Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

[Lily left the valley]

Monarch Guardian update: three currently in their chrysalis, one to soon join them (5th instar). The wee one now has a companion, as I found another second instar while gathering leaves for the one we already had. First Monarch caterpillar I've managed to find in the yard this year, as I keep thinking there must have been more eggs I simply didn't spot in time. Unless I find another, this may be it for this year plus the one butterfly already sent on its way.

The plant pictured below has been growing up the garage since we bought the place. It has never flowered, and it's been very difficult to eradicate the roots as it is right against the garage. It always manages to squeeze through the metal framed window and grow inside the garage as well. We think it may have grown roots under the garage, as now something similar started growing up the neighbor's fence this year. The flower on the right edge is Pennsylvania Smartweed, a native--unlike the two Lady's Thumb variants I'm still finding each year.

From inside the garage this year.


There's been no recent progress with the regrade out front. We may be in for some cooler weather, but there's a part of me that's thinking I should just wait until September at this point, and let things finish out the growing season.

I've been building an image gallery from web finds for a sort of idea book for both the backyard pond as well as the dry creek bed. I have a similar one I started long ago for the front regrade.

Today I found our first baby female pumpkin flower broken off the stem, apparently from one of our critters. Sean has now agreed we need to do at least a low, maybe 1', potager fence around the kitchen beds next year. I'm leaning towards willow wattle. There's a place in NH that's not terribly far that specializes in willow. We may lose out from the benefit of the grubs the skunks eat, but we've decided the free pest control just isn't worth it for the kitchen bed damage they've done this year. They can still freely grub elsewhere in all the other beds. The other pie pumpkin is also starting to form flowers, so we may yet have some to harvest this year.

I think I mentioned we had bought a cloche when it was on discount, and if worse comes to worse, I may choose to put it over the pumpkins rather than the more cold tolerant crops to help whatever pumpkins we may get. We'll definitely be planting more garlic this year.

[Manalto]

Lily, nice to see your updates on the garden.

Have you considered getting some branches off a willow (while the homeowner is at work or asleep, of course) and weaving a fence yourself?

[Lily left the valley]

Lily, nice to see your updates on the garden.

Have you considered getting some branches off a willow (while the homeowner is at work or asleep, of course) and weaving a fence yourself?

If I could find a property with it that wasn't the totally will take over your yard type (like the still-haven't-ID's very willowy tree we have in the SE corner right pressing against the neighbor's chain link fence*), definitely possible.

I'd ask for permission first, because there are some very First Amendment Happy folks in my purple town.

*Seriously, we pull up dozens of saplings from that thing every year. It's soooo old and tall. More than we can handle ourselves safely. (You do not want to know the conversation where my Floor Manager tried to convince me he could get rid of it with just a sawzall. )

[Manalto]

The plant pictured below has been growing up the garage since we bought the place.

From inside the garage this year.

Looks like trumpetcreeper, Campsis radicans.

[Lily left the valley]

The plant pictured below has been growing up the garage since we bought the place.

From inside the garage this year.

Looks like trumpetcreeper, Campsis radicans.

I did a quick web search. It's on the west side of the garage (and if I'm correct about the fence, started on the west side there as well), so maybe not enough sun and/or too immature because we keep hacking it down for it to bloom?

Huh. Now I'm wondering if something else I noticed on the house yesterday has anything to do with it...because maybe it used to be over by the house at one point (and also why they paved the driveway the way they did.) I'll touch on that more later in the Craftsmen Guild when I can. Brunch time, and then we have some indoor easy but some lifting and fitting things need doing because it's finally cool on his day off and his ankle seems to be recovering nicely.

[Lily left the valley]

WOO! Great news.

Someone in my town put up an ad for free unscreened fill dirt. The pic showed lots of different sized natural rock. I called, feeling a bit hopeful I wouldn't get laughed at for asking if I could have just the rocks and that I would be willing to screen myself as long as she doesn't mind a stranger on her front lawn.

It turns out the lady that put up the ad has all that to get rid of because they redid their driveway. She is actually thrilled we want the rocks, especially because I offered to screen it on her property so she can just get rid of the dirt which is what most people want.

She was curious as to why I wanted them, so I told her about our dry creek bed. She was thrilled, and told me her friends laughed at her when she said she was going to put up the free ad for the dirt because "who would want that?" And she's already had several claim some of the dirt, and now I'm getting all the rocks I want--which will save us so much money on our project AND there are lots of different sizes to help it look even better.

She's totally fine that this may take time to do, she said there's no rush. I am Fortune's Fool.

