clematis is busy making buds
now, when before it was deeply concentrating on vines and tendrels to grasp
and hold onto. The planted clematis vines I thought I lost didn't. I see a
different leaf mingling with Jack, dare I hope it's one of the mysterious
bargains I got from Garden's Alive! ? I hope so. I chose every Polish
variety on that offer and plugged them in everywhere.

My rambling and tangient jumping mind flickers to the burdened wisteria
support on the opposite end. The wisteria has met it's match. The Sweet
Autumn Clematis from Newport, Tennessee's roadside has jumpstarted early and
has now smothered the whole thing, all you see is the single kerria
japonica's limbs reaching out from underneath with the dead ends like brown
fingers grabbing for you.

And that makes my flickering mind snap back to the problem child that has
emerged in the eastern end front bed. The hitchhiker Korean spirea has now
shown me her sinister side. She is EVERYWHERE. The branches all twisted and
curling and leafed out, and if I don't yank out a few, they will endear me
to them with those impossibly cute pink catapillar like flowers on the ends
of the stems.......being the madgardener isn't easy.

And since plugging in the Erythrium (sp?) it's now going to seed and
flopping over the edges of the bed, and I DON'T want it reseeding itself in
the cracks of the bricks...........oy vey.

There's too much to tell you about. The yellow twig dogwood I planted next
to the non-flowering peony and under the skirts of the Cornelian Cherry (aka
Twig dogwood) surprised me with little flat topped white flowers resembling
mashed Queen Anne's Lace. That was neat. Wait until she pulls herself up to
the six foot the tag says she attains.....

Sticky pots are everywhere.....two pots of mature folksgloves, one a pink
mertonensis the other an apricot bi-ennial, plugged finally into the
converted tomato box that is now a daylily nursery thanks to Virginia Davis
and her field's edging of daylilies I dug last week. Two pots of Lamium
White Nancy sat in the pot rings of the wall rack for three days before I
finally planted them in the returned blue glazed squat cactus pot Squire was
using for a water bowl in the before mentioned pool/fountain/waterfall.

In the other pot that I had to match that I got on sale last year, feet and
all, I planted three baby Ladies Mantles, and that one sits under the
potting table waiting for a better spot to sit on those little blue
supporting toes.

The retaining wall has got just enough shelf space for my tiny little pots
of cacti that made it thru the arid wintering in my house. The pink one
shaped like a sea shell that has succulents tight up top, the elephant
planted with an obscene cacti....the little McCoy antique pots in Hawortia,
they sit perched on the tiny ledges, catching sunlight and hopefully will
thrive.

On top of the ledge of those walls I placed every lava rock planter I have.
They're all bursting with sedums and hens and chicks now and there's hardly
anywhere to sit down on the top.

Since Squire wanted the wall higher than I did, I have gently poured
inexpensive topsoil from work carefully over the bursting perennials I
planted last year. The varigated Queen of the Prarie is back, and oh
wonder!! The Feverfew is too! Daff leaves from the Sir Winston Churchill
have gotten a little bulb food boost, and the irises that surprised me are
now winding down, except for the odd one Virginia gave ma last year. She
thought she was giving me a black one, but it's more of a dark royal purple
and it grew thru the green concrete reinforcing bar I had plunged into the
soft soil as support for the little piece of bog sage.

And speaking of bog sage.........I should have NEVER planted that piece at
the back of the bed against the bricks. This year it has rewarded me and I
count no less than 30 shoots from the one piece and now it's next to the
water...............and I pulled up another stray piece of horsetail and
told Squire if I planted it in a pot and put rocks on it he could put it in
the water, I should see how happy it is with this new home soon enough. And
the dried but not quite dead canna in the pot has stones on top of it and
he's learned it can live in the water too, so it has a place near the blue
slate bridge by the main flower bed on the northwest side and it's already
greening up nicely. Now all I have to do is pull a piece of the Houtynnia
for him to plant in the water too.........

Everywhere the green overwhelms me, but at the same time, I see returning
friends, new friends, new pots of combinations of perennials I didn't expect
to come back.......

