Update [2005-8-13 14:3:30 by Armando]: I put this back into the diaries because the photobucket bandwidth has freaked.
Update [2005-8-13 10:2:9 by Armando]: from the diaries by Armando. Consider this a strong vote for continuing and expanding this wonderful blog series. I'll go further, if you discontinue, I will recommend banning you. Just kidding. But please don't discontinue this wonderful diary series.
(Cross-posted at
My Left Wing)
Good morning and may the rains fall on the just and the unjust alike! Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.
Wonderful, marvelous, stupendous weather here in Denver. Had some good rains this week, and temperatures ranging around in the 80's. Today we're supposed to stay on the cool side, maybe make it into the 70's. I've taken advantage of the weather to move some plants around, do some hacking back, and otherwise putter around outside.
There's not a lot of new activity going on in the garden. So here's a couple of wide shots of the front yard:
Looking west
Looking east
Going to start with something different today: a plug for DarkSyde's terrific diary on the development of flowers:
For Those We Love. Do read it if you haven't already. And
Happy Anniversary DarkSyde!
Yesterday was really the primo day for gardening. It was warm, but not too warm. The rains from Wednesday evening had soaked in well, so the ground was moist but not muddy. So I decided to move the culinary sage back a foot, closer to the wild-assed Old House Rosebush, relocated some iris, moved a nice little daylily forward, and split apart a pot of recently purchased daylilies to mix in with the old one. If it warms up enough today, I'm going to split some of the backyard daylilies and spread them through the front.
Despite my best efforts at repeatedly whacking them back, the mums are blooming earlier than I'd like this year. | |
| In an earlier edition of Garden Blogging, I'd mentioned that, while plumbago is a marvelous plant, with gorgeous blue flowers and foliage that turns red in the fall, it can also be very invasive. Here's what I mean. The plant growing out from between the railroad ties is plumbago, which has grown down from above. You can also see in this shot a couple of new mums, which I've put in this year. |
Last week I Love Coffee asked for a full-length shot of the "mystery flower", tentatively identified as cleome.
Whatever it is, I know where it came from. I spotted the same thing growing a block away. So nice of my neighbors to share, even if they don't know they're doing it! | |
A few weeks ago, I posted pictures of a catmint we have in the front yard. It is now fully loaded with flowers, and is in its full spectacular form. Since I don't know the name of it, and I know White Flower Farm, the place where we bought it, doesn't offer it any more, I'm going to try starting another one from seed. It really is a superb plant, and the bees go absolutely nuts over it.
You are not getting any pictures from the backyard today. Once again, I have a disaster area. Mr. Frankenoid has again turned the backyard into an annex of his workshop, so there's sawhorses and lumber, and glops of mortar everywhere. Weeds are rampant, and it's so discouraging I just close my eyes to the worst of it, and enjoy the best. Mr. Frankenoid removed yet again my markers for the walkway, so it will have to be re-measured. Yet another year gone without the walkway project being finished. Besides, I'm still waiting on the rest of the dahlias back there to bloom. I have three plants left which have buds, but no flowers.
Speaking of disaster areas, I saw one on Thursday evening. Here in Denver, I know of two elementary schools that have devoted part of their grounds to community gardens, and there are probably more. My younger son Ian's school is one of them. We were at the school for a before-the-first-day-of-school "sno-cone social". I saw the gardens from across the grounds and decided to check it out more closely -- something I'd never done before. It really is very charming when seen from afar -- butterfly bushes and cosmos, apple trees and sunflowers. But when you get up close, it's largely a weed patch -- a stand of corn struggling against grasses taller than it is; bindweed choking out everything in sight; knee-high tomato and pepper plants. Nothing is as healthy as it should be. I tell you, it made my heart hurt to see what could be -- nay, should be, a wonderful neighborhood resource being under-utilized.
So now I'm pondering, do I track down whoever is in charge of the community garden, and offer my services for next year? Part of the problem is the school is so far away from where we live -- Ian is enrolled in a special program available only at that school, and it's 8 miles cross-town from where we live. It's not like I can just pop over when I have a free ½ hour; it's a 15 or 20 minute drive to get there. Practicality says no, stay away from it, but it's a garden that needs help, and it could be so very beautiful.
And I do have a cat picture today -- here's Arwen the Terrible, stalking some nefarious flying bug or another. My house is littered with moth carcasses from Arwen's efforts. | |
Last, a poll. In a couple of months we're going to be out of active gardening season for us northerners. So, what should we do? Continue Garden Blogging, expanding it to "Home and Garden Blogging", and discuss renovation projects, hobbies, cooking -- anything that doesn't have to do with work, or go on hiatus until late February, or whenever the spring bulbs start poking from the ground an the johnny-jump-ups make their appearance?