These last few days have been slipping past, sticking to one another on
these early days of pre-summer. Sticky because of the daily rains that
either deluge or rumble thru, leaving the leaves of all the overgrown plants
dewy with the evidence of the rains having come thru.

With my early mornings of late, I've taken to blowing my afternoons with a
nap because rising at 4 a.m. is NOT my idea of fun. Just necessity. The
evenings don't get too cool at night, hovering in the upper 60's and low
70's, the dew point is the same as the temperatures so that the grasses and
everything is moist with all the moisture the generous rains have left
behind.

Earlier this week, a violent storm blew thru and brought with it dangerous
erratic lightening that fed the trees with their nitrogen, but also struck
anything it could, including the Lowes that I work at knocking out the
computers and Monday was a flash back to the 1950's in making sales. I was
pulled off the watering job and put back on the cash register/computer with
the till open and given a stack of sales invoices and told to do the best I
could and I proceeded to spend the next five hours of my shift writing out
by hand the sales with the assistance of an LRT gun that gave me item
numbers (they use it to scan orders and do inventory and cycle counts and
they're not affected by lightening, run off of batteries) and my trusty
solar calculator I keep in my pocket, I managed to crack jokes and keep 99%
of my nursery customers amused and calm as I trudged thru sale after sale.
Some small, others huge....credit cards, cash, and charges. It was a work
of patience.

My basic line was that Mom Nature had had a conniption fit and struck the
building and fiber optics with lightening during the violent storm in the
wee hours of the morning and sent us back to the 1950's............g

I had experienced a rather serious wake up call that day, but being
unscathed, I made up the rather late arrival with staying until the early
afternoon and the humidity was incredible. I was grateful that I was
standing at the cash register because at least I could stand in front of the
fan!!g

The trips down the roads with all the rains this week have fed every Chicory
plant that grows along every roadside and the fairies have used the laxness
of the mowers to their advantage. Every plant is now at least three foot
tall or more. And my trips to take son to another Lowes further away because
they needed him during an inventory has meant traveling along interstate 40
and hooking north on 640 to go to Clinton and along the interstate and up
the on-ramps the Queen Anne's Lace and Chicory and black-eyed Susan's are
eye popping.

The on-ramp where I get on from home literally lights up with the light
blues of the Chicory and the white fuzzy discs of Queen's lace is a perfect
complimentary to the blue.

The road I travel to work has all of that, but with all the rains, or for
whatever reason, the ditch lilies aren't winding down, they've increased so
much so now that you don't see the blue Chicory, but the flames of the
orange lilies. Hundreds of blossoms that literally shout up at you as you
drive down Highway 66.

With all these early Summer rains and the appearances of the wildflowers in
their times with the heat and humidity, my trumpet lilies are swelling up
and bursting. Last week the Dragons appeared over the sidewalks, too fast
in growing and forming buds before I could safely stake them, they hung
precariously over the sidewalk with my careful passing as I cut thru the
sidewalk to the driveway, their fragrances so heavy at times it made me feel
drugged.

Now with the heat, they're ending too soon, but stepping up in their place
with a heavier sweet fragrance are those incredible Shenandoah trumpets.
Sunday Miz Virginia Davis and her son and his wife called to see if they
could visit and see my flowers and I threw out the welcome to come for a
tour. She just missed the Shenandoah's, but was floored by the pods of them
as they were swelling almost before our eyes.

These lilies shoot thru the tangled mat of Lamium or Yellow Archangel that
has swelled up to a foot and hover just over the sidewalk bed on the western
side. With all the rains this week, the funny green bridge rebar supports I
got from the workers were easy to shove into the clay and loose soil to at
least brace the inch to two inch thick stems to keep them from bending and
snapping with the weight of the blossoms.

Tuesday, I came home to see two of them birthing, with dripping fragrances
emerging from the soft yellow/cream lips as they slowly started opening in
the humid evening. By Wednesday morning they had burst wide, and the
flowers were as large as a dinner plate. I took a picture with my hand next
to it for scale. In taking the picture I was almost overwhelmed with the
perfumes of them.

