Well here it is almost June and as I sit here up on the ridge, there is so
much to describe and tell about it's once again overwhelming. Hey there,
friends.......the ol' madgardener here- I hafta apologize for lack of
communication lately. I just haven't had the time to even sit down at the
'puter for more than half an hour at a time lately.
You'd think that it was solely the reason of just gardening in fairy holler.
But anyone that knows me and how I "garden" realizes that what I do is pull
some weeds, plant perennials into the last remaining pockets of the
over-filled to exploding fairy beds I have at the moment, take digital
pictures of the babies (up close now that I have a new camera....),
download, rotate, sharpen and lable them and by the time I do that, I've run
outa time and have to get my tired ol' butt into bed to get up early to go
to werk at Lowes outside Lawn and Garden the next morning.

I have added LOTS of perennials thanks to the ever present "sticky pot
disease". The head cashier has agreed with Zhan that I indeed need a twelve
step program for the perennially addicted...........She looks over at the
corner near the tropical plants and when she sees the pile of color growing
laughs at me and says she might sponsor me if I didn't have the disease so
terminally...g

Having the opportunity, despite that some of the perennials are of "common"
varieties, to pick the best pots first off when they come in is my downfall.
We've gotten in Jackson and Perkins improved Stella d'Oro and Ruby Stella,
and I now have packed three of each into the now "I cannot hold no more"
tomato boxes that Squire built me a few years ago. In those boxes I have
plugged mertonensis digitalis, Clara Curtis mums (two of those), Black stem
salvia, Blue Hill salvia, white Alba and Red Fox Veronica, every daylily I
dug and kept of Virginia Davis' generous offer of digging up weeks back.
There is also one of each "Vision's" astilbe, the red, pink and dark pink
one tucked in with the Veronica's, Salvia's and daylilies.

The nights have been so cool lately and the rains so much, that the pinks I
planted along the edge back in March are still blooming, with the
surrounding soil near exploding with the stems of a root of Amsonia that
somehow survived winter and is now just tasting the rich, black, loose worm
soil with the two foot of leaves underneath when I first tried to fill it up
with soil those years ago.

On the north side of these two boxes just below the boulders in a little
pool of soil and a few more rocks is a Beauty bush baby that is just now
gaining strength, and the wild red and yellow columbine has set all it's
seed pods in the island of soil that trickled out of the box to the area
behind a cut cedar that serves as a stepping point to walk up and back
around the east box.

The strawberries I planted three years ago fooled me into thinking they were
gone when I first decided to put strawberries in the tomato beds, and
quietly slipped daughters in when I wasn't paying attention last year and
this year I discovered I had five huge leafed plants that gave me seven
berries. If I ignore them, maybe next year I will have more plants running
along the northern edge of this strange and instant perennial box now that
it's a bit too shady to grow tomato's in.

The shade is due to the Pawlonia tree's daughter stretching an arm directly
over the east end of the box on the upper first terrace. And a maple tree
has sprung up beside her in competition. I have to decide soon who to keep.
And I fear as much as I want the maple, I will have to take them both out
eventually just because of the cramped quarters and close proximity of them
to the deck and house.

The new flowerbed around the old and broken BBQ pit is now full to bursting.
Things I deffinately don't remember planting are thrusting upwards and
surprising me everyday. I missed the first daylily blossom on a clump that
Mary Emma bought me at a garden tour. It opened up yesterday when I was out
of town running errands on one of the two days I had off this week after the
last Memorial week schedule I had. I was working 8 days straight until
Tuesday. The days slid past me like water over rocks before I knew it. It
was all I could do to just keep up with myself.

My fairy beds are almost a joke in steroids or overgrowth. The richness of
the raised beds has apparently reached a neutral taste and the perennials
are now showing me what they can do. And that I need to STOP with the
purchases and concentrate on clearing the land in the woods down on the
northern part of the slope that makes up 80% of our gardenable land. The
woods room looks forlorn and neglected, and until I take pick ax and shovel
to the pin oaks, Round Up the poison ivy that has snuck in, and topped the
two jack pines that are dead above six stories up, I have no right to
purchase another plant regardless of sale, availablilty, rarity or want.

It's not gonna be easy........Those two white dicentra's with the little
white "britches" were impossible to not grab at $1 apiece because now
they've taken to just throwing the plants away and getting credit for
them..........and I hate that. I'd rather buy them for mere pennies in
price and hope to give them a home than see them really die in a hot
dumpster.....I still mourn over the 108 gallon pots of assorted wonderous
Columbines I had to throw away, or the 65 pots of phlox, those scabiosa's,
or the yarrows...........how I long to have a real yard to work in now other
than the mess of my chaotic and wild woods. It would take months of
continual clearing and cleaning and messing with to get the land plantable.
I turn my eyes towards the eastern side of my house where the outbuilding
stands with the three apple trees flanking it on the west, south and eastern
corner and contemplate that I should just cut them down, along with the
mangled sour cherry tree against the outbuilding, level the incinerator,
bobcat the spot behind that, and that would give me more to plant perennials
in for now. But those woods won't clean themselves up.

The cleared area's Squire tried his hand at have already laughed and come
back even thicker. Privet is impossible to tame without serious machinery.
Mere whacking doesn't make more than a temporairy dent.

So the daylilies are thrusting their sabre's of buds up through the lush
leaves and I can't wait to see what colors they are, as my memory eludes me
on their identity. And I really must tear out some of that Korean Spirea as
it is now fully intent on conquering my eastern front flowerbed.

