Trim Day

Currently, the asiatic lilys are in bloom. Here's a picture of a pink one.

Today I spent some time trimming the hedges around the front of the house. Instead of using the electric trimmers whose noise unerves me and is really hard on the upper arms... i used a new pair of hand hedge trimmers. I like being able to put them down on a minutes notice without hurting the shrubs. I was also able to trim the backside of the hedges that were too close to the house. I wasn't able to be in control of the electric trimmers to do that previously (without hitting the brick).

I also started the process of trimming back the wild asters. I have found that if i trim them to half their height sometime around the fourth of july, they respond well and get really thick and bushy (and not too tall).

Today, i also harvested columbine seeds. Shaking the seedheads in to a bucket... i noticed a bunch of tiny little beige beetles. I need to look them up and see what they may be.

The Newest Daylily

I purchased this one last year at the garden show at the Succop Conservancy. The ruffled edges delight me and the tones of yellow make it like nothing else i have. I need to find the paper that came with it. It was created by a hybridizer in West Virginia.

Moving Milkweed

Saturday i had to do some emergency moving of plants. The nighbor was going to mow down the patch of milkweed that is near her property. I've watched the onarch butterflies feed on this patch of milkweed and i was very distraught at seeing her push it over... So i very hurriedly created a bed (which i will use for wildflowers) and transplanted a bunch of milkweed. I'm hoping that it will take. The day was hot and sunny, so the plants are stressed. I put up sheets to protect them from the sun. I'm concerned that when i dug them up, i noticed that they are on runners undergound... and i had to cut the runners when i dug them up. So i'm hoping for the best.

I also transplanted some snap dragon that were volunteers growing up through pea gravel.

This evening was cloudy so I finished edging the front bed near the sidewalk.

pests

So this evening after digging out more from around the birch tree, i glanced over to a small crabapple and something caught my eye... oh no... tent worms. So we attended to their elimination and i turned around and joseph pointed out... a japanese beetle... OH NOOOOOooooooooo!

Rain Barrel Adventures

So we had wonderful rainfall on Tuesday... filled up both barrels, but last night we became aware of a drip in the smaller barrel. So we gathered all manor of buckets and bins to put the water in... and used some putty compound to hopefully plug the hole. And then today we got more rain and it filled up the small barrel again... and the dripping got worse. So i decided to clean away the old putty (not a good idea)... i had rain squirting out all over. When i tried the water putty, i ended up having to keep pressure on it for some time or the water would push its way through. It was absolutely maddening. I ended up draining some of the barrel, in an effort to ease the pressure of the water on the putty. It seems to have worked, but we'll see...

RAIN!!!

This evening we finally got some measurable rain.

We kept getting passed by with the rain... or only a sprinkle or two. So, my garden has been in need of rain. My rain barrels were empty... last night i even broke out the hose for watering purposes. This evening we got 8/10 of an inch of rain (and counting). The larger of the two rain barrels (75 gal) is full and the second one (60 gal) is well on its way to filling.

Recorded rainfall:

• May 16- 1 inch
• May 17- 1/10th inch
• May 19- 3/10th inch
• June 3- 1/10th inch
• June 8- 1 & 2/10th inch
• June 19- 8/10th inch

Total: 3.55 inch

Average rainfall:

• May: 3.8
• June 4.12

i've got some catching up to do...

Garage Sale Rake

On Saturday Joseph and I wandered around the neighborhood visiting all the garage sales. My big purchase of the day was an old rake/hoe tool... shorter handle, perfect size, black tape on the handle for nostalgia. Perfect for pulling mulch into the buckets. And with the quarter price tag, i've already gotten my money's worth! I also got a couple liatris (blazing star) from Charlotte... and a window box (for herbs) from Amy. I planted the liatris and planted basal seeds in the box. I also started trenching around the second birch... it's about half done. It was a good day!

I'm still waiting for some rain. This evening i thought for sure that we would get some... but once again it went all around us. Maybe tomorrow...