Irene's Garden Visit

Irene's visit here was too wet, too windy and entirely too long. We were  fortunate, but  some of the plants were a bit tangled. Here the golden glows blew down onto the Gloriosa daisies and the anise hyssop.

The buckwheat plants were well stirred.

This Rudabeckia trilobia was really flattened.

The big red hibiscus didn't stand up to the wind. It flattened the flax.

Blown by a strong gust of wind  from the north, it toppled onto of the lemon verbena

Ed's tomato bed looked perfectly normal and when we went to bed that night we thought we had been very lucky and that life would be back to normal. Well, we were very lucky! We had no serious damage, but during the night while we were sleeping Irene left us with a not so nice parting gift. When we awoke in the morning we had no power. The Stone Wall Garden is out in the country. We have our own well so without power we have no water.

Ed dragged our 12 year old generator out of its shed and we began our days of trying to keep the food in the freezers from spoiling and pumping just enough water to meet our needs. Things were humming along until the generator wouldn't start . We loaded it into Ed's truck with little hope, but our friends at Norwich Implement said they would try to fix our dinosaur even though old generator parts are impossible to find. Ed backed the truck up to the shop. Four mechanics looked at the generator shaking their heads.'It's old." " It's rusty". were some of the remarks I heard. But one guy said  "Maybe you'll be lucky and its just that your balls are stuck!" He went to get a big hammer. He whomped it twice with the hammer and it started on the second pull. That was yesterday and it is still humming today. Today I saw NYSEG and Aspeludh trucks in the neighborhood. At my age I never thought guys in trucks could make my heart beat so fast. It doesn't look like it will happen today, but maybe , maybe tomorrow our power will be back on. I write this now from the library in town.  I  know one thing I missed the blog!

The End Of August In The Garden

All summer the hollyhock flowers have been climbing toward the sky. They work their way up the stalk, leaving ripening seeds as they go. The hummingbird still visits these flowers, but I think it's safe to say they are the last hollyhock flowers for this year.



I had to get a picture of this Rudebeckia triloba with its perfectly matching bug. I'm not familiar with the bug but I assume he is always yellow and brown. He certainly looks perfect here. Rudebeckia triloba puts on a fabulous display this time of year. It almost makes me forget what a prolific self seeder it is. This spring I was thinking of removing it from the garden completely. I weeded out many plants, but I didn't get them all. Now the way they glow in the evening light makes me rethink my postion. One thing sure I will cut them back this year to try to keep them down to reasonable numbers.

I'm Innocent !

Look! The morning glory is alive, and beautiful too. I'm so relieved. When I posted "The Magic of Lavender"I thought the plant was a goner, weeded out by my own hand. The guilt was terrible. Now my conscience is clear.

The yellow and black flowers came from Janet. They are Rudbeckia triloba. This plant is covered with blooms and is quite striking. It self seeds with abandon. This year the heat and humidity combined with the fact that I failed to thin the plants properly has resulted in the powdery mildew that can be seen on the leaves. Next year, I'll have to give this plant more room to grow!

Today we are getting some much needed rain. We both watched a mother turkey and her eleven small babies wander into the mowed grass. The babies are so small that their little heads just show above the grass some of the time. Mom hunkered down right there in the middle of the lawn and the babies scurried under her one by one to get out of the rain. Mom determined that breakfast was over and it was time for the brood to dry off and warm up. I wondered if she had room for them all, but the last one seemed to have no trouble finding a spot under good old Mom. Motherhood, there's nothing else like it!