Caterpillar Alert!

Sara found these caterpillars in her parsley this week.  They have eaten all the parsley in two days!

Yes, it's large!  And there are many.

But this is what they will look like!  Lovely!

Kim Smith has a great site for more information 

on Black Swallowtail Butterflies.

Good Morning, Sunshine!

  My view on the patio

 today while I sipped my morning tea.

The perennial sunflowers or Helianthus

raise their heads to greet the summer sun.

Seaside Gardens Inspire Ideas

Poppies and pansies!

Love the combination and colors!

Surely can't last through August?

Cool weather blooms?

Maybe in shade on Bearskin Head, Rockport?

Pink roses and purple Salvia spikes

with white double Impatiens

Red roses and purple Clematis 

climb an arched gate

near white Delphinium.

Seaside garden at House of the Seven Gables:

pink roses, Dusty Miller 

purple, white and yellow petunias

blue Ageratum

I have all these plants--just not combined this way!

Lady's Mantle, Astilbe, Foxglove or Digitalis,

Catmint or Nepeta, white double Impatiens.

purple Violas

along a walkway.

Such great ideas!

I hope I remember some of these next year.

These are not my usual colors but match the sea so well.

On the Trail of the Forefathers

We're on the North Shore of Boston for a few days enjoying the sea breeze and doing some genealogy research on my garden man's family.  The family originated in Watertown, then moved to Ipswich and then moved on to Bradford, part of Haverhill.

We were in Ipswich and stopped at the 1677 Whipple House.  As we parked and got out of the air-conditioned car, I was overwhelmed --and literally transported back in time--by the scent of the privet hedge in bloom.  Taken back by the scent to my grandmother's and my great-grandmother's gardens in the early 1950s.

I wish this blog had digital smell!

I went around a corner of the house in the back

and smelled viburnum and lilac

and saw short, clipped grass with clover

leading up some stepping stones and gravel drive

to some evening primrose--

and felt transported not by smell alone, but by sight also.

A good, old-fashioned garden 

with dependable, traditional plant specimens and no chemicals!

I checked out the kitchen garden when we discovered the house was not open.

It was typical for the 1600s:  narrow gravel or crushed shell paths, raised beds, herbs and flowers intermingled and contained within a wood fence right off the kitchen door.

Still, we were traveling back in time a little further to 1636 in our genealogy

and I wanted to find a house and garden that matched that period.

Surprise, behind the main house was a replica of a first period, Puritan home

from the 1630s first settlement in the area.

Now, that's what our progenitor would have lived in 

at the time he was in Ipswich: thatched roof, wood chimney,

a single door with nail stud patterns, single window high on the wall under the eave,

and a rustic fence around a kitchen garden.

Here's what I found inside!

Not much luck so far this year with the garden 

means a hungry winter ahead!

6:34 p.m. June 20, 2016

Yes, it's the beginning of the summer solstice and we should have 15 hours of daylight in this day/night cycle.  What we have definitely had is a glorious summer day.

At the correct time, I was out in the garden and this is what I recorded as the solstice began:

The perennial sunflower started to open to mark summer today.

The Knock-Out Roses are showing all stages--and colors-- of bloom.

Red

Yellow

Pink

The frog rain gauge and the sundial gnomon

made sharp shadows on the bird bath's water surface.

That's my new red Penstemon 'Red Riding Hood'

looking great on the right of the bird bath.

(Planted in the right moon phase: first quarter of the waxing moon).

Thanks to Natureworks' blog for the tip!

The fairy is reading now among the blooming Astilbe and Hosta,

the wild ginger and the Johnny Jump-Ups or Violas.

Last night on Midsummer's Eve she was probably

dancing and making the Coral Bells ring

according to ancient legends about the summer solstice and

Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.

White Coral Bells upon a slender stalk.

Lilies of the Valley deck my garden walk.

Oh, don't you wish that you could hear them ring.

That will only happen when the fairies sing!

~Girl Scout Camp song, traditional children's song~

~sung in rounds~

Father's Day in the Garden

In the morning, my grandson, son, husband and I did a little garden work.  We went to Bear Swamp Road for a little rock scavenger hunt: big ones, flat ones, little ones. We filled the back of the RAV4 and brought the rocks back to the side landscape bed.  I was having two problems.  The mulch was piled so thick over 8 years that we had to dig a channel for the downspout to empty without pooling. Secondly, the landscaper kept spraying the weeds there--and killing my plants, too.  A little dry river bed should do the trick--if engineered correctly.

My new handy man did an expert job 

He also tested it with the garden hose to make sure it worked.

Great job, Robert!

And Grandpa didn't have to do it on Father's Day!

Robert also laid an extra stepping stone on the other side of the house for 

easier stepping by little "flowers" that visit the garden.

And then Robert engineered another garden area.

After several trips to Paul & Sandy's for 6 bags of landscape stone,

he was able to fill in the gravel area of the patio with small, smooth pebbles.

No more "ouchy-ouch" for Lily's bare feet, we hope!

And improved drainage for rainy days?

Thanks, handy men,

for making it such a nice Father's Day

and improving the garden!

