The Indoor Plants

It's astonishing, but I can't think of anything interesting to blog about!

I edited, I did computer stuff, I shopped, I filled the veggie tray using my new chopper (it looks beautiful), but how many times would you readers find the same tray filled with the same vegetables interesting? I started to look up a little bit about the next generation in the genealogy, but as I suspected, there isn't much to find. I may have to get that DAR membership to learn much (which would be easy except for the dues because Granny and Mom were both members- so I don't have to start from scratch to prove anything). It was this generation's son-in-law who fought in the Revolution, and gives me the right to belong.

I played my game (but I MAY be able to be calmer about it.) They've added many layers of events because the really top-level players need things to do. So there's no way mid-level players, such as I, can explore all the lands. So I can just pick what I want to work on and try to meet my own goals.

It's fun. The current quest is to assemble a skeleton of the "Loch Dess" (not a typo) monster. You have to get some of the bones from an Inuit who was making oars of the ribs, a dog who wants to keep some of the bones, and a clown who is charging people to look at the skull. You have to go find the things these people and the dog want to trade for the bones. Along the way, there are rewards you can get, resources to collect, etc. And you have to keep your home station operating in order to have enough energy to do all this stuff.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure you really don't want to see a lot of screenshots of a game you aren't playing yourself.

How about the plants I'm nurturing in the house over the winter? Still not too exciting, but it's the best I can do today. I am attempting to keep a bunch of Coleus going. I brought in the 'Lemon Coral' sedum and the 'Sea Urchin' sedum. I have one sprig of 'Blue Elf' sedum, the wandering jew, a tiny aloe that manages to live but not thrive, and a whole bunch of the Aloe squarrosa which is a houseplant. I'm still trying to give several of those away if you are interested...

Remember the cleaning/sorting project I mentioned in September? Well, the point of that was to make space on a table where I can keep these plants for the winter. I think that space gets enough light to make them happy. And it doesn't matter if some water leaks onto the plastic cloth or the junky table underneath. In my dream world, I have one of those earth-sheltered greenhouses attached to my kitchen door by a breezeway, so I can keep plants and grow vegetables over the winter. Meanwhile, I have a rusty folding table and an old plastic tablecloth. It works.

Tomorrow is going to be nice again. I have a plan to do something more exciting than grocery shopping.

See Last Hurrah, Rock Garden 2025

Compost and Cole Slaw

What do those two item have in common? They alliterate. Both of them figured prominently in today's activities.

I've been composting for decades, but I rarely seem to get around to using it for anything. Decided to change that today. Look at this beautiful, rich dirt!

Some of the spaces in the rock garden on the far edge have an awful lot of really heavy clay soil. There are pockets of clay in the sand here. It was a terrible problem when they rebuilt the road in front of the house in 1990. It's a pretty bad problem in a garden too.

Can you see the three spaces that are darker? I mixed that compost in with the clay to lighten it up.

That was all the outside time I managed before things heated up.

But I had bought a cabbage yesterday so I could make cole slaw. However, I did not buy an onion because I thought I had one more than I did, so only half of the cabbage got chopped up for now.

Here's another thing this compost and cole slaw have in common- they are both in round containers and they are both made from natural ingredients.

One feeds me, one feeds the plants. What else?

I'm feeling entirely too sedentery, but it was too hot to function. I watched a movie and did computer stuff most of the day.

See Swimming and Slaw

Flowers and Weeds

I expected the gardens to be in much worse condition than they are, so that is good news. Also, I expected to miss the blooming of several flowers that I really enjoy. Turns out, I didn't miss much.

However, the weeding will need to begin in earnest after the weekend.

Here is a shot the length of the front garden bed.

The blue and white Globe Bellflower are in bloom. The white ones have too many weeds to show up nicely right now. But the blue ones are great.

The rock garden is colorful, but it's really overrun by weeds and overly aggressive plants. For sure, I'll start on that on Monday.

Right now the Sedum sexangulare is in full bloom and dominating the look (along with some other yellow-flowering sedums). There are other bloomers, but they need cleaning up to be very visible.

