wordless wednesday

 

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saturated sunday

 

It was not raining yesterday when these pictures were taken.

This year I've become very aware of the aroma of milkweed.

It's lovely, and stops me in my tracks at least twice every day, as I pass the plants growing next to the path to the barn.

Daily trips with the little hay cart have been rerouted to prevent a collision with the one milkweed plant growing in the shorter path.

Spiderwort is providing surprises:

I've now seen four shades of purple on individual plants.

Here are two:

And a single spiderwort plant blooming white. 

The palette of the barn gardens is about to change.

Daylilies on the brink of blooming:

After several years of trying, the precious thornless raspberries I've planted in the terrace garden seem to have come to terms with the tough soil and light conditions here, and are not just surviving, but growing. They are currently doing as well as can be expected in a subtropical rainforest.

(This snap makes my mouth water.)

Wishing you all an excellent week ahead.

And wishing us all a bit of moderate weather.

I don't know anyone who doesn't need it.

~~~~~

goats and gardens

There's no better feeling for a person raising livestock than to hear an expert say your animals "look good." Last week, not-my-usual-vet came out and did annual shots for the herd. He commented repeatedly on the condition and manners of my goats, which left me feeling pretty darned good. I don't take my goats to shows, and very few of the people who come here and see them are "goat people," so it's rare for me to get this kind of feedback. Rare and sweet.

Tsuga says, "You know he was talking about ME, right?"

~~~

It's taken several years of encouragement, but there are now three separate milkweed stands producing flowers here, and my efforts to bring Monarch butterflies back to my place are ever so gradually paying off.

Last year my Occasional Helper spotted the first chrysalis - which was unfortunately attached to a fence in a high-risk spot. After a lot of thought, I decided it's chances were better in the house, so I had the experience of watching it slowly develop into an actual butterfly. Pretty much everyone I know has had this experience - usually in childhood - but I never did. So it was especially magical.

This year, I saw two Monarchs dancing around the gardens!

And a couple of days ago I noticed one of these, in two of the milkweed stands:

Huzzah!

~~~

Remember last year's zinnias? I started seeds in peat pots, transplanted them into the terrace garden, and they bloomed and bloomed and bloomed and brought me joy every single day.

This year I mixed seeds saved from last year's flowers with a few left in 2018 packets, and seeded them directly into the garden. They have just begun to bloom and it's so exciting to see what colors they are turning out to be. I already have plans to find seeds for zinnia colors I particularly enjoy, and plant even more next year.

~~~

Daylilies!

How I love them.

Sometimes when the very last flower on a stem is blooming,

I bring it into the house to enjoy for it's precious day.

Like this:

And perhaps to draw:

And speaking of drawing...I think I answered every comment in the previous post,

but I want to say a general "thank you" again.

I am so grateful that each of you took the time to reply, and I am pleased as punch that you are not getting tired of the daily markmaking adventure.

You lovely people made me the same kind of happy as the vet who complimented me on the condition of my goats! Thank you so much!

~~~~~

sunday snap

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markmaking monday

Lilies and daylilies have often modeled for Daily Markmaking recently.

And on we go. Today will be Day 225 - can you believe it?

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wordless wednesday

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flashback friday

It's been raining all day today.

So here is a photograph taken yesterday.

Once again, it all comes back to Leighton.

~~~~~

daylily monday

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and ye shall find

Yesterday I went looking for a yellow daylily.

Last year, a lovely one bloomed along the top of the steep bank garden between the driveway and the Upper West Side paddock. I hadn't noticed it this year.

Until I went looking.
I looked down onto the garden from the paddock above -
it was a sort of low-altitude aerial reconnaissance mission -

and there it was, rising lemony in a sea of green:

I made a note to get in there on the first decent day, to remove clinging climbers that are complicating the lives of perennial plants I am taking pains to encourage.

If there is one thing this season of rain has made clear, it is that procrastination is a fool's game. So today when I got back from the recycling run and trip to the library and feedstore and dairy, I went down with pruners and a huge plastic tub to fill with clippings. Tsuga and her girls spotted me right away and ambled down to the fence to await a salad delivery.

Fern:

Tsuga:

The bank garden has come a long way in the past three years or so.