One pot is just screaming SPRING, planted in a little quart pot of dianthus
I got in early March in a bare spot where I saw the return of daughters of
the gaillardia from last year, the dianthus is named "Flashlight" and I now
wish I'd gotten another pot of it. The image is perfect. The yellow orange
gaillardia with burgandy center tinged with orange and yellow and the pinked
petals encircled with more burgandy red and tips of golden and beneath its
fuzzy leaves, the fiery tiny dianthus cascading under and over the lip of
the pot.

For blue, I found the perfect plant. Lithodora 'Grace Ward', liking alkeline
soil, we discovered it might be happy tucked into the holes of the bricko
blocks Squire built up for a wall along the new trench pool. I tucked them
alternately with blue, pink and screaming pink phlox and another phlox
called Artic Fire that resembles the one my grand Mammy grew decades ago.
Well now I knew it was Pearline who grew them, but Artic Fire has pure
white flowers and glowing red ringed centers that hold high above the
foliage once it gets over the shock of transplanting. I only hope they
don't resent the bricko blocks. The intense blueness of those Grace Wards
makes the eye grab hold and drag you to look closer.

In the bed around it, Allium's, the Ivory Queen is a bit deep and the white
ball stretches it's neck as much as it can from the blue green wide leaves,
and behind it the Christophii ones I forgot I had so many of in their stars
of soft purple. A folksglove I'd forgotten about until I saw the tips of
the blossoms yesterday.......lance leafed foxglove, I can't wait to see her
flower colors in the same bed as everyone else. I hope the Helenium made it
thru winter and the soil and returns for me. There are Mexican yellow
primroses flinging up their arms towards the sky on the corner of the BBQ
bed which was the start of all this madness in the first place. The irises
never return a blossom, meaning I will have to lift them to give them a
breather and chance to bloom for me. There are others in another pot that
refuse to bloom, and they too need uncovering to encourage blossoms.

Ladies bells or a bell campanula that Mary Emma gave me, I took a chance and
transplanted a piece of it under the Salix bush and it's taken nicely next
to the toad lilies that have returned. Old fashioned irises flopping about
that I planted here and there..........the salix bed needs work, and edges
that will allow me to raise up the soil more....

Out front the incredible pots.........the big lipped herb jar with the now
spent phlox and the ****ed off plug of bright pink I tried to plant with the
original hunk when the ornamental grass died.....maybe it will get over it
and come back next year stronger.....or I will have to replace it with
someone else hardier...I just would like a contrast to the soft lavendar
blue phlox I originally planted in it.

Another pot of varigated leaf coreopsis is emerging, with another clump of
gaillardia. Bring 'em on, I love them!! And in my mom's concrete planter's
the wild white daisies is duking it out with the sedums and other things.
One pot amazes me and one day I will have to plug it into it's own spot and
replant it. White balloon flowers, platycodon mingled in with all sorts of
things, a dangle of bright floozy pink dianthus and some stray bulbs of
grape muscari that were left over from removal at Mary Em's.

And speaking of pots, the galvanized bucket that once held peanut cactus
from Silver, all died and I first placed a piece of her Mother of thousands,
or Strawberry Begonia into the center and forgot that I also plunged Dutch
iris bulbs as well, so when their spikes of leaves started emerging last
week bulging at the tops, I was intrigued. When they unwrapped themselves
to reveal to me their colors and delicate arms I was wowed. Soft blue, dark
blue, yellow and a soft pink at the throat and beard. Awesome. I appear to
have lost the Eye of the tiger;s though and was really looking forward to
their intensity. I have already called Dutch Gardens and they're replacing
them for me.

The sticky pots are everywhere, and I finally got to planting them. Lady
Stratheden Geum, she is tucked in with the daylilies and folksgloves in the
mater box, and Diane out in Eugene sent me a clump of an aster that refused
to do anything for me other than feed the aphids, but in the soil she sent
around the roots, she blessed me with seeds of her weedy forget-me-nots, and
I am thrilled beyond belief. I want more. Like what she has. She pulls them
by the handful's...........(send 'em to me, Diane!!!)

Three astilbe of girth I couldn't ignore. A series of astilbe called
"Visions" and I got Visions, Visions in Pink and Visions in Red. Deep red,
dark red and soft pink huge spikes of the Chinensis varieties bred to be a
bit larger, I hope they settle into the rich worm soil of the spent tomato
boxes.