The biggest surprise was the Wood Sage and Viper's Bugloss in full bloom in the driveway bed. There's also a blue bellflower in there. I hadn't planned that would be a blue garden, but right now, it's making a fine impersonation of one!

You'll see more details as I get areas cleaned up.

The car is unpacked and repacked. Some stuff is put away. I didn't exert myself to strongly today. Just trying to guarantee that I'll be ready for two days of being upbeat to talk to people and sell books. Muskegon Lakeshore Art Festival this weekend. I have to leave at 6:30 am.

I used to give myself 2-3 days after a major hike to recouperate. Not happening this time! I don't think I'm getting tougher as I get older, so maybe I'll need to give myself a real break next week.

See Flower Bed Reports

Old Flower Friends, New Flower Friends

 I'll start with the new flower friends. This is the very newest. Sue gave it to me for my birthday! It's an Azalea, variety 'Stewartsonian,' with deep red flowers. I'll take its picture again when more of them open. She said the color I got was pot luck, but I like it.

This isn't actually the flowers. These are mostly grown for their foliage It's one of the Heuchera I bought last year, and it's really happy. The variety is 'Peach Flambe.' I like this a LOT. It will add bright color all season.

This is one of the two Brunnera I bought last year. This one is 'Frostbite.' The other one is either dead or not up yet. There are a lot of things not up yet, so who knows. I'm so happy to see it bloom. I knew the flowers were small; it's more of a foliage plant. The leaves will get very big after the flowers are done, but I love the delicate blue for spring.

Now for the old friends. I show you these most years. However, last year I divided and moved most of these, so I'm happy to report that I now have multiple puddles of all of them.

First is the traditional English Primrose. Three clumps in bloom! It was quite breezy when I took the pictures.

This is the Cowslip Primrose. It seems to be very very happy for me. There are three puddles of this now, also.

And I also split the purple Corydalis, possibly 'Berry Wine' variety. Both clumps of it are blooming.

It's pretty early to be digging around yet- too easy to cut plants that aren't quite emerged. But I need to get my fencing up. The deer love azaleas, so it will have to go in prison, and I now have netting for the front garden and the rock garden. I think I'll need to get those up next week.

I worked on the book today, and spent some time with Cathy. We took a tiny walk. Did about 90 miles of campsites and some editing. Might do more yet tonight.

Total miles hiked in 2024: 210.9 of which 70.6 is North Country Trail.

See A High Probability of Naughtiness

How Are those Annuals?

Remember the annual flowers I got for almost nothing? Mixed report on how they are doing. The pink New Guinea impatiens recovered and bloomed nicely. You can see they were all in metal jail at the time.

The impatiens with white flowers next to it also was covered in new blossoms. Then I found some bird netting I already owned. I replaced the wire with that because I didn't really have enough wire, and the netting looks so much better.

But, someone with teeth got under that (No big surprise, I guess. I didn't have it fastened very well) and ate all the flowers off those two plants. However, now the other white impatiens is blooming.

The Gazenias are doing better. I don't think they were eaten, but they did take longer to recover from the end-of-sales-season neglect and being root-bound. They seem to be different colors, so that's cool.

This one is really nice. It's not fully open. Maybe tomorrow. They close up every night, but the way the petals are curled I think this one just isn't all the way open. I'll check again tomorrow.

Something ate the tops off of several plants in the rock garden, so I may need to fence that too. The bird netting seems to work really well when I spend more time to fasten the bottom down with garden staples. I didn't have any garden time while Bernie and Loretta were here, but now I'm back to my own schedule and I did manage to spend a total of an hour in the garden today, plus I made a video someone wanted. Then I had a meeting in the evening. My brain is apparently still flaky post-hike. Hopefully, I will get most things done more or less on time and not miss any programs. It's really bad when you miss a program you are supposed to give. It has happened twice in my life. Totally embarrassing.

See Salad for the Baby Charlie

Salad for the Baby Charlie?

I did work in the rock garden a little more today, but I'm going to wait on the report. I got sidetracked with other things that needed to be done.

