Gardens Eye ViewThoughts about life, living, and gardening…

“It is the month of June,

The month of leaves and roses

When pleasant sights salute the eyes,

And pleasant scents the noses.”

N.P. Willis

May has been a most amazing month here in the garden.  Starting with the promise of spring and warm temps finally after a freezing cold April.  It quickly turned into a hot summer in no time with temps more like July.  Some flowers never bloomed, others bolted and still others are weeks ahead blooming at odd times and leaving big holes in the garden.  But so much has happened this month, I am anxious to share this Journal entry.

Once again I will be joining in with the many memes that are happening this time of the month:  Walk in Garden@This Grandmother’s Garden, First View@Town Mouse & Country Mouse; Garden Bloggers Harvest Day (GBHD)@The Gardening Blog, Best and Worst of My Garden@Bumble Lush,  Salad Days@Veg Plotting on the 4th Friday of the month and End of Month View with Helen@The Patient Gardener’s Weblog.

Weather Report

The weather spanned from mid-spring right to mid-summer with more days in the 80s and 90s with very little rain.  As May ended the weather shifted dramatically to temps in the 60s during the day and 50 at night.  We also received 4 inches of rain in one day (actually within a couple of hours).  June promises to be more May-like as it begins with mid-spring temps in the high 60s.  What I love to call perfect spring weather.

What’s Growing

I will warn you that my flower beds are still just blooming and not at all as they have been in the past… sporadic is more like it now.  Some flowers are ahead and others trying to catch up.  This year the hydrangeas may not catch up and bloom much at all.  They were frozen back so many times in April they are growing from the ground up this year.  This doesn’t bode well.  Then there is the pruning and weeding which is also not getting done.  So take a look at the beds, and know perhaps the after pictures in a month or two will be better.

Front Garden

The robins are nesting in the front yard again so we have not been able to weed much and we have not pruned back the willows.  So they are very overgrown and taking over.

In front of the tree are the twigs which were the hydrangeas.  We pruned them to that height in March as they were growing beautifully;  they died back in April.  The columbines and creeping phlox are done blooming.  The salvia and lavender are just getting going.  Belle of Woking clematis is happy in the left corner.  The hanging planter is new and I love them.  The flowers I planted should take right off.

This is the other side of the walk that is just beginning to bloom with the next wave of flowers.  Phlox, lavender, daylily, echinacea and coreopsis.  A few flowers, like ameria and penstemon, in bloom waiting for the roses that have amazing numbers of buds.  There is the tree the robins call home for now.  We hope to hear babies soon.

Back Garden

 Here is a view looking over the back fence and the pond toward the white garden in the back.  It is so weedy there I can barely see the white blooms of peony, siberian iris and allium.  There were lovely hosta there, but the deer had a field day a few days ago and even with spraying, the torrential rain washed the deer spray all off.  You can see one of several they devoured below.

Poor hosta…it made it through the frost, died back in the freeze and grew again only to be eaten by those devils.

This view is over the same fence just hugging the right side a bit.  The grass is a field of clover with horsetail mixed in.  But we have veggie gardens here surrounded by raspberries, blueberries and perennials.  The newly planted tomatoes are under the white cover.  Again it is overgrown and weedy around these beds.  The meadow can just be seen behind the gazebo.

Natives

Many natives are blooming.  Here are a few.

 Native honeysuckle that the hummers are loving.

 Viburnum flowers will soon become berries that the birds will devour in later summer.

Tiarella growing amongst the weedy tree bed.  I hope to plant more in various spots.  I love their delicate flowers.

Pond

I love the early morning sun as it just peeks through the trees and begins to brighten the pond.  The waterlilies are still closed but you can see they are just beginning to open with the sun.  Native iris have not bloomed except for one.  Tradescantia that seeded themselves on the left near the giant reed grass were a surpise as they are blooming along the edge of the pond.

Veg Garden

Well I am almost done with this phase of the veg gardens.  Those seedlings that did not fit into the raised beds are now in containers.  Starting at the top left is a container variety of zucchini from Renee’s Garden called ‘Astia’.  They are compact and easily grow in a small space.  Next moving clockwise are the cherry tomatoes (green tubs) and potatoes/sweet potatoes in the orange bags.  We covered them because we saw cat prints in the dirt.  These are not a litter box; darn cat.  Then we see one of about 16 Green Chile peppers, my favorite.  There are hot peppers in other containers too.  Bottom right is the large veg bed which had radishes that are now finished.  The heat had them bolting so I had to harvest them.  In between the garlic in the back of the bed are some of the tomatoes seedlings.  Carrots, collards and sweet peppers are also planted here in the front of the bed.  The garlic scapes pictured here show how fast the garlic is growing.  They are a month ahead and I expect to harvest them in June.  The fresh hillock of dirt is the pumpkin patch we are trying.  It is in front of the strawberry bed that is weedy again.    The last bed is the newest one with peas, pole and bush beans, okra, dill, nasturtiums and eggplant.  I am keeping my fingers crossed for bigger, better producing veg beds than we have had so far.  The shady bed in the back (not pictured here) is still growing a few radishes and lettuces.

Seeds

This was how the seed station looked before last weekend.  Now it is empty.  All flowers and veggies were planted or given away.  But that is not the end to the seed growing.  I have decided to grow many different native plants from seed to plant out in fall.  More on that in a later post, but I can tell you I am excited to see how this next phase in seed growing works out.

Critters

 As you can see (top left) the frogs have been busy laying eggs all over the pond.  And we were visited by an Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly looking for some nectar and I hope a host plant.  I have Golden Alexander, Queen Anne’s Lace and dill just starting so I hope to see some caterpillars perhaps this year.  Papa bluebird has been busy.  If there are babies they are quiet, but we think they have hatched because the parents are frantically going back and forth with what appears to be insects.  Lastly, the Orioles are back and enjoying the pond most evenings.

Gardens Eye Verse

The meadow is delightful right now.  So much changes with each day.  I couldn’t resist showing you some more pictures of the lupines.  The other plants are the remnants of the cattails that will soon be blooming again.  I hope you enjoy my poem about the meadow!

Meadow Delights

Perfumed air moves lazily past my windowpane,

Refreshing my soul in shadows.

As a kaleidoscope of colors delights my eyes,

Joy abounding-senses fulfilled.

Donna Donabella

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Please join me for the next Seasonal Celebrations/Garden Lessons Learned.  Click the link to learn more.  Beth@PlantPostings will be wrapping up this past season with lessons we have learned in our gardens, and I will be setting the stage for next season’s celebrations (summer up N and Winter down S of the equator).  What do you love to do in the this upcoming season?  What holidays or rituals make it a wonderful season for you?  How does your garden grow and what favorite plants will be blooming?  I hope you will be joining us.  Just create a post and link in with both or one of us between June 1 and the 20th, and on the 20th we will reveal those lessons and celebrations.

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Next up on the blog:  Next Monday will be GBBD combined with Garden lessons Learned.  Then it will be time for another Garden Book Review.

I will be linking in with Michelle@Rambling Woods for her Nature Notes meme.  It is a great way to see what is happening in nature around the world every Wednesday.

As always, I’ll be joining Tootsie Time’s Fertilizer Friday.

I hope you will join me for my posts, every other Tuesday, at Beautiful Wildlife Garden.

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