To Do

I took three days off work starting today. Whenever I do this, I feel I should have grandiose plans. But I end up at home doing dishes, scrubbing the toilet, reading a book. Don't get me wrong. The reading is great and the other stuff needs to get done, so it may as well be at a time of my choosing instead of after a long day at work, but I feel like I should DO something.

So tomorrow, I plan to visit the Cleveland Botanical Garden. I need to climb a tree.

Butterfly

I have a giant clump of bronze fennel in the garden that appeals to the papilio polyxenes. We have no fewer than six black swallowtail caterpillars chowing on the fennel right now.

Edit to add best pic of all:

Old hickory

We have a sick old hickory tree that, I believe has beetles and cannot survive. It is enormous and used to shade a large portion of the back yard. I wish I had thought to get a picture of it in autumn when the leaves are deep gold.

The difference a little rain makes

Poppy

Poopy

Planters Anonymous

A long time ago, when Punkinhead was just a teeny baby, we lived on the second floor of a double in Cleveland. It had the typical screened in porch out front and we loved it all summer long.

It was in that house that my addiction to annuals began. We had the cheap plastic chairs and bought some sand buckets at the dollar store and three window boxes for the porch. And we marched off to KMart to buy a flat of impatiens for them. (It was very shady on the porch.)
In all the years we lived there (seven!!), the impatiens never thrived. The big sycamore out front and the enclosed deck made it too dark, even for them. But my addiction to annuals needed to be satisfied.
Now we have a lovely home with a slightly shady back deck and instead of three window boxes and three sand buckets, there are about 20 terra cotta pots and five window boxes. (But still the cheap --but slightly classier-- plastic chairs.) And now, to feed my addiction, we buy a full gross of impatiens: 4 flats of 36 plants each.

Planting 144 impatiens isn't much fun, but the end result is very satisfying. And that is something a lot of addicts can never say.

Journal-ist

I wish I was one of those thoughtful people who keep a journal. Specifically a garden journal. Each year I could note the new plants that I add and the ones that failed. I can record the date the crocus bloomed and the crab-apple. If we had an especially large crop of pears or acorns, I would write that down. And when the first red-winged blackbird appeared. Or the first hummingbird. All of this information would be useful for keeping track of how the garden is doing right now and would make a lovely gift to my future grandchild (no pressure, Punkinhead).
Alas, I have never been dutiful about diaries and the recording of mundane occurrences. So I will not remember from year-to-year if the pieris is blooming late or early. And my future grandchildren (no pressure, Punkinhead) will have to be content with inheriting my biting wit.

This counts as exercise, right?

Now that it is officially spring, the clean-up in the yard has begun. Never mind that the HIGH temperature today is expected to be 30°F and there are rumors of snow on the horizon. Last year's leaves must be removed.
Saturday, before the balmy 44 degree temps began to tumble, we managed to completely rebuild the birdbath fountain and rake out about 75 square feet of flower bed. We filled six brown bags. Sunday was freezing. Literally. But we forced ourselves outside for the "fill a bag" challenge. (I lost because I took longer to fill my brown bag than LSH did.)
We have completed precisely 1/8th of the cleanup. Unfortunately, the mulch comes on Saturday.

A day in the garden

There is something deliciously indulgent about wandering in a tropical paradise only to glance out the
window at two feet of snow and icy gray skies.
It's a wonder more people don't spend a day in the garden. Especially when the temperature is hovering near 0°F and you are lucky enough to have a space like this in your city.

It did suck when we had to go back outside, though.

Orchids and other epiphytes on one of the canopy support pillars at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens

Gold Flower

It's chrysanthemum season!