It's a lot of work to try to reclaim it, but the rewards are great.

~~~~~

fun in a box

 This exciting box arrived yesterday. It was expected.

Usually I open packages right away, but yesterday was a tough day, physically. Instead of thinking my exciting package would turn the day around, it seemed more likely that the difficult day would dull the joy of the package. So I waited til today.

 A week ago I decided to augment my set of Staedtler watercolor pencils. I had to choose a different brand, so that I could order from Open Stock and choose each color individually. I've been very happy with the Staedtlers, so I hope these Faber-Castells work well with them.

 The individual labels peeled off easily, which is very nice. The last time I bought pencils from an art supply store, the labels were not only thoroughly stuck on but also wrapped in tape, right around the entire pencil - talk about overkill. Nothing gets those labels off, and it's a nuisance when trying to sharpen the pencils.

 Woo-hoo!

Staedtlers on bottom, Faber-Castells on top.

(And in case an eagle-eyed reader notices it, there is one Caran d'Ache pencil, also. I bought that one last year when I was really craving Payne's Grey.)

Today I began working on an ink drawing with watercolor.

Here's the ink:

And here's the beginning of the watercolor:

If it comes out well, I'll post another picture.

If you've never used watercolor pencils, I encourage you to give them a try. Here's a close-up look:

So. Much. Fun.

~~~~~

wordless wednesday

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browns

There are so many variations on brown.

I love browns.

Like the browns in winter beech leaves.

Or in this daylily seedpod.

Or in this stalk of Chelone obliqua.
Wild-looking, isn't it?
Worth a close look!

~~~

If you'd like to compare,

here is a post with some pictures of Chelone blooming.

And here is a post with the daylilies blooming.

And here: brand-new beech leaves and other mid-May greenery.

Soon - well, pretty soon - green will be everywhere.

I don't mind waiting.

I love the greens, I do.

But I also love the browns.

~~~~~

bank holiday

And another big project is underway!

On the west edge of the Upper West Side,

between the perimeter fence and the driveway,

is a narrow rocky bank.

It is partially supported by an old stone wall

that has been gradually collapsing for decades.

At the base of the wall is a narrow strip of rocky garden,

with violets and daylilies, and other lovely blooming things.

"Where are these violets?" you might well be asking.

"And what daylilies?"

 Fair question!
I think they're under here:

Buried beneath a tangle of bittersweet, grape,

forsythia, rubus...and did I mention bittersweet?

Every Spring I spend days hand-cutting and removing invasives

before the violets and daylilies (and I) become overwhelmed.

And prior to this year, I have always managed to enjoy 

at least some flower garden.

But last Winter, when a lot of this sort of thing was going on:

there was an unfortunate incident involving the plowman.

The result was a sadly gouged-up garden

buried beneath a heavy layer of driveway gravel and stone.

It wasn't the plowman's fault; my driveway is terrible.

I am very fortunate to have a plowman, after long years without.

(Some years, I call my driveway The Snowshoe Highway.)

But I must admit, it was disheartening

to imagine what the "garden" would look like come Spring.

And sure enough, almost all the plants appearing this Spring

 were those hardy and tenacious and prolific invasives.

So, when I recently hired the brushcutting fellow,

one of his first assignments was to take 99% of this bank vegetation

Right Down To The Ground.

Here's a progress shot, looking north after the first session.

See the bright green area along the fence to the left?

That's the edge of the terrace garden.

For scale, that fence is 6-foot woven wire with 2x4" openings.

Which makes this amazing squash plant about 7 feet tall so far:

It's a Sow True Seed winter squash, called

Pink Jumbo Banana. 

The description says each squash can weigh 25-40 pounds!

Do you think I should make little hammocks to support the 

two baby squash(!) already growing high up on the fence? 

I'm thinking maybe.

~~~

Today the brushcutting was finished.
When my younger helper comes on Wednesday,
he can pull all the wilted (by then) cuttings off the bank
and pile them up on the Very Raised Bed.
I am loving having a way to make good use of such material!

Now, I would love to have your advice, all you lovely gardeners!

I'd like to plant the whole bank with perennials this Autumn.
Any recommendations for plants?
What are your undemanding perennial favorites?
I'm in Zone 5, and the bank is rocky (of course).
It gets a lot of afternoon sun.
I'm hoping for plants that will spread densely,
but not grow tall enough to shade the terrace garden above.

So far, I'm considering daylilies and iris
(tall, so they would be planted at the base of the stone wall),
and several varieties of shorter coreopsis along the upper bank.
I've never grown coreopsis; not even dyer's coreopsis.
It is an annual, and since it is so difficult to garden here,
the return of perennials is important. To my sanity.
But...it seems there are now perennial coreopsis,
reputed to be equally hardy and even more colorful.
And perhaps a dye source! Worth a try.

That's all I've come up with for possibilities so far.
Please, please feel free to make suggestions.
Prepping and planting this garden is going to be a lot of work.
Any guidance to making it successful will be much appreciated!

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