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!

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Garden Fun

I'll have to share the hiker statistics maybe tomorrow. I'm trying to get it right, and I didn't have that info already in my spreadsheet. I'm going back through the blog and figuring things out, but it's going to take a while.

Today, I continued the plan of working, alternating with gardening. The gardening is bringing me a lot of joy. This peony bush has never looked so good! I sure wish it wasn't pink, but I'll take any bit of color.

The purple globe bellflower, Campanula glomerata is also blooming. I really thought it would be all done by the time I got home, so this makes me pretty happy. There should be white ones too which always bloom later than the purple ones, but I don't see any buds. These were free from a surplus plant table years ago.

I did almost miss the spotted deadnettle, Lamium maculatum. This comes in a variety of leaf colors. In fact, I don't care a thing about the white flowers on this white-leaved plant. I grow it for the bright leaf color that loves shade. The thing is... it does better some years than others. I'd like to have it grow all around the base of the birch tree, but it keeps getting thin patches and then sending a runner out far away from the place I want it. This year, surprisingly, it's looking fairly good. I moved a couple of erring clumps back to where I want it. Honestly, it's only ever looked really good one year. But I keep trying. This came from the cemetery gully where someone had thrown it at the end of the season.

You can see it here beside the Heuchera I bought three weeks ago. I really like them together.

Interestingly, these plants are called deadnettle because the leaves look something like stinging nettles (not so much the spotted ones), but they don't have the stinging hairs, so they are "dead."

My border of tiny miniature hosta is sending up budding stalks. I may have identified it as Hosta venusta 'Tiny Tears.' The only reason I'm not sure is that the flowers on mine are darker purple than the pictures on line. That may not mean much. But there are SO many cultivars that it's hard to be certain. This was free from Ester and it is very happy. From a small puddle I now have about 10 feet of border along the front flower bed, and I even gave some to Betty. I'll show you that when it blooms.

The yellow mystery lily has three buds. One may be open tomorrow.

I also wrote another news article today.

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A Quiet Day at Home

  Today was really nice! I ran into a good friend whom I have not seen for at least five years in the parking lot at Lowe's. We had such a good talk! Made my whole day.

But the weather was gorgeous as well! Look at this beautiful sky! Mackeral clouds signal a change in the weather, and I'm interpreting that to mean the cooldown is here for a few days at least.

My peony bloomed this year without being coaxed. If I were going to gripe, I would tell you that this is my least favorite color of peony. When I was a child we had a row of alternating deep red and white ones. I liked that. But with my inconsistent gardening, I'll take anything that flowers.

The smoke tree is in full bloom. Mine isn't even pink. It's sort of brown. But it's alive!

And I'll end with a sunset. But it's not tonight's. It will be light here in western Michigan for another 3 hours this close to the summer solstice. This was last night.

In other news: I did laundry, I went shopping. I edited. I made good progress with the bondo on the big square on the trailer. Not ready to show you that yet. I made plans for next week. Stay tuned.

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An Unexpected Pretty

 
I have a few peony bushes. They hardly ever bloom unless I remember to give them plant food when the leaves first come up. That's not even on my radar any more, so imagine my surprise when this happened this year!



There was also a hummingbird flitting around the deck for a few minutes today.

I have spent the entire day trying to hunt up information and watching videos about solar power systems for my trailer. I've watched videos up the ying yang. When I made the decision two years ago to NOT go solar (and instead use a small generator for alternate power) it was mostly because solar was too expensive. But costs have come down, and so I'm rethinking the whole thing.

I do have to decide before I do any of the wiring inside the trailer, which will come up soon. Finally, after hours and hours, I found an actual wiring diagram instead of just people yakking and pointing at things. It's for a system bigger than what I need, but maybe I'm getting closer to having actual usable information.

No writing = not good. Making trailer decisions (well, getting closer) = good. Anyway... that's how I spent my day.

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Peony Poses

 
Lots of pictures today, but there are SO many pretty ones!

These were all taken at the Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor. As I said a couple of days ago, Cindy and I ended up needing to make this a fast visit, so I only know the variety of one of these peony flowers.



That said, I know a lot more than I did on Monday. When I stopped at Matthaei Botanical Garden (more on that tomorrow), I got to chat with a good friend, David Michener. He authored a book this spring called Peony. It's made the NY Times Best Summer Reads List this year! Had to get it, of course.

So, I can tell you that the form of the pink one above is Japanese or Anemone peony, and the white one below is a Single Peony.