Did I tell you about my baby woodchuck, er charlie? (My friend, Chuck, prefers that friends not take his name in vain.) A couple of weeks ago, there was a baby woodcharlie hiding under the edge of a blue tarp on the porch. I scared her off into the pine trees. On the way, she ran the gauntlet of all my wire cages around my plants. Not that she went around the cages which are primarily to deter deer. No, she just ran through them as if it were her own personal fun house. I have no idea if it's a girl or boy, but I'm going to call her Charlotte.

Last night she was camped in the flower bed. See her hiding?

Hiding turned out to be a big joke. I yelled at her and told her to scram. I clapped my hands and stamped my feet. Here's what she thought of all that. No, her head isn't striped. Those are shadows. I had to actually come at her with a stick in my hands to get her to run away.

Segue to today. I had to do errands. Blech. But one of them was to go to Tractor Supply and use a $10 credit before it expired. I figured I'd roam the aisles until I found something I wanted. Who knew they had plants? The remains of their inventory was on a clearance table in front, with gallon plants marked down to $1 each! Now, the selection wasn't huge, but hey.

I won't show them all today, but I got 6 perennials and 5 annuals for $1.06. (Had to spend OVER $10 to use the card.) At basically "free" I'm willing to add a little color to the front flower bed. There are 4 New Guinea Impatiens (will tolerate sun), and in the other pot there were 3 Gazanias and a surprise Coleus. None of the plants were super end-of-season stressed. There is still plenty of summer left that these should have nice blooms.

Well, that is, if I can keep Charlotte from eating them. She (or perhaps her rabbit friends) have eaten all the leaves off the wild violets. This isn't a huge problem. They will come back, but I was thinking they'd make nice foliage cover instead of bare dirt. Not if they are all stubs. Hmmm.

So, I had to deploy more wire cages to cover all the new plants. I now have so much wire draped over plants it's a little ridiculous, and I'm running out of scraps of wire. I'm considering a low fence that will keep Charlotte and her friends completely out of this bed. I have a roll of 4-foot chicken wire, but I decided I wasn't willing to have everything look quite that ugly. And it would be really difficult to get inside to weed. I've priced 2-foot wire, and it's not bad. I can still cover the hostas inside, which is the main thing the deer eat, and 2-foot should keep out the small critters.

My other big project of the day which kept me out of the garden somewhat is that I've made the final transition to the computer David gave me last year. I've really pushed my luck keeping the other computer alive. It's way past time to switch. I'd already gotten all the software updated and all my online accounts synced. Today, I did one more backup of all the files on the old computer and I'm blogging from the new one.

Whew. My usual MO is that the current computer crashes, and then I'm paying someone to try to recover things since the last backup. So I get a couple of points for doing it right this time.

See Snaky/Sneakey

Tiny Tears

No, I'm not crying. Not crying at all. I'm pretty sure I've identified the miniature hosta Ester gave me years ago as 'Tiny Tears.' It's one of my true garden success stories. From a tiny puddle, it has grown enough that I have a strip about 5 feet by 8" lining the edge of my front flower bed. I have a similar strip filling in on the east side of the same bed, and I gave Betty a puddle of her own this year.

The strip between the grass and the rest of the flower bed is all Tiny Tears.

It's starting to bloom this week. I love this little plant on many levels. It's subtle. It's apparently so short the deer don't want to eat it- only about 2 inches tall if you count just the leaves. The flower stalks rise up to 6-8 inches with purple flowers.

Most hosta flowers aren't worth mentioning. It's really grown as a foliage plant. However, these little guys are stunners!

Well, I'm not crying, but I may be whining a bit about the wheelbarrow wheel. What a hassle. It has been going flat, so I attempted to fix that yesterday. Blah, blah, too much time and money later, and still more time and money today, I will have a new one on Monday. The tire itself has dry rot and keeps ruining tubes. It's not even that old. Way too much work for something so simple. But if I'm going to garden, I need a wheelbarrow.

I also started working on hacking the autumn olive out of the yard down near the road so that can be mowed. I can only work on that for a short amount of time.