Now I have braced one of them against the bridge bar and lost one precious
bud as I tried to carefully untangle the other stem of another bulb from the
first bloomer. The buds are up top and once they start swelling they inter
tangle. Quite a visual. And as heavy as their fragrances are, they
overwhelm the honeysuckle to where I can't resist but open my bedroom window
to let in their scents. It doesn't take long to fill the bedroom with their
smell. How I wish I had courage to lift a bulb this fall and try to
propagate some scales for more................

Fairy Holler is a jungle now. The trees that the 17 year cicada's damaged
are starting to shake out the broken branches with the storm winds every
day, and all this humidity has made all my houseplants that come outside
swell and start to respond to the season.

I almost lost a Japanese painted fern under the black cherry tree, but
Nature saved them with warnings to be more watchful as the black cherry is
greedy of rains and moisture. I am planting a cherished Jack in the pulpit
that a garden friend gifted me with that I was unaware of until I saw it in
another new garden friend's yard yesterday. The leaves were the same and as
I asked her (she's in her early 70's and we met at the nursery when she
asked me the identity of a flower she had growing in her yard she didn't
want) what it was, she told me a Jack in the pulpit! And that she had four
clumps of them. I was elated and immediately made plans to plant my own in
a revered spot so it can bulk up and thrive and give me a pulpit next year.
I hope.......

As I wander around the gardens and slope, the ground reminds me of all the
rains and my toes grab to keep from slipping. There is clay underneath me
after all.

And I keep shoving in plants and planting every available inch. Today I got
a Sizzling pink Loripedilum and tucked it in the spot where the Caryopteris
lived and passed on. Getting into the ground past the Lamium was an effort,
I'll tell you. and further up into the ocean of silver and green leaves
where the Mrs. Sissinghurst geum's passed away, I tucked in a Futurity red
leafed cannas.

Phlox in my large lipped strawberry/herb jar was shoved over after a little
pruning of dead stems and tri-colored sedums were put against the phlox to
fill the spaces. And for the Hummers I bought a pot of Rhuella today that I
happened on at a nice Home Despot that was across the street from where son
is working this week (he works at the Lowes). I had no idea that HD carried
something called Athens select plants for heat and humidity approved by Alan
Armatage!!!! I had to control my urges because they also had Persian Shield
in two colorations, a black leafed sweet potato vine and I mean,
BLACK.....and two more heat and humidity annuals whose names elude me right
now but that I was willing to try.

I ran outa plant money........................g

The Loripedilum was a 5 gallon pot and well worth the $14 I paid for it. The
darkness of the leaves on the two purchases eased my gardeners soul as I
tucked them into their places amidst the silver and greens of the rampant
ground cover.

With all this humidity and rain and heat, the 4's have sprung up to heights
that scare me. Thick, fleshy, and almost 4 foot tall, I reach into the
foliage of the constipated southern beds and pull them out. The deep "thunk"
is just teasing the black carrot like tuber that lies in the rich loose
soil. I leave a couple, but pull the rest. They will flop if left to their
devices and thrill me with a multitude of magenta and yellow flowers, and
evening fragrances all their own, but they will also flop and kill tender
perennials with their massiveness. I keep enough to satiate me with their
aroma's and to kill the Jap's that are now dining on them.

As I stood sweating out front today from the tucking of perennials (this is
the first cannas I've planted into the front beds, wish me luck, I could
have put them in with the Bengal Tigers and my daddy's Indian shot green
canna's down in the gray water bog behind the house) I noticed a pointy head
just past the extension bed off the sidewalk bed where the Shenandoah lilies
were hovering like huge lampshades.

I squinted and thought I recognized the stalk, and thinking it might be
Goldenrod, I went to it, growing there just outside the beds landscape
timbers. All six foot of it.......no, not Goldenrod. Purple Loosestrife.
And quite a beauty too. I will keep her, and enjoy her bright pink flowers
if the Japanese beetles don't munch it down to bones.

My gardens are now ridiculous with overgrowth. Daylilies gasp for breath as
they try to rise above their own foliage. The Easter lilies have popped
their petals and need pinching. And the Pineapple lily has more than amazed
me. I even had to stake it up.

The little wren in the flower basket has hatched her five eggs and out of
five fledglings, she is down to four. They sit quietly huddled together,
their little yellow beaks highlighting their existance in the soft nest mama
built out of moss and grasses inside the woven basket that sat inside the
plastic hanging pot from last year I had placed on a shelf on the side deck.

