A Week of Birds

It's been a week filled with bird encounters.  Yesterday, my daughter and I visited Cheshire Nursery and Garden Center to find plants for her bed under the Japanese maple tree and the dogwood tree.  As we left, a killdeer on the rooftop chattered at us.  We took a photo from the car.

I found baby birds on the fence

and in the garden

I'm not sure what kind of bird they are.

Today's encounter was tragic.  In cleaning up after the rainy days last week, I found a bluebird --dead-- among the plants under the windows.  The bird must have flown into the window with the glare of the sun yesterday.  It was in perfect condition.  The blue feathers were brilliant and its chest coloring a soft, reddish brown color.  We put it near the compost pile to continue its cycle in nature.

More Rain, Rain, Rain--and Reading

When you can't garden, you might as well read about gardens. I've recently finished reading and enjoying The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock.

It brings together my interest in flowers, gardening, and botanical illustration.  Mary Delaney was a woman who started to make paper collages of flowers from paper that she painted with watercolors and cut out with scissors to make intricate and accurate images of flowers--at the age of 72!  Another inspiration for those of us who are retired from one life and are beginning another era in our life.  I saw an exhibit last year of Mary Delaney's actual work at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven.  The author of the book did not see this exhibit, so I feel very fortunate to have seen the 30 collages and the embroidery that inspired it.  I hope that the watercolor lessons, the pastel lessons, the botanical illustration lessons, and my love of plants and gardens will inspire me in my seventies.

I am almost half way through reading the book Founding Gardeners by Andrea Wulf.



It's about the gardens George Washington developed at Mount Vernon, Thomas Jefferson designed and implemented at Monticello, and James Madison made at Montpelier.  John Adams' farm at Braintree was not quite the estates these Virginia gentlemen established, but his love of manure and the everyday work in the garden is inspiring also.  I was amazed to learn how thier gardens and their interest in gardening helped to establish our national identity.
More rain predicted for tomorrow, so I may be able to complete the reading of this book before I go back to my own garden to perform the essential everyday ministrations the rain has interrupted.

Rain, Rain, Rain

We have had several days of rain and cool temperatures.  I brought the last of the peonies in to put in a vase, but they were too rain-soaked to even survive inside.  My Sunny Susy Red-Orange Thubergia vine has bloomed in all its red-orange glory, but the blossoms soon fall off.  The vine has been growing down from the herb box in which I planted it on the deck.  I bought a trellis yesterday and wound its tendrils around the metalwork design-after untangling its long downward growth. 

Maybe it will grow upward to the sun--if the sun appears tomorrow!

Severe Storms as Front Moves Across CT

Two days of hot, humid weather kept me in the garden watering and deadheading.  I was too hot to take photographs--and the plants didn't look their best in the steamy atmosphere either.  I did take some photos of the Kalmia latifolia or Mountain Laurel before the heat set in.  These laurels grow wild all around our development.  They put on a show equal to the Mountain Laurel Sanctuary in Union, CT.

June Is in Full Bloom

The Chinese Peony Paeonia lactiflora 'Sarah Bernhardt' is in full bloom with some increased temperatures since the cool weekend.

The double Knock Out roses are cherry red but are called Rosa 'Pink Double Knock Out' perhaps for the center and under sides of the petals. Whatever the color name, the roses look great with the last of the Siberian Iris (Iris sibirica 'Caesar's Brother') blooms in deep purple.

The False Indigo Baptisia australis  and the Catmint Nepeta racemosa 'Walker's Low' and the Hydrangea macrophylla 'Endless Summer' and the last of the Irises (unknown kind from garden club members' gardens) bring blue to the garden.

The lilac blooms are brown, the tulips and daffodils just wilting foliage almost matching the mulch in color.  The violas and pansies are surviving in the shady areas, but leggy in stem and faded in petal where it is sunny. The bleeding hearts have disappeared.  The azaleas look bedraggled with the spent blooms smashed by the rain and then dried like papier mache on the leaves and branches.  Even the heuchera blooms swaying in the breeze look like they belong in a dried flower arrangement.  But most missed in the garden are the baby robins.

The nest is empty.  No blue shells or wide-open mouths trimmed in yellow gold. I hope they made it as fledglings. I'm concerned that a predator found them. Not a snake, but maybe one of those chipmunks I often see in the beds (and today in the garage), could make its way up the columns and under the deck trusses.  The kind of moments in the garden that are not as pleasant to think about...



Sudden Summer Storm

This afternoon powerful storms moved into the area. They were predicted to bring high winds, drenching downpours, and hail ahead of falling temperatures.  I went to the garden to cut some of the Siberian iris which were already falling over and the bearded iris in yellow and light purple.  I was concerned that I would lose the peonie buds if the rain was heavy.  I added some yarrow for texture--and this is how the arrangement looked.

Some of my buds and blooms were safe from wind and rain damage on the kitchen table.  As it turned out, the storms went north of us and caused much damage there.  We only had some huge drops of rain for the short time it took me to gather this bouquet. We will have temperatures dropping from the 80s today to the 70s tomorrow--and a chance for the peonies and irises to add their drama to the garden.