• The name "chrysanthemum" is derived from the Greek words chrysos (gold) and anthemon (flower).
• Yellow or white chrysanthemum flowers of the species C. morifolium are boiled to make a sweet drink in some parts of Asia.
• Chrysanthemum leaves are steamed or boiled and used as greens.
• Small chrysanthemums are used in Japan as a sashimi garnish.
• Pyrethrum (Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium) is economically important as a natural source of insecticide. Pyrethrins attack the nervous systems of all insects, and inhibit female mosquitoes from biting. 
• Chrysanthemum plants have been shown to reduce indoor air pollution by the NASA Clean Air Study.
• In some countries of Europe (e.g., France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Croatia), incurve chrysanthemums are symbolic of death and are used only for funerals or on graves.
• In the United States, the flower is usually regarded as positive and cheerful. 
• In Australia,the chrysanthemum is sometimes given to mothers for Mother's Day.
• "Chrysanthemum Gate" is taboo slang meaning "anus" (with sexual connotations).
•  In China it is one of the four symbolic seasonal flowers.
• Chrysanthemums were first cultivated in China as a flowering herb as far back as the 15th century BC.

 

Get rid of the lawn.

I've seen the toxic algae bloom on Lake Erie that has compromised the potable water for the greater Toledo metropolitan area blamed on agribusiness, but there don't seem to be a lot of people mentioning all the chemicals we suburbanites are dousing our lawns with.
Scott's Miracle Gro netted $1.08 billion (that's billion with a b) in the second quarter of 2014. They are certainly not the only provider of nitrogen- and phosphorus- rich fertilizers that will infiltrate the ground water and eventually end up in Lake Erie in concentrations that will cause toxic algae blooms, but they are certainly the largest company that sells such products. And millions of us all over northern Ohio smother our lawns in it to keep them artificially healthy-looking and green.
I have previously mentioned my dislike of lawns, but it bears repeating. Especially when we are so quick to blame farmers who are possibly using less chemicals than all of us lawn jockeys combined.
 In the U.S. over 70 million tons of fertilizers and pesticides are applied to residential lawns and gardens annually. Some of that, in our neck of the woods, is going to end up in our lakes. Next time you want a greener lawn, think about that. 

Bar-none

So, it's Monday. It feels like it.
It's been a while since there's been activity in the garden so let me share this weekend's adventure. We have had an enormous barberry bush at the back corner of the house. It was approximately the size of a Smart Car. And growing to VW bug  proportions annually. The sparrows love it, but everyone else... -not so much.
So on Sunday, LSH put on the gloves and hauled out the loppers and shears and trimmers and cut the whole thing down! The lawn was littered with long arching thorn-covered branches. (Barberries are probably the thorniest bush in our suburban landscape repertoire. Even more than roses.)
The bad news is that we had no where to put the puptent-sized pile of pricklies. We ran out of our brown bags for lawn refuse.
In the end we re-repatriated the pile back to the shrub's original spot with the plan to purchase more bags.
And there it sits.

Of course

It was a pretty amazing holiday weekend. We had a little bit of rain on Thursday night and the next three days were about as perfect as you can get. Mid-70s and sunny. Excellent fireworks weather. Excellent cookout weather. Excellent concert weather. Excellent carnival weather.
But boy are my plants thirsty! So when I woke up to rumbles of thunder this morning, I thought they would be well cared for. Not so much. It was all sound and fury. Not a drop of rain had fallen by the time I got home from work, so LSH and I watered everything.
It will be raining shortly.

Green thumb

One of the things I hate about gardening is that when you've spent 3 hours on your hands and knees clearing a flowerbed of weeds and leaves debris and you ache with every twitch of an eyelash the following day, unless someone saw the disaster that it was before you worked your fingernails off, no one can truly appreciate your hard work.
I can't point to the cleared soil and say, "Look how much work I did!" And dammit, I want credit!

Hickory dickory dock

We have, on our little suburban plot of land, two enormous oak trees (at least 6 feet around at the base, probably over 8), a baby shagbark hickory, a sassafras, a crabapple, and apple, two pears, a plum, a persimmon, a nectarine, a peach, a silver maple, a staghorn sumac, a redbud and two baby oaks, (and that is a listing of only the TREES!) so losing the enormous shagbark hickory that is mommy to the baby we have shouldn't bum me out as much as it does.
The tree was not healthy last year. We didn't get the glorious golden fall color in October. And the nasty winter and insanely late spring has done her in. But she's so big. And beautiful. And I didn't get any pictures of her in her autumn glory.
In her place, I will plant a tulip poplar who volunteered himself in one of our beds two years ago. He's only about 18 inches tall right now, but they are native to the area and can grow to 100 feet!! Plus they have cool leaves. And I will finally add the Japanese maple I've been wanting for years. There's always room for more trees!