When I finally organized my potting deck (that's actually what it is, with
the BBQ tucked in at the corner for occaisonal grilling of various foods) I
cleaned off the shelves and organized the many clay pots, empty containers
and neat planters. Then put the bags of fertilizers that were on sale, with
the Schultz pyrethrum spray I found at the Dollar General store for $1.50 a
bottle I snapped up for the up and coming emergence of Blister beetles that
will be intent on eating my Japanese anemone to bones. I am ready for
them....

The tomato/perennial boxes are recovering from Sugar's excavations last fall
and late Winter and I have to remind myself that there is wire covering the
plants at the soil level. Daylilies that I thought I lost have come back,
weak but back never the less.

Mystic Merlin Malvacaea flops all over the place and needs a trimming. And
Bilbor Felhur dissolved. The bed needs attention and replanting. Just not
today. It's too sticky.

John's little Deutzia slowly struggles to take hold, no sign of growth yet,
as it sits on the northern side of the tomato box, fed rich, black trickling
worm casting soil that slips thru the boulder that makes up the wall of the
raised bed.

Lambs ears in the woods box have sprawled out the plastic timber bed and the
flowerstems need trimming as they fall over with their weight. And behind
the puddle of silvery white Ears, paddles of sand papery green leaves of
Black-eyed Susans thrust thru with stems of promising arrivals soon to come.

There is no method to my madness.

Against the fence, the Diablo is erupting. The Pizzazz Loripedilum is
slowly growing, the Wine and Roses weigelia begs to be moved up front where
it can darken it's leaves and bulk up for me. The Oak leaf hydrangea is a
great mounding bush, that is somewhat stressed with the removal of some of
the lower branches of the protective cedar tree. Appalachian electric had to
trim it when the Mimosa and Pawlonia threatened to snap my power lines this
spring

But next to it, on the northern side of the compost pile, the varigated
Weigelia is all happy and thriving in the rich side soils, and next to it
the woods poppy is happily thriving under it's skirts.

The Forest Pansy redbud planted on the terrace against the fence beside the
dead mimosa trunk that is covered in Virginia creeper is thriving as well,
and at her feet, a clump of Little brown jugs ginger that Michael LaForest
gifted me with is taking hold. I protected them with a large rock to keep
feet from trampling them as you make your way down the steep part of the
slope towards the woods.

And inside the overgrown woods room, the damaged Yoshino cherry is
struggling after losing tips of her branches to the cicada's. They left my
Kornus Cousa dogwood alone though, and the Harry Lauders filbert is growing
nicely. The other Forest Pansy redbud I fear has passed on. And I lost a
Viburnum tomentosa that was tucked against the edge of the last terrace
because it was out of sight to me and starved for moisture when it was
trying to establish. I feel like a murderer........But the prickly pear
cactus near it on the rocky ledge laugh and thrive.....go figure. Makes more
sense though.

After much worrying, I took shears to the Vitex and cut off all the massivly
damaged limbs and now I think this fall I will whack it completely back to
give it better time to reasses itself in structure next year.

The Crape Myrtles for whatever miracle survived incredible shredding of end
stems and didn't break but a few ends. And the Orange sherbert trumpet vine
is loaded with blossoms. It already needs trimming back, I've shaped it like
an umbrella.....

And vinca has swallowed the ground underneath the Zebra grasses. It's
treacherous to walk near the western side of the west yard.

At every corner is a Spirea, and the old Hollyhock reminds me it would
prefer a more prominent spot to show off. The fig is now busy bushing out
from my half hearted prunings and making figs, figs, figs. And under her
arms and branches, the struggles of the lilies, and other perennials I
tucked under her skirts are evident by glimpses of colors. The America
lilies flashed red. And the Autumn Joy sedum almost weeps out of desperation
for real sunshine. It flops at the corner where I tucked it a few years ago,
happy in the soil, but unhappy in position as the fig and Pawlonia shield it
from the direct sun it so desperately wants.

My BBQ pit/fountain is amazing., I can't keep the water in because
somewhere there is a little leak in the hose that feeds the fairy and
Goddess fountains, There are now FIVE frogs residing in the waters and
gardens, and yesterday I brought a toad home in a waterlily pot to reside in
the gardens and he promptly jumped out of the pot into the first pool of
water and sat there looking at me with this disgusted look on his bumpy
face.

