Icing the Ice Plants

For some reason, ice plants just don't do well for me. The rock garden appear to have everything they should like, but it's a no-go. Or at least a no-thrive.

Here is 'Red Mountain Flame' this year. It's the one I've had the longest- about 4 years. It's also the happiest. (with a weed I missed pulling)

At some times of the day, the way the sun hits it, it seems to sparkle!

The other one that is just barely hanging in there is 'Granita.'



This is the 'Ocean Sunset' that I really liked. Here it is in 2024. That one died.



So I bought another one last year. Want to see what it looks like this year?

Yeah. Well, apparently there are some varieties that are tougher. The yellow one- 'Cooper's - is supposed to be really tough. But I have a ton of yellow in the summer and don't really want that. There is an orange one called 'Fire Spinner' that's supposed to be more hardy, and 'Dancing Embers' is sort of a pink-orange. The descriptions of all of them say they are OK in my zone, so who knows.

I'm tired of buying new ones and having them do poorly. Probably no more ice plants.

In other news: I edited. I finished my column for the Daily News. I finished weeding the rock garden and worked a little in the other gardens, and finished mowing the lawn. I'm beat, but it's all good!

Funny story from last night. I forgot to close the fencing at the bottom of the rock garden. I was looking off the deck and darned if that little 13-lined ground squirrel wasn't digging in the bottom of the garden. I clapped and yelled and he got himself back to his hole. He was digging where there are some bulbs, but I don't think he got anything. Fence is now closed. You can believe that!

See Ice Plants

Swapping Plants with Betsy

Betsy asked if she could stop by because she had some plants for me.

She wasn't kidding! She brought me a whole tray of plants, with 13 different things in it! And they've been cared for so they are as nicely established as anything from a nursery. Some are for the rock garden, and some for other places.

I did get three of them planted. It takes a hot minute to figure out where I want new plants to be.

This is Sedum ternatum, Woodland Sedum. It also grows wild and rambly in the woods, although I can't honestly say I've ever found it in the woods. I'm not sure that it likes full sun. I guess I'll find out. Supposedly it tolerates it, but it may not be as sprawling and drape as well as if it had some shade. It will have white flowers, and will contrast nicely in any season with the 'Firecracker' Sedum- the purple to its left.

Anyway, I'm trying it here where the purple rock cress was. That is barely alive. Not sure why- it should be very happy where I put it. Anyway, it's now in a pot and will hopefully recover.

She gave me two Sempervivums that I did not have. I'd been thinking I needed something like these for the spaces between logs at the top of the garden.

This one is 'Chocolate Kiss.'

And this is 'Blue Boy.'

There is some other plant news on the horizon too, but this is certainly enough for one day.

In other news: I edited, I got groceries. Then Betsy came. She already has most of the things I have available to share, but I did send her home with a few plants. It's fun to have a friend who likes the variety of plants as much as I do!

And, you know, I'm contemplating another garden space in my head.

See Betsy's Rock Garden

Color Me Smiling

I got my bu++ out of the chair today and then put it right back down in the seat of the lawnmower. There's really no excuse for why I don't do a better job of keeping things mowed now that we have a good mower. But I don't. Oh well. I did 3 of the 4 areas that I mow (if you don't count the space out back for Confidence Camp). The rest might happen tomorrow.

While I was riding around, of course I took a look over at the rock garden. Wowser! The camera doesn't do it justice. Actually, I've figured out why. The human eye can continually change focus to see the long view and then note the spaces of purple and yellow and maroon and all the shades of green which it puts back into the brain in the long view memory. Forgive the drawbacks of a camera; it's looking really nice right now.

The yellow Asiatic lily opened its first blossom today.

And looking westward in the front bed, this is a nice shot of the blue globe bellflower with the bright pink firefly heuchera flowers behind it.

And just for proof of mowing:

The weather was delightful today. I didn't have to beat myself into going out to work because it was too hot or whatever.

Finished one editing job. Mostly mowed. A little weeding, trimming, etc. But now I think I'm tired.

See Life Is Good in Color

More New Things

We'll start with the last two of the new plants. The final one I had ordered came today. It's very tiny, but I have hopes it will spread. Actually, it will probably do so faster if I separate the rosettes. Maybe tomorrow. It's a Sempervivum- one of the arachnoideum (has filaments like a spider web on it) and is called 'Arctic White.'

Here it is in context. Definitely need it to spread. I spent a fair amount of time deciding where best to put it.

The other new plant I bought last month may turn out to be a mistake. Or not. The leaves are a vary dark green, which is a nice contrast depending on what's next to it. (Not much yet.) And the flowers are a deep blue. But they are also very small, so they are pretty much lost in the rock garden. We'll see if it survives. It is Veronica peduncularis 'Georgia Blue.' Common name- Creeping Speedwell.

The thing down on the road that is new is the paving project. Lots of people are complaining about how disruptive it is, but I can assure you that when I was a kid a project of this magnitude would take at least one whole summer. They will probably have all 5 miles of this done in a month. I'm impressed. The only thing that's tricky is they are doing it so fast you never are positive which lane is the one you are supposed to be in. No accidents so far!