In memoriam, I'm sharing the only two pics I could find of the old girl. (She's in the background of both.)

Through our arbor, nearly straight ahead, alas hidden by the out-of-control porcelain vine.

 

There she is in the back stretching over the rooftop.

UPDATE: Much like Mark Twain, news of our hickory's death is an exaggeration. I actually spotted a bit of green on her a week after this post. She is now classified as the plague victim in Monty Python: mostly dead. Hopefully, she'll get better.

All hands on deck

Saturday morning, LSH says to me, "I'm going to run up to the Home Depot and see about renting a power washer." In his defense, this did not come completely out of the blue. We are having the house painted and will save a bit of money if we power wash it ourselves. This led to a discussion on the sorry state of our decks (front and back). I suggested that he try the local Ace which is closer and also rents equipment. He thanked me and was on his way.
**I imagine you know where this is going.**
An hour later, he returned. And, as you may have guessed, we are now the proud owners of a power washer.
The power washer strikes me a as a singularly American machine, but it turns out that a German company came up with it. Still, the concept of spraying pressurized water at a surface to clean it is, without a doubt, male. It is messy and noisy and expensive, but a helluva lot less work than scrubbing with a stiff-bristle brush and mild detergent. And in the end, I can't argue with its efficacy. He did the back deck on Sunday and it is gorgeous.

Just do it.

I know. I should have posted a Friday Book Blog. I didn't. I haven't been reading very much so I had nothing to share.
I did cut a deal with my LSH whose turn it was to do our taxes this year. I traded mucking out the pond for taxes. Funny enough: we BOTH think we got the better end of the deal.
So, our taxes are filed, and the amazingly resilient Demeter and Persephone who somehow managed to survive the winter-of-never-ending-polar-vortices in that teeny pond choked with oak leaves are quite happy to be in clear, clean flowing water again! It does appear that spring is tenatively here.

Artist's representation of Demeter

Artist's representation of Persephone

I do wish it would hurry along though so we can assess what we have that was not as hardy as our two orange friends. Already, I know we lost the top half of an azalea and nearly all the buds on the pieris japonica.

No more cold, please

I noticed that last year I took some photos of the garden searching for signs of spring. And I found them: blooming primrose, budding hydrangea leaves. So this year when I look at the blooming crocus (the only sign of spring out there), I tell myself it's not so bad. Spring will come and everything will bloom again.
Then I notice that the date on the photos from last year is March 16.  MARCH. SIXTEENTH.

This effing winter has killed everything.

What my garden used to look like:

Something to look forward to

Both Abe Lincoln and Charles Darwin have their birthdays today. Friday is Valentine's Day. We just 10 days ago heard from Punxatawney Phil. President's Day this year coincides with my LSH's birthday.
But, by far the best thing about February is the arrival of the spring gardening catalogs. And the first one came yesterday! The next two months paging through all the seed and plants selections will make the 10 inches of snow on the ground and the temps hovering in the teens much easier to bear.

After all, this cold and snow must be going away someday, otherwise the garden centers wouldn't have sent the catalogs, right?

Closed for the season

We have officially thrown in the towel on summer here at the Punkinhouse. Perhaps it was the short-lived snow last week? This weekend we packed up the deck furniture and all the flowerpots and symbolically closed up shop.
There are still two gold fish in the pond whose fate is yet undecided. There are still a ton of leaves to rake. The big market umbrella is still up because of the acorn bombardment from the huge pin oak. (Seriously, do you know anyone who wants about 80 pounds of acorns?) But all else is packed away.
It is looking forlorn out back, rather like the street-side soft serve ice cream shops. To everything, there is a season.

Bombs away

We have an oak tree in the back yard that's pretty big. Huge, in fact. It's a pin oak, so its acorns are on the smaller side. (Thankfully!)

This time of year the acorns are dropping and the back deck sounds like an old-style gangster shoot out when the wind kicks up. Dozens of the buggers drop onto the chairs, railings, roof, gutters and decking pinging and cracking as they hit and bounce.
If it weren't for the big market umbrella, you couldn't sit out there. And it's been so beautiful that I haven't wanted to sit anywhere else.