He was glorious. I know he'll slip in nicely to the community. The
mosquito's were so bad, I had to throw dunkers into the water, but they
don't bother the frogs. I will let those dissolve and kill the larvae and
then throw in some cheap dimestore goldfish next week after I change the
water a bit.

Pineapple sage competes with Feverfew that seeded into the herb jar last
year and resist any efforts to pull them out and plant them into the garden
where they'd do much better. (the Feverfew, not the Pineapple sage, I put
that there on purpose). And the pink Panda strawberries are bulking up and
producing more pink flowers and soon I'll have some sweet berries again to
snack on.

Sweet Autumn clematis is covering the wisteria trellis and there apparently
was a planted purple clematis I tucked in at the base, it's worked itself up
thru the Kerria japonica and grabbing the Bog sage...

A blousey daylily I had tucked against the Viburnum is showing off her large
egg yellow flowers and with the rains, the Viburnum is trying to make
blossoms. I forget her name.........

Out front everywhere you look on the west end of the front, blue. The Egnima
salvia has gone insane for me, and this year I've been blessed by my very
first Ruby throated hummingbird. He's in heaven with my flowers. I hope the
Rufus don't run him off. He is awesome. That's who I bought the Rhuella for
today g

Well I can go on but I have to stop for now. But I promise I will pick this
up and end it proper. There are quite a few more bloomings to share with you
but 4 a.m. comes early. Thanks again for allowing me to share this with
you. There are pictures to share for anyone wanting to actually see some of
these wonders.

madgardener up on the ridge, back in a soaked and humid Fairy Holler,
overlooking English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36

The message
from "madgardener" contains these words:


And I keep shoving in plants and planting every available inch. Today I got
a Sizzling pink Loripedilum and tucked it in the spot where the Caryopteris
lived and passed on.

Serendipity! I was just thinking of you this morning while weeding
mine..do you remember telling me about them last year? Mine has come
through its first winter here okay.

Janet.

yes indeedy I does! thanks for thinking of me! g
maddie
"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from "madgardener" contains these words:


And I keep shoving in plants and planting every available inch. Today I
got
a Sizzling pink Loripedilum and tucked it in the spot where the
Caryopteris
lived and passed on.

Serendipity! I was just thinking of you this morning while weeding
mine..do you remember telling me about them last year? Mine has come
through its first winter here okay.

Janet.

Oh, Maddie, please send me the pictures!

Gloria

"madgardener" wrote in message
...
These last few days have been slipping past, sticking to one another on
these early days of pre-summer. Sticky because of the daily rains that
either deluge or rumble thru, leaving the leaves of all the overgrown
plants
dewy with the evidence of the rains having come thru.

With my early mornings of late, I've taken to blowing my afternoons with a
nap because rising at 4 a.m. is NOT my idea of fun. Just necessity. The
evenings don't get too cool at night, hovering in the upper 60's and low
70's, the dew point is the same as the temperatures so that the grasses
and
everything is moist with all the moisture the generous rains have left
behind.

Earlier this week, a violent storm blew thru and brought with it dangerous
erratic lightening that fed the trees with their nitrogen, but also struck
anything it could, including the Lowes that I work at knocking out the
computers and Monday was a flash back to the 1950's in making sales. I
was
pulled off the watering job and put back on the cash register/computer
with
the till open and given a stack of sales invoices and told to do the best
I
could and I proceeded to spend the next five hours of my shift writing out
by hand the sales with the assistance of an LRT gun that gave me item
numbers (they use it to scan orders and do inventory and cycle counts and
they're not affected by lightening, run off of batteries) and my trusty
solar calculator I keep in my pocket, I managed to crack jokes and keep
99%
of my nursery customers amused and calm as I trudged thru sale after sale.
Some small, others huge....credit cards, cash, and charges. It was a work
of patience.

My basic line was that Mom Nature had had a conniption fit and struck the
building and fiber optics with lightening during the violent storm in the
wee hours of the morning and sent us back to the 1950's............g

I had experienced a rather serious wake up call that day, but being
unscathed, I made up the rather late arrival with staying until the early
afternoon and the humidity was incredible. I was grateful that I was
standing at the cash register because at least I could stand in front of
the
fan!!g

The trips down the roads with all the rains this week have fed every
Chicory
plant that grows along every roadside and the fairies have used the
laxness
of the mowers to their advantage. Every plant is now at least three foot
tall or more. And my trips to take son to another Lowes further away
because
they needed him during an inventory has meant traveling along interstate
40
and hooking north on 640 to go to Clinton and along the interstate and up
the on-ramps the Queen Anne's Lace and Chicory and black-eyed Susan's are
eye popping.