This is new only in the fact that I've never seen a mourning dove come on the deck before. It both used the bird bath and took a few seeds from the saucer. Fun!

In other news: We got 0.7 inch of rain yesterday, but things dried out pretty well by afternoon so I could work in the garden without getting too wet. I did all the tasks as usual. Still trying to work my way through the rock garden for the second time this season. But I've now completed all the spaces where I have to be slightly acrobatic to get to them. The rest will definitely be easier.

Sigh. I have 3 plants in an online shopping cart. Because I had a gift card for most of what I've bought so far this year, I'm not even remotely close to what I spent on the gardens last year. But I still need more money for my tooth, and I just had a big car repair too. Decisions, decisions!

See Some of the new plants

Not On the Lake

We tried again. Still no boat ride. Haha.

Once again, Dan hosted the Spirit of the Woods board meeting at his cabin on Harper Lake with the promise of a boat ride afterwards. Last September, it got dark on us. Today, it rained all afternoon and evening. So we were not ON the lake.

So, although we were not on a boat on the lake, the cabin is "on the lake." At least it was a nice view.

We conducted a lot of important business. I'm really pleased with the way the chapter is developing a leadership team rather than one or two people doing all the work.

Maybe some day we'll get that boat ride. Although the next meeting is going to be at a different place, so it seems unlikely for September.

In other news: I got my quota of editing done and spent a fair amount of time doing prep for the meeting.

See Almost a Boat Ride

Gray Day and a Little Stinker

It was dark and oppressive all day long. Lots of thunder, a little wind, not much rain. (But a tiny bit.) The edge of one cloud rolled over us about 30 minutes ago.

Despite it being slightly wet all day, the finches are spending a lot of time at the birdbath. I'm getting a kick out of watching them.

In fact, I am enjoying them so much, I broke our decision not to feed the birds. It's not a big deal. I found a jar of seeds when I cleaned the pantry and decided to at least use it up. So I've just been putting a handful on the deck railing each morning. Last night the wind was blowing the seeds off, so I corralled them in a pot saucer.

Guess who found the seeds within just a couple of days. The chipmunk. I haven't been able to get a better picture of him.

He climbed right in and stuffed his cheeks full of every seed in the dish and took off.

This is the chipmunk that has been trying to come in the screen door. In fact, he can get in underneath it (twice last year- if it's the same one) and once this year. I've managed to scare him right back outdoors each time. But I decided I need a barrier because he might get in when I wasn't watching.

I have a board about 2 feet wide that just fits across the bottom of the opening. So far, this is keeping him out, although if he works at it, I'm sure he could duck under the screen door edge and jump over the board. To get on the deck at all he has to either make a leap of about 3 feet from the outside stairs, or climb up a window screen and leap about 2 feet. (Because the only access to the deck is through the house) I've watched him do both. Until I got a really good look, I was even contemplating if this was a small red squirrel because I didn't realize chipmunks were such good climbers. They tend to stay on the ground, although I've occasionally seen one higher in a tree.

One day, he climbed right up the screen door and hung there looking at me.

I am considering hanging the saucer on a cable that he can't climb down. That might slow him down for a while until he figures out how to leap to it. Probably not worth it for one jar of seeds that isn't even full any more.

I used to dream of having a small pond and a really wildlife-friendly yard- you know, one of those certified Backyard Habitats from the National Wildlife Federation. But I think I have enough wildlife already.

In other news: I did all the editing stuff and projects, but it wasn't a good day to work outside, so I cleaned the kitchen and spent some time on plant records. Makes me feel virtuous, like Archie Goodwin keeping the orchid records in the Nero Wolfe books. (But I do have pretty good records of the gardens.)

See Home Before the Storm

Pinks and Chipper

It always confuses me that my peony blooms so late in the season. When I was a kid, we always took bouquets to the cemetery on Memorial Day, and they were always iris, bridal wreath spirea, and peonies. But here, those three plants don't bloom at the same time at all!

This is just a plain old pink peony. Not my favorite, but it seems to bloom most years now.

Another touch of pink- OK, pinkish-purple, is a bunch of house finches that have been visiting the bird bath. The bad news is that I can't get good pictures of them through the screen. The very good news is that this flexible screen is working really well, and I can keep the deck door open most days.

Also pink- the 'Siskiyou' Primrose in the rock garden is beautiful right now. It doesn't get as tall in my poor soil as it was in the pot when I bought it, but that's actually better for the rock garden. It likes to plant itself all over the place. I'm thinking about whether this might be OK. In the former iteration of this garden there were California Poppies that self-seeded all over, and I just let them come up wherever they wanted. The thing is, they are annuals, so they never took over. This one is perennial and spreads with underground rhizomes, so I think it would take over everthing if I let it go. I would like to get it going in a couple other spaces and confine it to those.

And the chipper? Well, it's not really a chipmunk. It's a thirteen-lined ground squirrel, and I was outside without the good camera, so I had to take its picture with the phone. The phone does not do well with zoomed pix. But I did capture it for you.