Lilies are towering everywhere, setting buds at the tops at such a rate I
wonder how I couldn't have missed their growth and think out loud that maybe
that's the popping and stretching sounds I hear in the night. The lilies
are some of the reason's I don't change the front beds now because of their
successful lives in them. I find myself planting more pots of perennials
and the odd flowers but even spaces for those pots to perch on are fast
dwindling...........like those red, orange and white zinnias.......and the
flat of Bright Lights cosmos still haven't found a space of their own.

The poppies I sowed against the chainlink fence are a riot., This will be my
first successful planting of poppies since I came to this newsgroup and even
that is hilarious. They sifted thru the holes in the fence and some of the
best plants grow with the evil thistles and odd pasture things that have
tasted the cleared and rich soil along the fence. I discovered no less than
20 buds bent over today and pricked and stabbed myself good pulling out
thistles and pricklies and popping tendrils of honeysuckle that never left,
despite Squires' best intentions at "clearing" it out off the fence. He left
roots....................

The Diablo ninebark is amazing, and the poppies underneath are a good
contrast, I wait impatiently to see now tall they will get, and don't dare
disturb any so I will have more to seed next year. I will clear it under
her skirts later. For now I just want poppies wherever I can get them. And
the Wine and Roses weigelia has stopped for now, but I know it's getting
it's breath and about to grow for me seriously.

My oak leaf hydrangea this year has floored me. Her girth is amazing, and I
realized today I needed to step over the electric fence with bucket in hand
and gather her some cow pies to place in the center of her heart. The bush
is now almost six feet tall, and as wide and loaded with huge white
blossoms. Despite that the Wine and Roses is just three feet away, I won't
even consider planting anything near the Oak Leaf now. Soon I will move the
compost pile that lies next to it, and that will be a small shady spot for
astilbe and other things, but that will be all. The spot along the fence at
that area is perfect the way it is and I won't clutter it up.

There's more to clean out and straighten down the fence row going towards
the woods that I can utilize and just 25 or 30 feet further is the second
compost pile that I've sadly neglected.
There are so many things to do, so many pots on the table so to speak I
can't begin to even tell you of it all. That will have to be another time.

The fairies have sprinkled spiderworts and swamp sunflowers everywhere,
along with teasing the Montbretia's to wander outside the flowerboxes with
the "cast iron fern" I brought from my home in NAshville. And there is
always vinca...........Now I'm noticing there is plenty of Solidago shoots
to pull out now, and I need to thin out the swath of Cat's whiskers (Cleome
spinosa) that sits in front of the Blue Enigma salvia the hummer so adores
that is already at the gutters. And there is the helianthus I need to lift
that seeded a daughter outside the box and in front of the Crispa spirea I
planted weeks ago..................

Right now there are golden primroses blooming with deep pink Sweet Williams,
and the Bog Sage is about to wow me with it's blue eyes before I pull a few
out before they overwhelm everyone else. And the goosenecks are about to
start honking, I can't tell the asters from the goldenrods, the Zebrina's
have taken over the hilltop edges, and every where I look, there's green, or
colorful flowers. Lilies tucked amongst overgrown perennials, I would have
missed them had the Amsonia in the fig bed not gotten so tall they started
to spread apart.

Did I tell you I had figs? It's three months too early for
them..............I fear I won't get any when it's really time for them to
set fruit. The Meadow Rue has bloomed and almost finished before I could
enjoy the golden puffs sitting on top of blue green columbine like leaves.
And the Sweet spire has returned for me and is duking it out with the Korean
spirea. The Hummingbird Clethra gave me a baby to share with Mary Emma, and
now I think I should move it to a better place but where??

Dragon lilies block your path as you attempt to maneuver the sidewalk I
cleaned up for Squire. The 4 o;clocks quietly exploded and now I have to
use both hands to pull out the largest one or they will bully my perennials
with their girth and tree like branches later on. And the trumpet vine that
used to live in the "dead maple" I cut down a couple of years ago has cursed
me with returning sprouts of woody and impossible to remove tendrils of
happy assed vines. I yank those out when I see them, along with the ever
present and persistant horsetail. The horsetail is easier to pull up......
The Jackmanii clematis has so covered the thick and gnarly grapevine, it's
literally groaning with the weight of the purple blossoms. Along side it,
the St. John's bush is about to burst, overhead the black cherry tree has
given me mouthful's of sweet but slightly bitter cherries, and the little
tree I am digging up for Iris's bonsai is now about ready to be lifted to
ship off.

The bearded irises are now thru, it's daylily and trumpet lily time, and
various other showings, of which I'd be writing about for the next
hour...... and I've run out of time. I will attempt to catch up on the rest
of the fairies doings later. Thanks for giving me the time, and allowing me
to share with you. There is lots more I promise you,

madgardener up on the ridge, back in fairy holler-overlooking English
Mountain with a full to the brim Douglas Lake in Eastern Tennessee in zone
6b, Sunset zone 36 where it never got past 68o F today..................a
PERFECT spring day, but not feeling near almost June...

On Thu, 29 May 2003 22:06:26 -0400, "madgardener"
wrote:


Maddie, after being there and knowing where everything is, this ramble
has painted a most beautiful picture.

zhan

when I drag home from werk I'll send you some pics..........((hug))
Maddie
"zhanataya" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 29 May 2003 22:06:26 -0400, "madgardener"
wrote:


Maddie, after being there and knowing where everything is, this ramble
has painted a most beautiful picture.

zhan