The on-ramp where I get on from home literally lights up with the light
blues of the Chicory and the white fuzzy discs of Queen's lace is a
perfect
complimentary to the blue.

The road I travel to work has all of that, but with all the rains, or for
whatever reason, the ditch lilies aren't winding down, they've increased
so
much so now that you don't see the blue Chicory, but the flames of the
orange lilies. Hundreds of blossoms that literally shout up at you as you
drive down Highway 66.

With all these early Summer rains and the appearances of the wildflowers
in
their times with the heat and humidity, my trumpet lilies are swelling up
and bursting. Last week the Dragons appeared over the sidewalks, too fast
in growing and forming buds before I could safely stake them, they hung
precariously over the sidewalk with my careful passing as I cut thru the
sidewalk to the driveway, their fragrances so heavy at times it made me
feel
drugged.

Now with the heat, they're ending too soon, but stepping up in their place
with a heavier sweet fragrance are those incredible Shenandoah trumpets.
Sunday Miz Virginia Davis and her son and his wife called to see if they
could visit and see my flowers and I threw out the welcome to come for a
tour. She just missed the Shenandoah's, but was floored by the pods of
them
as they were swelling almost before our eyes.

These lilies shoot thru the tangled mat of Lamium or Yellow Archangel that
has swelled up to a foot and hover just over the sidewalk bed on the
western
side. With all the rains this week, the funny green bridge rebar supports
I
got from the workers were easy to shove into the clay and loose soil to at
least brace the inch to two inch thick stems to keep them from bending and
snapping with the weight of the blossoms.

Tuesday, I came home to see two of them birthing, with dripping fragrances
emerging from the soft yellow/cream lips as they slowly started opening in
the humid evening. By Wednesday morning they had burst wide, and the
flowers were as large as a dinner plate. I took a picture with my hand
next
to it for scale. In taking the picture I was almost overwhelmed with the
perfumes of them.

Now I have braced one of them against the bridge bar and lost one precious
bud as I tried to carefully untangle the other stem of another bulb from
the
first bloomer. The buds are up top and once they start swelling they
inter
tangle. Quite a visual. And as heavy as their fragrances are, they
overwhelm the honeysuckle to where I can't resist but open my bedroom
window
to let in their scents. It doesn't take long to fill the bedroom with
their
smell. How I wish I had courage to lift a bulb this fall and try to
propagate some scales for more................

Fairy Holler is a jungle now. The trees that the 17 year cicada's damaged
are starting to shake out the broken branches with the storm winds every
day, and all this humidity has made all my houseplants that come outside
swell and start to respond to the season.

I almost lost a Japanese painted fern under the black cherry tree, but
Nature saved them with warnings to be more watchful as the black cherry is
greedy of rains and moisture. I am planting a cherished Jack in the
pulpit
that a garden friend gifted me with that I was unaware of until I saw it
in
another new garden friend's yard yesterday. The leaves were the same and
as
I asked her (she's in her early 70's and we met at the nursery when she
asked me the identity of a flower she had growing in her yard she didn't
want) what it was, she told me a Jack in the pulpit! And that she had
four
clumps of them. I was elated and immediately made plans to plant my own
in
a revered spot so it can bulk up and thrive and give me a pulpit next
year.
I hope.......

As I wander around the gardens and slope, the ground reminds me of all the
rains and my toes grab to keep from slipping. There is clay underneath me
after all.

And I keep shoving in plants and planting every available inch. Today I
got
a Sizzling pink Loripedilum and tucked it in the spot where the
Caryopteris
lived and passed on. Getting into the ground past the Lamium was an
effort,
I'll tell you. and further up into the ocean of silver and green leaves
where the Mrs. Sissinghurst geum's passed away, I tucked in a Futurity red
leafed cannas.

