garden — Page 191

Garden Mysteries

May 5, 2015 at 10:00 am by Claudia

5-5 more wild honeysuckle

My prediction, unfortunately, came true. We have moved from a few days of spring-like weather directly into summer. And we’re not happy about it. Yesterday it was 87 degrees. Temperatures promise to remain in the 80s all week long.

Ummm…..it’s too early for that nonsense. It’s the first week of May. Don and I were both surly yesterday because of the temperature. We had to install the window air conditioner in the kitchen because it’s too hot for us and definitely too hot for Scout who does not handle the heat very well at this point in her life.

And I’m still feeling like crap. And I have to go to Hartford tomorrow, no matter how I feel.

Enough complaining.

I do have a few garden mysteries this year. We had a brutal winter, as you know, with extremely cold temperatures and mountains of snow. This year, for the first year I can remember since we moved here, our one lone tulip didn’t come up. It was planted long ago by some previous owner of the cottage. Maybe some critter got to it…or is it due to the weather?

And my hyacinth has emerged from the ground, but with smallish leaves and no flowers to be seen anywhere. Not a one.

And my poppy plant is full and beautiful – but there are no buds to be seen.

So, in the case of the tulips – nothing. In the case of the hyacinths and poppy, greenery but no flowers.

The winter had to be the most extreme we’ve had in the almost-ten years that we have lived here. Is that the culprit? Or is it just the changing cycles of bulbs and perennials?

Any ideas?

New post up on Just Let Me Finish This Page in case you missed it yesterday.

Happy Tuesday.

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Green

May 2, 2015 at 9:52 am by Claudia

Let’s get the under-the-weather stuff out of the way. Still feeling crappy. Still congested. Have now entered the coughing my lungs out stage.

I was trying to decide whether to go to a run-through of Kiss Me Kate on Sunday or Wednesday. Well, no one needs to hear me coughing constantly as he/she is trying to remember lines and sing and dance, so Wednesday it is. Thank goodness I have some flexibility there.

And I just found out I’m going back to Chautauqua for 3 weeks to coach Our Town. The director is an old friend of mine – one of the most delightful people I know – and I loved Chautauqua, so this is a win-win. Don will hold down the fort here. Don was just in Our Town. Now, I’m coaching it. Full circle in the Hill-Sparks household.

And you’ll get to see photos of Chautauqua – a delightfully charming place, which is like another world. Sort of like Brigadoon.

I ventured out in the afternoon yesterday to see what was happening on the property. My word for this post is: Green. New growth is everywhere.

5-2 spirea

Spirea

5-2 flowering quince buds

Flowering quince buds

5-2 climbing hydrangea

Climbing hydrangea

5-2 lilacs

Lilacs – just about ready to open

5-2 wild honeysuckle

Wild honeysuckle

5-2 hydrangea

Limelight hydrangea

Glorious. Everything is late this spring, but today’s temps in the high seventies and bright sunlight will move things along.

I still haven’t mulched, simply because I don’t have the energy to go the garden shop to buy it. Maybe Monday? For now, I’m taking it easy because I have no choice. I’m just about finished with my current book and then I have to start another one to review. I have several book reviews coming up in the next month or two and that means more giveaways. Huzzah!

That took all my energy. I’m going to sign off now.

Happy Saturday.

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The (Not So Little) Garden That Could

April 28, 2015 at 9:26 am by Claudia

Spring is here, yes. But we’ve had unseasonably cold temperatures for more than a week, so it doesn’t seem like the end of April. It seems more like early March. I’m afraid that once the temperatures get back to normal, we’ll have about a week or two of spring and then it will be summer.

But there is growth in the garden. It’s just happening slowly.

4-28 garden 1

The chartreuse ground cover is slowly making its way through the soil. The perennials are inching their way out of the ground: sedum, day lilies, catmint, poppies, phlox. The hyacinth leaves are showing, but no flowers as of yet, and normally they’d have bloomed by now. The tulip that has been here since we moved in, and probably for many, many years before, has not come out of the ground at all. For the first time. Did this extreme winter finally do it in?

4-28 catmint

My dependable catmint is filling out and it’s everywhere in the gardens. The hydrangeas have tiny leaves. The rose bushes? I can’t tell yet. Nothing is happening and I’m sure I’ll discover damaged canes, but I’ll have to wait on that until some sort of growth appears.

The peony shoots are coming out of the ground, though I’ve yet to clean up their beds. The lilacs are budding, just waiting to bloom.

4-28 lilac 1

4-28 lilac 2

Impressionistic views

In the meantime, I’ll do some weeding today in preparation for laying down some mulch in the garden beds. Last year, money was tight (it still is) and I didn’t buy mulch. Never again. Weeds were out of control. Mulch is a must buy this year.

Yesterday, I got an email informing me of a security vulnerability that had just been discovered in this newest version of WordPress and it had to do with the WP comment system. So I had to shut down comments until WP issued a patch for the problem. That meant that for about 5 hours, no one could leave a comment.

To say I missed reading and responding to comments is an understatement. One of the true joys of having this blog is the daily dialogue we share with each other and yesterday….I couldn’t partake. I couldn’t talk. If you spoke to my mom or my first grade teacher who was constantly sending home notices that I talked too much, you’d know that would be a problem for me. When the patch was finally issued, I turned everything back on.

Remember:

solitary

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again!

From yesterday. This piece that I said I had decided wasn’t McCoy?

4-27 vase

Danged if I didn’t see it on eBay in another color with the McCoy mark. It is McCoy. I was right in the first place!

4-28 mccoy basketweave vase 1

Oh, hello!

The newest member of the Mockingbird Hill Cottage McCoy Team has arrived for training. I’ve said this before; in that case, it was the egg cups – I blame you. You encourage me to do these series and then I research and study and look at photos of McCoy and then I browse through the offerings on eBay and in the shops and then, before you know it, I’m staring at new-to-me pieces of McCoy.

I’ve purchased three since the series began.

This one I’ve had my eye on for a long time. It’s from the 1940s and is in McCoy’s familiar basketweave design. I so love the way the glaze settles into the grooves on the piece, creating light and dark contrast.

4-28 mccoy basketweave vase 2

From the side. It’s 8 inches tall.

I’ve become obsessed by McCoy pottery once again, but as my husband said yesterday, “There are worse obsessions.”

The winner of a copy of Behind Closed Doors by Elizabeth Haynes is Monica. I’ve sent you an email, Monica.

New post on Just Let Me Finish This Page.

Happy Tuesday.

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Garden Mysteries

Green

The (Not So Little) Garden That Could

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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