Elizabeth Park Rose Garden

We took our two flowers, Lily and Violet, to Elizabeth Park today to see the Rose Garden in almost full bloom. The beds were full of every color rose, so we played I Spy with the color of the rose to keep a 3 year old busy. She found many shades of red, pink, yellow, gold, white and these almost purple ones called Midnight Blue.  

The arches in the central garden were not quite covered with blooming climbing roses, hence the "almost full bloom" comment above.  They may be fully blooming in a week or two. You can see them over my shoulder in the photo below.

The sun became really intense as the cloud cover cleared. We had to seek shade in the Shade Garden.

Lily found this area she called the "tree wood playground".

They were very old cedar trees.

A really enjoyable way to pass an exquisite June day while we await the summer solstice.

Also to celebrate a milestone birthday of my daughter, while teaching 

her two little flowers

about gardens and gardening.

Wild and Wonderful

The wildflowers on the hillside behind us

are looking wonderful with

Sweet William (burgundy), Yarrow (white),

Chicory (blue) and Clover (pink).

Unfortunately, the wonderful is almost 

hidden among the wild and invasive

Mugwort (tall and green in foreground).

Only a few feet from this wild menace called Mugwort

is my manicured and managed garden bed.

Hydrangea ready to bloom.

Just applied the sulfur to keep the blooms blue...

The Gallardia or Blanket Flower and the Nepeta or Catmint

are looking wonderful in the low front of the border.

And then I have my former Knock Out Rose tree

appearing in its wild state from below the graft

as an old fashioned climber

Wild and wonderful!

Soon a Full Moon and the Summer Solstice

This year, the full moon and the summer solstice occur on the June 20.  These two events have not occurred together since 1948, my birth year!  It should be a day and night to look forward to over the weekend.  If you plant by the moon, this is a good week to do your plantings.  Double good?

I just went out to look at the garden as the sun sets tonight.  Last evening I worked so hard weeding and feeding and digging in the garden bed that I didn't look around me.  Only one of the six laurels was blooming well tonight.

Raspberry Glow

earns its name!

The other laurel that bloomed this year

is called Peppermint

and seems to have passed its peak.

This has been an off year for the wild laurels 

that surround our community called Laurel Ridge

so it is not surprising that

the other four hybrid laurels did not bloom.

Doing the June Prune

I mean using the clippers, pruners and hedge trimmers!  Not the yummy little fruit snack my garden man has been favoring lately!

Trimming the Weigela and Deutzia after their bloom created a whole tarp full of trimmings. I also added some fertilizer spikes around these flowering shrubs.  They put on such a lovely display of bloom this year that I thought they may need a boost. I was watering them well when a sudden, soaking shower sent me rushing inside.  Nice treat for the bushes.  A haircut and a snack!

Visit to Sara and Lily and Violet's Garden

Surprise!  A bunny in Lily's fairy garden!  What a lucky day!  And he hasn't been eating the flower garden...

And a close-up of the 'Firecracker' Rose today:

Really stunning this year.

Unidentified Flying Object

Watch out!  The bugs are invading by the billions!

Aphids first.

Now these beetles--

Haven't been able to identify it yet.

But my plant wilted twice last week:

once it was 90 degrees for two days

and the other time, it had just rained.

This is a perennial sunflower plant.

Anyone out there know the bug/UFO?

Double Treats

The double plantings of Siberian Iris in full bloom this morning

in all their regal purple.

Two poppies show their color: watermelon.

A close up of the center of one poppy--

an added treat because it's so unusual.

Sara's Rose

Sara has a climbing rose just off her driveway near the patio fence and entrance. It looked lovely today in the late afternoon with the fuzzy yellow-flowered Coreopsis or tickseed just budding, the Nepeta or catmint  spikes in full blue flower and the 'Firecracker' rose just bursting into bloom in red with deep pink and white centers and bright yellow, prominent stamens in the center.

I'll take a close-up of this cherry-red rose next time I visit. It's having a spectacular season.

A New Flower Bed for a New Generation of Gardeners

When I got over to my daughter's this morning, I found the sprinkler on her new flower bed.  She wanted a butterfly garden for her two daughters, 9 months and 3 and a half years old.

Since they are flowers named Lily Rose and Violet Belle, she definitely needs a flower garden.

She had cleared the grass (what little there was in this corner due to its former life as a rhubarb patch) a few weeks ago. She added some composted manure and granular plant food to each hole she dug. I loaned her my transplanting shovel with the narrow, honed tip which helped the job go a little easier. Some weed preventer sprinkled around the plants before the mulch went down should help her with weeds this season.

Here was her plan with stepping stones and an old tree trunk sculpture as garden features. Hollyhocks, balloon flower, scabiosa and butterfly bush near the railing. Iris and day lilies and some Asiatic lilies around the stump.  Salvia and yarrow and Indian blanket in front with some marigolds to chase away the bunnies.  Alysum and thyme around the stepping stones. Daisies at the corner of the step.

Mulch down and a little girl running over the stepping stones in her bathing suit to her swing makes a perfect flower garden for two little girls.  This was a week ago and you can tell from the first photo taken this morning that it is already taking hold--and the bunnies are leaving it alone so far!

Enjoy it, Lily and Violet!

Congratulations, Sara!