See Just a Spot of Color

Garden Fairy, Refrigerator Fairy

Remember the Garden Fairy? The one who put a yellow Asiatic lily in my flower bed sometime prior to 2018? Being caged has saved it from the deer (removed for the picture), and I don't know why the moles haven't found it. Anyway... it is blooming! Three buds, two of them open today. I don't know what variety. It doesn't seem to be one of the specialty ones. I wouldn't mind if this had babies.

And when I got home from the vendor event this weekend, another fairy had been in my refrigerator! Fresh strawberries! Thank you to whomever...

I sure did not get things done today at the rate I had hoped. Errands, paperwork from the weekend, inventory and ordering more books. There must have been other things because I was working all day long, but I can't account for them.

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the things I need to be doing. Hopefully, I can do a better job of getting my act together tomorrow.

And I updated my author web site with upcoming shows and programs.

See One Garden Fairy, One Garden Liar

Rock Garden Report - 2

Well, I didn't work on the hike statistics at all today. Mostly I was getting ready for the Lakeshore Art Festival this weekend.

My car still wasn't completely emptied from the hike, and stuff for vendor events was all over the place and not ready.

In between, of course I'm gardening. Here's what the rock garden looks like now. I now have about 19 out of ~80 numbered spaces weeded. I've added three plants, and found remnants of more that have survived.

Here's a closer view of the strip I'm working on.

Here's what it looked like on June 2, with 10 spaces sort of cleared just so you can see that I have made some progress.



Why am I starting on that edge instead of the outer edge and working in? Because it stays in shade till about 11 am. After that it gets full blazing sun, and it's a killer to work out there. Today was overcast until almost 1 pm, so I extended my weeding out from the wall a bit.

I'm also working on plant records. All my old notes are so far out of date- plants that died, plants that moved themselves- that they are worthless.

I've always said that the rock hill just swallows plants. You can't even see my three new ones. Don't worry. I'll show you one of these days. One huge find is that one of my favorite sedums has spread, so I. potted up some sprigs of that to put in a second space. One huge problem is that an autumn olive had taken root on the hill. I cut it down way earlier this year, but the roots need to be chopped out, and I'll be working at discouraging it from coming back...probably forever.

Rock gardens, when they are done "right" are stuffed full of plants that fill in niches and cracks. They are usually the kind of gardens that you stand around and study because you'll find new things every time. They usually aren't noted for big swaths of color and flamboyance.

I also did laundry.

Anyway... I'm beat. I still have to pack some clothes and fix food to take for the weekend's lunches. But I think that's all... oh yeah, wash the dishes.

See Last Garden Post for a While

Spirit of the Woods Meeting and a Surprise

Today was the annual meeting of the Spirit of the Woods Chapter of the North Country Trail Association. We were welcomed at the venue with the electronic sign just for us.

If I counted right, we had 21 people there. That's a pretty good turnout. Our membership is highly scattered, and a number of people are away. President Loren Bach conducted the meeting. The same officers got re-elected, but hopefully we'll get some new takers for next time as officers are only supposed to serve a total of 2 two-year terms.

The enticement to show up was food. Nice selection of salads, soup, and desserts. Great for a hot day.

Almost everyone chose to hike following the meal. Just another group picture, but we like to remember who came. Also, almost everyone hiked farther than I did, but I needed to get back home to finish packing.

The meeting place was really near the trail, which was perfect. And where was that? Bowman Lake, one of my favorite spots in our section.

You know I can't stop looking at plants. This is an oddly-colored wild columbine. Usually they are maroon with creamy edges. But several plants in the vicinity were only the creamy color. They didn't seem aged, and that's not how the flowers fade anyway. So perhaps they lost their color genes. Actually, this is how variegated plants appear from time to time. Or perhaps they are lacking some nutrient.

And now for the surprise. Wow! I sure did not expect this. Look what was open when I first went outside this morning. And it's one of the red-orange ones. I'm super happy, and I got to see it. That bud sure didn't look close to opening. (see yesterday's post)

So, I'm not quite packed yet. I have to move into high gear, but I needed to rest just a bit. Eight hours of driving tomorrow which I'm not looking forward to.