Flipping about the "taters" of Beverly's woods hyacinths are almost spent,
and I stumble across a pot of epimdium that is gasping to go into the soil.
I need to find the perfect place for it. The St. John's wort is bulking up
buds, Sorbaria is walking up to the edge of the concrete by the nook walkway
and threatens to jump into the driveway.........Harlequin Glory Bower is
walking down the slope of the NSSG and is headed towards the woods, and Iris
Cohen's black cherry trees need lifting and sent on their way to become
bonsai...........

A stray blue columbine stands in a sea of creeping Charlie, and I lifted her
to share with Mary Em, Bev's Japanese anemone has climbed up out of the bed
and is aimed for the shady spot up the slope of the NSSG, and the sleeping
buddelia I got in Grand Haven that had HUGE pink blossoms and was the reason
I bought it in the first place and planted it in the double kerria
japonica's spot has awakened, and I forget which daylilies I plugged in from
last years purchase at Virginia's house.....corydalis (the yellow one) has
reseeded a child just under the edge of the small boardwalk and the yellow
flowers smile up at you from their deep shady spot. And in front of them,
Zhan's Bear's Britches has a most impressive leaf this year..........and WHO
is the large leafed bulb growing in the bed?

In the words of Mary Emma who finally came out for a long over due visit
last week to share in the booty of the dug daylilies....."I have NEVER seen
so MANY types of perennials and flowers adn bulbs planted together ever".

I even have abnormally early figs this year because I neglected to snip off
the "dead" stems this winter. And the Helenium has returned and jumped out
of IT'S box, the blue baptismia has feebly returned along side of the
stronger white one, which is thrusting thru the lemon yellow foam of the
Lime spirea at the edge of the fig bed, and everywhere the steriod bulk of
the Zebrina sisters are everywhere, making striped flowers and shoving
against the edges of three beds. They intend to dominate and rule the hill.
Should we name it Fairy HOller and Zebrina ridge??

I will give your eyes rest, but there's more, much much
more........................til tomorrow or soon, I will leave you to ponder
these combinations and wait for more descriptions of the others........

til next time,
madgardener, up on the soaked, water logged and foggy ridge, back in Fairy
HOller, overlooking a cloud enshrouded English Mountain in Eastern
Tennessee, zone 6b, Sunset zone 36

Thanks Madgardener - I love these posts from Fairy Holler.
Joan

you're more than welcome, Joan. Once again, my weaving of words has lured
another gardener from the hedges GBSEG madgardener watching rain falling
AGAIN up here on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler in Eastern TEnnessee, ZOne
6b, Sunset zone 36
"JCMumsie" wrote in message
...
Thanks Madgardener - I love these posts from Fairy Holler.
Joan

The message
from ojunk (JCMumsie) contains these words:

Thanks Madgardener - I love these posts from Fairy Holler.

Me too; I was eating my supper on my knee while reading it and it just
rounded off a perfect day.

One thing, Mad..if you feel your skin tingling close to a lightning
strike, I think that means you're in the danger zone.

Janet.

"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from ojunk (JCMumsie) contains these words:

Thanks Madgardener - I love these posts from Fairy Holler.

Me too; I was eating my supper on my knee while reading it and it just
rounded off a perfect day.

gee..............now Janet you've honored me!! lol honey, eating and
reading something I wrote just boggles the mind. But I am sincere when I say
I am honored by that act of kindness and acceptance. There are more things
to talk of with the fairies, felines, flowers and things, my time is limited
though at the present. Good thing I can hold that thought! G

One thing, Mad..if you feel your skin tingling close to a lightning
strike, I think that means you're in the danger zone.

Janet.

yer probably right, Janet. I tend to be allergic to lightening strikes.
I'm the kind of personn who likes to sit and watch a storm from slight
shelter- thanks to my dad always taking me out on the front porch of their
house in NAshville in the middle of them. My mother was always inside in
the closet.........literally. Or cowering in the kitchen. Even knowing now
from watching so many Discovery programs that lightening can travel from a
radius strike, and such, I still love the smell of rain, watching for
lightening to light up the sky, and working in a warm rain in the garden.
No hope for this old broad

Again thanks honey, you made my day
madgardener off to werk at the local Lowes where I bet with a Friday and
just before Mother's day it will be a bit insane.......g