Phlox in my large lipped strawberry/herb jar was shoved over after a
little
pruning of dead stems and tri-colored sedums were put against the phlox to
fill the spaces. And for the Hummers I bought a pot of Rhuella today that
I
happened on at a nice Home Despot that was across the street from where
son
is working this week (he works at the Lowes). I had no idea that HD
carried
something called Athens select plants for heat and humidity approved by
Alan
Armatage!!!! I had to control my urges because they also had Persian
Shield
in two colorations, a black leafed sweet potato vine and I mean,
BLACK.....and two more heat and humidity annuals whose names elude me
right
now but that I was willing to try.

I ran outa plant money........................g

The Loripedilum was a 5 gallon pot and well worth the $14 I paid for it.
The
darkness of the leaves on the two purchases eased my gardeners soul as I
tucked them into their places amidst the silver and greens of the rampant
ground cover.

With all this humidity and rain and heat, the 4's have sprung up to
heights
that scare me. Thick, fleshy, and almost 4 foot tall, I reach into the
foliage of the constipated southern beds and pull them out. The deep
"thunk"
is just teasing the black carrot like tuber that lies in the rich loose
soil. I leave a couple, but pull the rest. They will flop if left to
their
devices and thrill me with a multitude of magenta and yellow flowers, and
evening fragrances all their own, but they will also flop and kill tender
perennials with their massiveness. I keep enough to satiate me with their
aroma's and to kill the Jap's that are now dining on them.

As I stood sweating out front today from the tucking of perennials (this
is
the first cannas I've planted into the front beds, wish me luck, I could
have put them in with the Bengal Tigers and my daddy's Indian shot green
canna's down in the gray water bog behind the house) I noticed a pointy
head
just past the extension bed off the sidewalk bed where the Shenandoah
lilies
were hovering like huge lampshades.

I squinted and thought I recognized the stalk, and thinking it might be
Goldenrod, I went to it, growing there just outside the beds landscape
timbers. All six foot of it.......no, not Goldenrod. Purple Loosestrife.
And quite a beauty too. I will keep her, and enjoy her bright pink
flowers
if the Japanese beetles don't munch it down to bones.

My gardens are now ridiculous with overgrowth. Daylilies gasp for breath
as
they try to rise above their own foliage. The Easter lilies have popped
their petals and need pinching. And the Pineapple lily has more than
amazed
me. I even had to stake it up.

The little wren in the flower basket has hatched her five eggs and out of
five fledglings, she is down to four. They sit quietly huddled together,
their little yellow beaks highlighting their existance in the soft nest
mama
built out of moss and grasses inside the woven basket that sat inside the
plastic hanging pot from last year I had placed on a shelf on the side
deck.

When I finally organized my potting deck (that's actually what it is, with
the BBQ tucked in at the corner for occaisonal grilling of various foods)
I
cleaned off the shelves and organized the many clay pots, empty containers
and neat planters. Then put the bags of fertilizers that were on sale,
with
the Schultz pyrethrum spray I found at the Dollar General store for $1.50
a
bottle I snapped up for the up and coming emergence of Blister beetles
that
will be intent on eating my Japanese anemone to bones. I am ready for
them....

The tomato/perennial boxes are recovering from Sugar's excavations last
fall
and late Winter and I have to remind myself that there is wire covering
the
plants at the soil level. Daylilies that I thought I lost have come back,
weak but back never the less.

Mystic Merlin Malvacaea flops all over the place and needs a trimming. And
Bilbor Felhur dissolved. The bed needs attention and replanting. Just not
today. It's too sticky.

John's little Deutzia slowly struggles to take hold, no sign of growth
yet,
as it sits on the northern side of the tomato box, fed rich, black
trickling
worm casting soil that slips thru the boulder that makes up the wall of
the
raised bed.

Lambs ears in the woods box have sprawled out the plastic timber bed and
the
flowerstems need trimming as they fall over with their weight. And behind
the puddle of silvery white Ears, paddles of sand papery green leaves of
Black-eyed Susans thrust thru with stems of promising arrivals soon to
come.

There is no method to my madness.

Against the fence, the Diablo is erupting. The Pizzazz Loripedilum is
slowly growing, the Wine and Roses weigelia begs to be moved up front
where
it can darken it's leaves and bulk up for me. The Oak leaf hydrangea is a
great mounding bush, that is somewhat stressed with the removal of some of
the lower branches of the protective cedar tree. Appalachian electric had
to
trim it when the Mimosa and Pawlonia threatened to snap my power lines
this
spring

But next to it, on the northern side of the compost pile, the varigated
Weigelia is all happy and thriving in the rich side soils, and next to it
the woods poppy is happily thriving under it's skirts.

