history-August 2008

In August, a hot month, the rudbeckia (black-eyed susans) were in full bloom and in the rear beds they were joined by an explosion of heliopsis, which mostly overwhelmed their poorly cited foxgloves neighbors. These would later in the season , along with the guara, become covered in aphids and require hosing, cutting and eventually spraying with a "safe" neem oil solution that didn't seem to do much good. I will keep my eye out for some way to import more ladybugs next season I suppose.

Equally loving the heat, my crowded tomatoes completely overwhelmed all my peppers and threatened to shade out the cucumber plants as well. I let them go, as I could hardly keep up with the number of cucumbers from these two little plants. One I didn't get to until it was nearly 18 inches long. Not great eating, but fun to pick and give away as an oddity.

history- May 2008

While in the back, the peonies were in full bloom and the hydrangeas along the fence miraculously were coming back to life and forming buds, in May I began to build the front garden, the vegetable and herb patch and to prepare the driveway for an attempt at growing grass there. I also laid a brick pathway through the front garden with leftover bricks from the driveway job and some antique ones we found under some brush in the back.




We live on a main street, and it was interesting how much commentary from passers-by was sparked by this work. I don't particularly like working in the garden in full view of the world, but it is amazing how quickly one gets lost in the task at hand and forgets about location and surroundings. One guy startled me by shouting from his passing car: "good luck getting anything to grow in this dirt." After I brought in a load of compost and topsoil to mix into the gravel and clay, a kind stranger driving by offered to give me some of his peonies and white siberian iris clumps that he had been dividing that week. Tickled at the kindness, I accepted and would tuck them next month into my new bed along with a smattering of other perennials acquired from local nurseries. We visited John's dad and stepmother this month and she gave me a smattering of shade-friendly perennials from her garden--some yellow foxglove, sedum, missouri primrose and sweet woodruff--which I tucked into the back. I also took 10 tiny cuttings from some wild rose bushes near my mother-in-law's house over Mother's Day and tried to get them to root. These are pink rambling-type roses that I really love (see photo of parent roses growing on a fence in Nantucket). So I dipped them in rooting hormone, stuck them in pots covered with bags, stretched burlap over the newly seeded driveway, and waited.