In other news: I did all the usual project things, had a Zoom meeting, got groceries, and continued weeding the rock garden. The weather was perfect!

See A Quiet Day at Home

Life is Good in Color

Just thinking this morning that Life is Good! I was in my chair with a cup of coffee, doing my wake-up computer tasks. The deck door is open. The sun is shining, but it's cool yet with a light breeze ruffling the quaking aspen. House finches with their bright red-purple heads are enjoying the bird bath. I took my morning "walk" to visit the gardens and see what flowers might begin blooming today.

The rock garden is beginning to explode with the yellows of so many sedums, but this picture I took today has to be the color winner. This is a Red-spotted Purple Admiral on the Creeping Thyme

But back to the yellows. The taller stuff is the Sedum Sexangulare, but there are bursts of the still-blooming Sedum 'Weihenstephaner Gold' to the right and one Ice Plant 'Granita' to the left.

This is the Bloody Cranesbill with Dianthus 'Kahori.'

This one has a whole lot of plants. The purple is Creeping Thyme, Sedum sexangulare to the left, the 'Kahori' is beyond that. Just in front of the thyme is the patch of Sedum 'Atlantis' that is slowing getting bigger. A small patch of dark 'Dream Dazzler' Sedum and more Bloody Cranesbill is on the right.

This one was from last week. The variegated Vinca was still blooming. Now it's trying to spread runners to take over the world. I've been giving it severe haircuts. More Bloody Cranesbill to the right. It is also getting shaved on this pass through the garden.

I haven't mentioned this pink flower yet this year. This is the 'Siskiyou' Primrose. It is fairly nifty, although it, too, is willing to spread everywhere. I've currently let it take over two spaces until I get something else to put in the second space. More Sedum sexangulare. And just starting to bloom on the far left is the Sedum elecambeanum.

Finally, color in the sky last night. Very intense, and making even the clouds in the east turn pink.

In other news: I did all the usual things, plus laundry, and put a piece of decor back on the wall that keeps falling off. Yeah, me. Josh stopped by. He's looking good.

See Mostly Current Colors

Front Garden Report 2026- #2

Yeah, yeah, I know I just did report number 1, but I found a picture from 2023 and I have to compare. The shots are a couple of weeks different in time, but I think you can easily see how much bare ground is in the picture from three years ago.

Lots of pictures, but I've done a lot on this in the last week!

First, that approximate view today.

And this is in late May 2023! Confession- I had totally whacked off that seven sisters rose that I hate, to let it start over, but even so, there just isn't much else to see.



Another look at the profusion of color in this section- most of it just foliage. I've dreamed of a garden like this for years, and on a small scale, I'm being allowed to pull it off. You've seen all of this before except the orange 'Caramel' Heuchera. I got that last fall and put it where 'Peach Flambe' had been. Moved the peaches farther west. I'll do a whole Heuchera post one of these days.

A couple of specific things to report. This is the 'Loyalist' Hosta that got damaged last spring, and it has totally recovered. It has a 'Frostbite' Brunnera to the left, 'Cathedral Windows' Heuchera in front of it, and 'Krossa Regal' Hosta behind it.

I've been moving a lot of things around, which is always a bit risky. But here's the white-flowered poppy- about twice as big as when I planted it two weeks ago. It won't bloom this year but it certainly looks like it's going to live.

I have also potted up two baby pink and two baby orange poppies that came up on their own. Some are going to Marie. And I've found more tiny, tiny baby donkeytail in the rock garden (finally!), so a couple of those went in pots for now.

Now let's move to the east. This is where many changes have happened last year and this year. Here's another shot of the far east end. Yeah, I just showed you this, but I added three (one's off screen) small Hosta in the front. I thought they were all 'Blueberry Tart.' The far left front is. But the next one over is similar, but not as blue. So, I have another mystery to try to solve. These were just totally hidden by larger Heuchera leaves on the west side, and I thought they'd make a nice edge in this section because they are low and spreading.

Speaking of transplanting, I said I chopped a chunk off the 'Caramel' Heuchera, but wasn't sure I got a good enough bit of root. But I think I did. It's working on a new leaf! For reference, this is the large orangy-gold one above on the west side.

Other regulars are starting to bloom. The blue Globe Campanula is just beginning. I wish the blue and white would bloom at the same time, but nope.

And this just amazes me. It's the lily that I have no idea where it came from. Last year it had 4 blossoms. This year, it's trying for 6, and it may be having a baby. Stay tuned.

In other news: I got a couple other things done yesteray evening. I fixed a door latch that wasn't working right and finished my column for Mason County Press.

But I woke up feeling awful this morning. Sometimes it just happens. Not much got done in the morning, but by noon I felt better. Somehow, I managed to redeem the day, doing all the editing and a little garden work. The weather was lovely- cool with a light breeze. I think we are going to get rain again this evening.

I wasted a bunch of time playing games while I didn't feel good, but sometimes that's all I can manage.

See Front Garden Report 2026- #1