[Lily left the valley]

So, the rocks first. The property they used to be at, like many here, is sloped. The homeowners were carving out a section to make an additional parking area. (No street parking in most of winter here due to snow rules.) Apparently the home owner did not discuss with her excavation guy about people taking the dirt or rocks from it, so he was thinking it was a go in, do the job, get paid, done. Then when this "Oh, by the way..." got added, he was not amused.

So when we went yesterday to pick up the next batch, she had actually set a bunch aside. Her guy just wanted to level it and be done with the job, and she felt really bad because she told me I could take all the time I needed which is why she made the pile she did. (Two car loads' worth! Not a small effort on her part considering the distance.) I'm still welcome to go back and do what I originally offered (rake and sift out stones), but now it's not a single mound, it's a more even spread that ate up most of their side yard. This might not be a bad thing for me, really. Less depth to dig into. I had to assure here that really, I thought extra work was what I would be in for in the first place so this is totally ok with me. She said as long as I'm fine with that, then just keep coming over til we get all we need.

She's at a bit of a loss because of the folks that said they wanted dirt, none could come anytime soon, so she has no idea what to do about them because now the dirt is spread evenly with all the rocks still in it (and of course most of them don't want rocks in the dirt). So all the grass that is there is now buried under a foot or so of unscreened dirt, which is not what she thought would happen. Technically, I'll both disturb that level yet help to a point somewhere with my rock searching, but she said she's fine with that. I think she's just resigned herself to it being whatever it is.

I honestly don't think she understands why her guy did not want to come back a week or whatever later to level whatever was left. (Sean also wondered if she realized that might cost more as well before she put up her ad.) Obviously she did not warn him in advance it might be a two phase thing from what little he and I spoke the first day we went over. And from the looks of things, if she doesn't put down a tarp or fast growing groundcover/grass soon, the next heavy rain she's going to have a mess on her hands because a lot of that leveled dirt will then be back down in her freshly paved dug out parking area. They did put a lot of larger boulder sized rocks as a really unstructured retaining wall sort of thing, but that slope is still way too steep to prevent much washoff, and there are no plantings at the edge where the roots would do the job. Not my problem!

We're still trying to eyeball how much more we need to take. Depending on how much raking I have to do to find the rocks around the size we've been taking (from fits in your palm to roughly a football). I think about a week's worth of trips going over, raking, making a pile about the size we've been taking per day so far, then packing them up might do it. I need to draft up a scale elevation so I can approximate.

I'm more worried about way under estimating, but in truth, this project is already now going to cost way less than it was so if we're a bit short after a bunch more trips, we still saved money.

In other garden planning news, the book I ordered, Native Plants for New England Gardens, finally arrived yesterday, but...I got two when I ordered one. I emailed the person on the order form about this (we were only charged for one, so that's not an issue, but they might have mixed up boxes and sent someone ours with just the one), but got an immediate auto response that the person is out of the office until Aug 24th. So for now, the extra book and the box are safely away from kitties in case I have to return it.

[Manalto]

I was at the Pond House in Elizabeth Park in West Hartford today for lunch and thought of you when I saw this trumpet creeper out front:



It's probably a cultivar (flava?); the species is usually a deeper (and, to my eye, more attractive) color, closer to vermilion.

Nearby (on the bank of the pond), the Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium) is blooming.



Joe Pye is a native in the same family as sunflowers that can get quite tall and feeds a wide range of pollinators. It's of easy culture, often showing up in gardens voluntarily.

[Lily left the valley]

I only did a quick search on the creeper so far, and that's when I remembered we actually have two wall creepers on the garage when looking at leaf types.

Joe Pye was one of the plants I hoped we had since we have the two different tall "weed" flowers in our backyard. I've not been able to find any seeds for it in town, but it's on my list for when we finally go to the native greenhouse. We plan to put it around the front yard rain garden.

One is goldenrod, the other is taller and hasn't bloomed yet, but I think it also has yellow flowerets. It might also be goldenrod, as apparently there are different variants that are the different heights. I haven't had time to look it up (as with many other plants here) to be certain. I was waiting until it went into bloom this year.

There's also a New England wildflower book I can buy from the same place, which I hope to do next year. The one I just bought is not a complete list, it's just what the authors narrowed down to when writing the book. (And they may make a second, if I recall what they said on the podcast correctly.)

Here it is near the garage early August 2018, on the center and right side. I thought I had a picture of it closer up, but can't find it quickly. You can see how much taller it is than the goldenrod on the center left.

[Lily left the valley]

Oh, and thank you, James, for the pictures. I'm a bit distracted because Sean just came home from work and he's grousing about getting rocks today. This was something I worried about, since we didn't go yesterday due to rain. I can't drive right now, which is its own issue. (Has to do with a former state we lived in holding things up because of reasons that no sane person would accept.)