Next we have a double peony. These are the kind I remember from my childhood lawn, and filling the cemetery on Memorial Day. They are all petals with no stamens and anthers showing. They range from white through pink to deep red in color.



Here's another single one in a rather astonishing color. This could almost make me like pink.



My best guess is that this one is a semi-double. This form is mostly petals but with a few stamens and anthers. I really liked the color of this. The yellow is not shadow, it was lemony looking, especially from a distance.



Now, here's the one variety I did find the name of. It's called 'Going Bananas.' You probably don't need to ask why!



Another Japanese form- much like the first picture, but notice the center is lighter colored, not monochromatic pink. There are thousands of peony cultivars, and the names of many old ones are lost forever.



And a similar one but this one is single. You can see the carpals (which become seeds) sticking up in the middle).



I particularly liked the back side of this one. Now we have to talk about the kinds of peonies. The kind of plant is different from the shape of the flower. Most of the ones in our yards are herbaceous peonies. The stems are strong, but they are not woody. Then there are tree peonies. These, as you might imagine, have woody stems. The ancient Chinese loved peonies. OK, so this one is a tree peony. And one of the things I admire about Chinese art is their renditions of overlapping shapes like dragon or fish scales, duck feathers, and... peony petals! (There are also intersectional peonies which are hybrids of the other two kinds.)



This one might be a semi-double. I love the hints of bright color behind the white.



Here's another single white form. But this one looks more like wild roses than the one above which almost looks like a huge daisy.



Finally, there is one other form called the Bombe. I'm not sure I saw any of those, but it's possible this is one, or it could just be a single form. Bombes have a large center cluster of those modified stamens and anthers with just a collar of single petals. Fantastic color in this one anyway.



These are all heirloom peonies- all developed before 1950, and it's one of the largest collections in the world. Whether heirloom or modern, if you ever get a chance to visit a peony garden in full bloom... just do it!

In other news: I revised Chapter 5 and wrote Chapter 6 in The Bigg Bosss, and mowed the entire yard and all my trails. I usually like to spread this task over two or three days. However, the weather cooperated and rain is supposed to be coming, so I got my act together and did it.

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A Day with Cindy

 
I haven't been to Ypsilanti to see my friend Cindy for about ten years. Not good.

Today we mostly chilled and visited, but we did manage a visit to the renowned peony garden at the Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor. It's just past prime, but still gorgeous.



I took quite a few closeups, but it was too hard to match them to the cultivars. There were signs posted, but not near the plants, and there wasn't time to figure out the grids and then compare to the name charts. (There might have been if it wasn't darn near IMPOSSIBLE to park in Ann Arbor.) But we had a great time, even if it was short.



You'll see some of the really pretty ones in the next few days.

This evening, I had an author event at the Grey Wolfe Scriptorium Bookstore in Clawson, Michigan.

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Peony Surprise

 
I've apparently never showed you my peony before. That's not the surprise. It doesn't usually bloom.



In fact, in the 46 years we've lived on this property (and the peony was there when we moved in) it has only bloomed in the years I remembered to fertilize it just when the leaves were coming up. You know me well enough to guess that was not very often. I did pretty well the few years I worked hard at flower gardens, but that's not too recent.

The big surprise is that I did not fertilize it this year and got three blossoms anyway. Not bad for no effort.



That said, of all the peonies there are in the world, the double pink ones are my least favored. When I was a kid we had a long strip bed of them that were alternated white and deep red. That I liked. In fact, I went back to that house once between owners and "stole" a dark red one. Guess what. When it came up and bloomed it had reverted to pink. I didn't know they would do that. Needless to say, that was a bummer.

So, I played with the picture. This peony I could almost like.



If I ever get back to Ann Arbor at the right time of year, Nichols Arboretum has a spectacular peony garden. That would be a photo op, for sure.

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Parting Shots

 
I'm on the road, and look what gave me a full display before leaving. All three poppy buds opened. I don't think I've ever had three blooms at one time. Nice with the raindrops on them too.



All hitched up and ready to roll.



Two hours later I arrived at my first stop.



Yes, here I am at Chuck and Sylvia's for the night. It's pretty amazing how an internet friendship can turn into one of the best in one's life. We stumbled across each other's blogs about five years ago because of a common interest in rural living.



Of course I wanted a tour of the flower gardens!

Rose in bud- very fragrant



And a peony glowing in the late sunshine.

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Philadelphia Flower Show 2015- Peony

 
Working on taxes, have to stay focused. Enjoy a peony! We are a day closer to spring.

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