And here's the possibly "bad" news. It could happen, but I'll be surprised if I can blog from our campsite. So, don't worry if there is no post tomorrow, or possibly the following days. I'll try to quick put an occasional picture on Facebook when I have signal. Bill, David, and I are meeting in the UP tomorrow afternoon, and we hike on Monday.

See you!

See Last Garden Post for a While

Last Garden Post for a While

Surprise! I have one iris blooming. Hey, it beats none.

I doubt that I'll have any time tomorrow to garden. I really wanted to get the front bed finished before I left for the hike completion. I came close, but no cigar. Well, maybe a cheap cigar. All the hard parts are done, so it won't take long, but I really need to stop and focus on getting ready.

I am going to miss the blooming of two plants. So few of mine are actually happy enough to bloom that I'm disappointed, but THE HIKE. MUST BE FINISHED. Anyway, the peony is going to have quite a few flowers this year. It's plain blah pink. But this may be the most buds I've ever seen on it. Some years, it doesn't even bloom.

This one... I'm really sad to miss this one. This is not the salmon poppy I show you every year. Actually, I don't think that one is going to bloom. We used to have a row of stunning bright red and red-orange poppies when we lived down nearer the road. The lilac hedge shaded them out. But at least 5-6 years ago, I found a tiny one alive and moved it up here to the front bed. I figured if the salmon one was happy, it would be too. It has slowly grown, and this is the first year it is going to bloom. I thought with the heat it might pop open this week, but it's only got one more day, and I don't think so. Well, the sun made the bud look nice.

I may also miss the yellow oriental lily that is in a tight prison since the deer love to chomp it off. It has a whole circle of buds. But maybe it will be blooming when I get home. There's another oriental lily that I have no idea what it is. I'd never seen it come up before. I'm sure it came from Ester. Her garden is such a dense collection of things, almost every transplanted clump has multiple items. (This has resulted in the enhancement of my plant collection!) It's tangled with a blue hosta which I think was the goal of the gift, so I'll separate them later this summer.

I've learned that I have three giant Krossa blue hosta growing- also serendipitous gifts from Ester. They are also now in prison for their safety. They aren't giant yet, but one of them is looking large-ish.

Here's my lost cause project for the summer. Yeah, I'm playing in the rock garden. I forgot to take a completly "before" picture. But maybe with some spaces cleared it shows that there is something under the weeds and grass to recover. Anyway, there are about 80 identified and numbered niches nestled in the rocks. They are not all the same size, but each has a "map" and a plant list. Ha! Not much is still alive. So far this year, I've weeded 10 spaces. You can see a few in this picture, working from the bottom up. The geranium is everywhere, but it gets to stay for now. There's no sense ripping out something pretty if everything else is dead. Some of the light pink one is still alive too (those light spots near the wall).

Speaking of things being dead or alive, I have so far found remnants of four other of my Sedums. If they have survived this long-term neglect, they are definitely hardy. I'm REALLY happy about two of them which were particular favorites. They are tiny, but have the potential to recover. One I have not found yet is common and hardy and grows all over the area in bare fields and lawns. If none of it shows up, I can get more for free, easily. I'm shocked that I haven't found any of that one yet.

Some of the cleared spaces are at the top of the hill. This includes the hybrid sedum I bought in 2020. It has turned a deeper purple- a common reaction of plants to the hot, dry environment. I like it even better this way.

I've found a few tiny Sempervivum (hen and chicks) survivors. Those usually recover quickly. There is so little that's still alive (think about how many plants were in 80 spaces- and they almost all had multiple plants), it will be almost like starting over. However, I think I have a little more sense about what kind of plants will live on the hill. I can give you a long, long list of ones that are not suitable!

Tomorrow is a Spirit of the Woods Chapter meeting with a pot luck meal. I am taking this salad made with pearl couscous. The recipe looked so good on the box, and the reality fulfils the potential. I had to make myself be good and not eat a bunch of it for my own dinner! But I get fresh juice from the leftover citrus fruits.

OK, if I can make myself be good, there is one more task I should do this evening. The heat today really got to me. I was productive enough to get by, but nothing great.

See A High Probability of Naughtiness