I'll start.
Today I planted a weeping cherry tree. What a lovely, gentle tree.
Also did one window box and a row of marigolds where the vegetables will be.

Three window boxes - mostly deep purple petunias (can't resist the delicious vanilla scent floating in through the drawing room windows).

And some pots - marguerites and Convolvulus sabatius; a dark red pelargonium.

Bought a tarragon plant and a 'Porlock' thyme at the farmers' market this morning but haven't decided where to plant them yet. Datura and basil continuing to acclimatise.

Surrounded the hostas with holly trimmings. Damn slugs.

The two year old watered everything. A really happy day.

clb

And don't you love the way the deep purple petunias look like they're made of velvet? I just want to rub them all over.
The cherry tree is acclimating, too. Realizing that I have designs on the garden but that it's not my garden, it's my parents garden. Working on letting go.

So sad for me. Left all my "stuff" in Texas. Put it into storage. Am up in Missouri helping my elderly parents. Gave away my plants. My laurel bay. My fig, my roses, my jasmine. My strawberry pot laden with small green fruit. Saddest of all was my Meyers Lemon tree. When last I saw it, it was covered with blossoms, bees buzzing about noisily. My daughter tells me that now it is sprinkled with the tiny green nodules that someday will grow large and heavy and yellow, putting sunshine into someone else's life.

I couldn't stand it any longer. I went to the nursery today and bought another. Of course MINE was about six feet tall and happily ensconced in a huge ceramic pot. The newcomer stands ten inches at best. But it, too, is covered with blossoms. And I'm happy again.

I think I'll make lemoncello.

Ah yes, Melonious... It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

After several years of benign neglect, I decided to commission Tim Heady to refurbish our gardens. He's an excellent landscaper who know plants, is honest and has a good aethetic. Today he notified me that he had redone two of the gardens. He called to ask if I'd been up to the house, and I said I was waiting for my daughter to give birth so we were staying in the city. I asked how does it look and he said "awesome." I can't wait to get there!

He also transplanted many iris that had spread rather randomly into thicker clusters, enriched the soil and added the these plants to two of the garden areas. One is a perrenial border and the other is a woodland garden under trees.

42 astilbe
18 galium
8 columbine
18 heucera
10 foxglove
10 phlox
8 yarrow
8 lamium
8 Japanese iris
8 nepata
8 alchimilia
6 peonies
9 heleborus (1 gal.)
6 heleborus (2 gal.)
4 Blue lacecap hydrangea

There is a marsh garden yet to be done and a part of the property that has long swaths of granite shelving protruding, on which I want to make a rock garden. Finally, if I can find a place with enough sun, a cutting garden. No veggies though. Except I might try tomatoes in containers and herbs in pots.

Working the iris bedis a backbreaking project, but it makes a huge improvement in subsequent seasons. Pulling out the knobs, breaking them up, rejuvenating the soil, replanting them.

Works well for people, too. Sometimes we get very comfortable with the view, so it's time for a new view...

I planted the impatiens in the window boxes on my back porch, ie, grow in the dark gardening...Altho compared to all of you, that feels comparable to admitting I eat at McDonald's...


I thought I had jumped the gun, but they seem to have weathered the weekend well..

And in a bonus *not* of my own making, I harvested armloads of lilacs from the boyfriend's hedge....Lovely...My whole house smells of them....

Yes, yes; I had to pull down the top of each branch to get to the flowers....He's fairly clueless on how to deal with this bounty(tho willing to put lots of effort into his yard); where *is* the right place to deadhead this year?

I have to admit, driving home, with a huge paint-container full on the floor of my car,as a temporary transport mode, the scent was intoxicating...Drug-like....

I think smell is the most evocative scent...

I have 2 lilac bushes that sit next to the stairs up to the porch. I cannot wait for them to bloom....

sometimes, life in New England is heaven. I am getting a kick just watching my neighbor's peonies grow. They are no where near blooming, but I love keeping an eye on them still.

I associate the scent of lilac blooms with baseball cards. I'm an American boy.

Right

The viburnum has gotten tall enough to get full sun, and it's covered with beautiful white blossoms. And my beloved Japanese maple is doing very well.

Some of the perennials didn't come up this year. I miss the bleeding heart and the hostas.

Miguel the garden guy is coming Friday to clean up and plant some annuals - baby impatiens, calladium, fuchsia, oxalis.

Hostas here are huge from the combination of very wet and very warm spring.

Azaelas and dogwoods have already peaked, and it was an equally good year for them. Some of the azaelas looked like the colors were fake they were so vivid.

I've heard there's a new tomato plant lady at Union Square on Saturdays - she grows over 100 varieties of plants. More info to come..

