June 1st in my garden

Just a few days ago (it seems like it but I see it was May 19) this portion of the garden was shown as my white garden. But now, as you see, the blue larkspur are beginning to come out and in just a few days they will dominate the area.


The astilbe are beginning to bloom. These ones thankfully survived the recent double assault when the deck was first cleaned and then stained. That process puts huge amounts of water around and then the potential for stain to say nothing of the trampling.


The (somewhat) shade garden is full of blooms just now. The heuchera (coral bells) in the foreground are doing a lot better than the ones further over in the bigger shade garden. Perhaps because they do not get quite as much browsing by the rabbit or deer.


And speaking of rabbits - I came downstairs a few days ago to see this one happily munching amidst my flowers. When I first caught sight of it there was a huge branch of the stachys byzantina (lambs ear) in it's mouth. Later on when I looked closely at the area I see the fall aster planted only last year has been very closely pruned so I doubt that will survive but I'll keep my eye on it and spray it with the repellant a few times to see if I can get the plant to put on growth and make it to flowering season in the Fall.


Here is the photo of the same area of the garden that I took just a few hours ago. I see there is a gap in the edging of lambs ear - perhaps the work of the rabbit last season or , to be charitable, maybe the winter did it in - so I need to put that on the list of plants to get next visit to the garden center. As you can see my white daisy wildflowers are really in full bloom all over the garden right now.
The boxwood (Korean green velevet) planted last fall came through the winter well and have put on lots of new growth. I'm so pleased I put up that winter protection.


The first of the lavender plants are out in bloom. This one is pretty much hidden away behind the big boxwood so I had not noticed it. The iris, seen in full bloom on the May 19 posting are over the bloom period completely now. And that salvia just in front of the lavender also appears to have finished without my even noticing.

We are up to day three of very hot and humid weather with highs in the high 90s F (or mid 30's C) so working outside is not really a good idea. For a variety of reasons I have been late in getting my spring planting done this year. These trays of plants are sitting on the driveway waiting to be planted but I hesitate to do that while the weather is so humid and the sun blazing down. In the meantime I am out there watering them at least twice a day and sometimes more. A number of these plants are destined for the pots that I have on the front porch or on the rear deck including the big pots for the cherry tomatoes. That is the only way I can have certain plants as planted in the garden the deer would find them and demolish them within hours.


Another chore for early in the morning on these hot days is to fill the bird baths - and the birds are so happy after that that I often have to refill mid afternoon as there has been so much splashing going on the water is emptied out after just a few visits. The sun was already too bright in the photo above. You can see the rhubarb leaves drooping already. The white flowers you see dotted about in the foreground is native yarrow, another of the wildflowers that I let alone and it rewards me by seeding and filling in.

It is fun to look back at earlier posts and see how the garden was then. For instance my shade garden on May 30, 2010, November 5 2009 or, the very beginning in April 26 2009.

So even if I get few visitors to this blog I enjoy the diary aspect it takes on. And on days when it is too hot to be outside, this allows me to still get my garden "fix" for the day.