The Forest Pansy redbud planted on the terrace against the fence beside
the
dead mimosa trunk that is covered in Virginia creeper is thriving as well,
and at her feet, a clump of Little brown jugs ginger that Michael LaForest
gifted me with is taking hold. I protected them with a large rock to keep
feet from trampling them as you make your way down the steep part of the
slope towards the woods.

And inside the overgrown woods room, the damaged Yoshino cherry is
struggling after losing tips of her branches to the cicada's. They left
my
Kornus Cousa dogwood alone though, and the Harry Lauders filbert is
growing
nicely. The other Forest Pansy redbud I fear has passed on. And I lost a
Viburnum tomentosa that was tucked against the edge of the last terrace
because it was out of sight to me and starved for moisture when it was
trying to establish. I feel like a murderer........But the prickly pear
cactus near it on the rocky ledge laugh and thrive.....go figure. Makes
more
sense though.

After much worrying, I took shears to the Vitex and cut off all the
massivly
damaged limbs and now I think this fall I will whack it completely back to
give it better time to reasses itself in structure next year.

The Crape Myrtles for whatever miracle survived incredible shredding of
end
stems and didn't break but a few ends. And the Orange sherbert trumpet
vine
is loaded with blossoms. It already needs trimming back, I've shaped it
like
an umbrella.....

And vinca has swallowed the ground underneath the Zebra grasses. It's
treacherous to walk near the western side of the west yard.

At every corner is a Spirea, and the old Hollyhock reminds me it would
prefer a more prominent spot to show off. The fig is now busy bushing out
from my half hearted prunings and making figs, figs, figs. And under her
arms and branches, the struggles of the lilies, and other perennials I
tucked under her skirts are evident by glimpses of colors. The America
lilies flashed red. And the Autumn Joy sedum almost weeps out of
desperation
for real sunshine. It flops at the corner where I tucked it a few years
ago,
happy in the soil, but unhappy in position as the fig and Pawlonia shield
it
from the direct sun it so desperately wants.

My BBQ pit/fountain is amazing., I can't keep the water in because
somewhere there is a little leak in the hose that feeds the fairy and
Goddess fountains, There are now FIVE frogs residing in the waters and
gardens, and yesterday I brought a toad home in a waterlily pot to reside
in
the gardens and he promptly jumped out of the pot into the first pool of
water and sat there looking at me with this disgusted look on his bumpy
face.

He was glorious. I know he'll slip in nicely to the community. The
mosquito's were so bad, I had to throw dunkers into the water, but they
don't bother the frogs. I will let those dissolve and kill the larvae and
then throw in some cheap dimestore goldfish next week after I change the
water a bit.

Pineapple sage competes with Feverfew that seeded into the herb jar last
year and resist any efforts to pull them out and plant them into the
garden
where they'd do much better. (the Feverfew, not the Pineapple sage, I put
that there on purpose). And the pink Panda strawberries are bulking up
and
producing more pink flowers and soon I'll have some sweet berries again to
snack on.

Sweet Autumn clematis is covering the wisteria trellis and there
apparently
was a planted purple clematis I tucked in at the base, it's worked itself
up
thru the Kerria japonica and grabbing the Bog sage...

A blousey daylily I had tucked against the Viburnum is showing off her
large
egg yellow flowers and with the rains, the Viburnum is trying to make
blossoms. I forget her name.........

Out front everywhere you look on the west end of the front, blue. The
Egnima
salvia has gone insane for me, and this year I've been blessed by my very
first Ruby throated hummingbird. He's in heaven with my flowers. I hope
the
Rufus don't run him off. He is awesome. That's who I bought the Rhuella
for
today g

Well I can go on but I have to stop for now. But I promise I will pick
this
up and end it proper. There are quite a few more bloomings to share with
you
but 4 a.m. comes early. Thanks again for allowing me to share this with
you. There are pictures to share for anyone wanting to actually see some
of
these wonders.

madgardener up on the ridge, back in a soaked and humid Fairy Holler,
overlooking English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36





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