Tomorrow: in go the leeks, basil, peppers, etc.

I have a few blooms on the sweet peas training on my front fence ... just a few, though. I fear this might be it, these few. I am grateful for whatever they offer, however, as I've never had sweet peas even get this far priorly. The seeds were put in the ground in November, or possibly even October, and the vines have just matured enough to bloom now, in May -- 6 months later. It's me, not them -- there's a bunch of different varieties with respectively different habits. All pink, though.

Cutting flowers from one's own garden is one of life's true pleasures, to me. I would not delegate the task.

Also the amount of flowers I have available to harvest does not overtax me and my Fiskars™.

I am at my parents' and the house is filled with peonies from the garden. The bright red poppies look lovely from inside against the lush green view. The irises down the hill by the driveway are doing well.

Peonies scent wafts through every room. Sigh....

Lavendar Thyme

Summer Squash

Butterhead Lettuce

{in my parents' garden}.

Last spring, in a garden in the Chilterns - rolling hills between London and the Cotswolds - I planted a black and white garden: black hollyhocks, heuchera (black leaves and white blooms) and white campanula. Last week I returned to find it fairly overrun with weeds, but can happily report that beneath the invaders my hocks had grown to a goodly 7' tall; that the campanula have continued to balloon and that the heuchera, if not gargantuan, remain at the least alive. All perenials, it seems safe to assume that next year they'll be better off. And the hocks still have a number of blooms to burst.

Today, inspired by Saturday's trip down to the Sissinghurst Castle Gardens in Kent, I beefed up my wee garden with a few white anemones and herbs: rosemary, thyme, sage. Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, who created the Sissinghurst gardens, had made an entire room, as they intended their gardens to be felt, of just white blooms. Though admittedly September is a bit late, it all remains suspended in a gloriously postposed early death.

I'm obsessed with keeping the squirrels from destroying things as they make thier furry preparations for winter. So far, they have dug up my recently planted mums, knocked over a miniature myrtle that was perched on my proch railing, dug little holes all over the lawn, and taken a flying leap into a basket of fuschias that is miraculously holding on into October (I hope). Grumble.

I've yammered on endlessly about my anti-squirrel deterrents: red pepper and fox urine. Let me know if you haven't been subjected to my rants on this subject. Or if you prefer, you can sit on your porch with a squirt gun and a can of beer.

I actually saw fox urine last time I was at Russo's....

Squirrels are clearly not intimidated by feline domesticus, or their urine...You'll have to trust me on this one...

I haven't had a squirrel problem since the tree (30" urban weed) was removed next to my building...

I'm crushed. I thought it was due to my pepper advice.

Another idea is just to feed the squirrels, so they don't eat the bulbs . I never have the heart to shoo away squirrels. I have one mother squirrel who comes to visit my back sliding glass door to beg for food. And since she is a mother, I tend to give her endless supplies of nuts and bread. She also eats the sunflower seeds that my outdoor birds scatter. My yard seems to be an animal sanctuary these days, with more birds in my yard than I can keep up with, ... Thank heavens I only have 1 squirrel though, and I hope she does not teach her family to come to over!

As for my garden, we're harvesting tomatoes. Since I'm in the PNW, with a short growing season, this year we tried several varieties of Russian heirloom tomatoes, which did wonderfully (beautiful names like Zaryanka, Moskovich, Urbikany, Sasha Altai, Mother Russia, etc), in addition to various romas (banana legs was a fun one, but not as flavorful as I had hoped for, and ditto for the yellow pear). We have 19 plants in all... Green grape (very sweet), which we had not tried before, is one we want to plant again next year for sure, and sungold is always our favorite cherry tomato. Pole green beans are doing well, too, and new zealand spinach (reseeded from last year). Also various herbs. We were lazy and did not plant much of a veggie garden this year, though.

My landscaping mainly consists of a large rockery garden that extends the width of our lot and down to the street level with lots of varieties of Rhodies, azalias, 3 japanese maples and some various fir trees, Camelias, and a small rose garden along the path leading to our door, and some varoius vines (honey suckle and trumpet flowers) on the other side of the house by the deck, and potted flowers on the deck. Everything is overgrown it seems, and in need off pruning. It's a bit overwhelming. It would be wonderful if I could find a spot for a lilac tree, as I love them so. Our peonies didn't do well this year, maybe the plants are too old or we didn't fertilize properly... And same for our begonias. They were duds this year.

My boss calls squirrels 'rats with tails'. A slight exaggeration of course, but I get his point. They cause all kinds of damage at work, quite apart from the usual digging up of crocus bulbs etc. They steal birds eggs, they chew through electric cables, they sharpen their teeth on the roof lead which then has to be replaced etc etc.

v