early summer: poppies, pods, and pink paws
ICOMPLAIN A LOT IN JUNE, I KNOW, and there are a few more days left of what is in my garden the in-between month. It’s the month of pulling spent spring things out and cutting others back; of swapping out pots and impatiently waiting for the new things to fill in; of wanting all the Hydrangea paniculata to come into their own–of just plain being cranky. “But there’s always something to see, silly girl,” the wildest spider ever (above) crawled over and whispered to me a day or two ago. “Open your eyes, Margaret, and look around.” Care to come along for a little slideshow of what I found?
Click on the first thumbnail to start the slideshow, then toggle from image to image using the arrows beside each caption. Enjoy.
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- This is a somewhat “off” time in my garden, just because I don’t use many annuals, and some big swaths of the other plants I favor are mostly in between shows. But there’s always “something” — like this breadseed poppy playing host to the most delightful spider (maybe Misumena vatia, or the Goldenrod Crab Spider?). I don’t think he’s poisonous or otherwise lethal to anybody but incoming flying insects…
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- …but these baneberry fruits are. They look beautiful consorting with the Japanese painted fern fronds in the shady garden, but Actaea rubra fruits are poisonous.
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- A clematis or two are doing their best to distract my eye from all the cutback perennials and other temporary midseason messes. This one’s climbing in the variegated twig dogwood ‘Silver and Gold.’ Variegated foliage like that always looks nice, Clematis-draped or not…
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- …and so does gold-leaved stuff, which I am rich in. One plant that looks good from May well into fall is shrubby Rhus typhina ‘Tiger Eyes,’ the golden staghorn sumac. It lives tucked alongside a stand of lilacs whose flowers are long gone.
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- It really does glow, and nice texture to boot.
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- Gold, gold, gold. Who needs “annual color” when you have the perennial Heuchera ‘Citronelle’? I tuck two plants of it in a giant pot each year (overwintering them in the vegetable garden between summer shows), and wow. Here in the North it can take a sunny spot (or semi-shade anywhere). What an amazing plant.
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- Same holds true for Hakonechloa ‘All Gold,’ the golden Japanese forest grass. It is one of my favorite perennials, but I keep 8 or 9 clumps plunged in the vegetable garden in winter to use in a few giant, 3-foot-wide terra cotta bowls. Lights up the shade.
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- There seems to be a “manna from heaven” moment going on here — pods and fruits and fallen petals everywhere, including these pods of the yellow magnolia ‘Butterflies’…
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- …and these smaller ones from ‘Ballerina,’ a white Loebner hybrid.
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- Something sprouted and quickly ascended the big rhodie out back, and curiosity has the better of me — I won’t pull it until I have a better idea of who it is. Hilarious.
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- One of my favorite, and biggest, shrubs is bottlebrush buckeye, Aesculus parviflora, and this giant suffered the loss of an entire section two years ago. It is quickly suckering and replacing its missing parts.
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- A detail of the blooms that are just opening, wands of more than a foot tall.
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- Like I said, it’s not the prettiest time here…but it is time to mow the drifts of daffodils that have finally finished ripening. The foliage (now withered and hidden in the long grass in this photo and other masses around the place) always gets a haircut around July 4th.
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- Nicotiana volunteer seedlings in greens and ivory and pinkish hues seem to say “don’t give up!” as they put on their free show starting now, wherever they landed, which the hummingbirds also appreciate.
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- The big Brugmansia that lives in the cellar all winter, now about 8 feet high, is finally starting to show some flower buds. Hooray! Hope for late July or August, I guess.
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- Nearby, a pot of Canna ‘Grande,’ with big leaves edges in a slight reddish tinge, are starting to shape up.
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- In the vegetable garden, the first (lowest) leaves of the garlic are starting to brown. When to harvest is a matter of opinion — you don’t wait until all the tops dry and fall over, as with onions…but if you do it too early, you can sacrifice some bulb size supposedly. Too late, and it stores less well…so I am thinking when half or even three-quarters of the leaves are brown, but the top ones are still green. A compromise!
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- I always wonder about now if the onions will all bulb up nicely, now that they’ve had good growing time to produce plenty of healthy foliage since they were planted out in late April. Fingers crossed…
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- It seems like there will be beets for all hands. (Meaning 10 pink fingers here when I get to harvesting and roasting and skinning them.)
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- It’s too hot and sunny many summer days here to do well with repeat sowings of salad, so I pinned up the impromptu shade cloth (folded Reemay clipped with clothespins to wire hoops) over the spot where I just seeded the next crop. I await the results impatiently.
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- One thing we have here in profusion, whatever the season, though: pink paws.
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- They are typically attached to a sleeping feline. Jack the Demon Cat thinks long June days are for nonstop slumber, because he hunts voraciously all night long. Tough life, huh?
Absolutely delightful!! Especially love the pink paws!! Also, I am so glad to know that I’m not the only one who just doesn’t have the heart to pull a “weed” when it crops up, such as the vine in your rhodies. I always find nature so beautiful that it breaks my heart to pull anything out of the ground…admittedly, my garden could be much tidier…but far less interesting if I did.
Thanks, Jeanne, and nice to see you. I do pull a LOT of weeds, so I will have to go look and see what was in that old photo climbing up a rhodie. :)
Hi Margaret-
I think this is your spider: https://brokenbarn.blogspot.com/2009/06/misumena-vatia.html
As you can see from the pic, ours dropped the yellow pigment so it could hide on the white hellebore. I was so amazed to see such a tiny little thing killing a bee!
Welcome, Shannon; yes, I ID him (her?) in the caption on the slideshow photo; wonderful spider, right? Fascinating to no end, and I actually love spiders in general. See you soon again, I hope.
P.S. One year I had a “lusty” volunteer that looked like it would give me a gourd or two.
I should have torched it right then and there, as it has become terribly invasive in just four years. jmho… usually I welcome (with open arms) all volunteers. I even love the big thistles, the goldenrod, the milkweed, teasle, and the queen anne’s lace. But this thing is a smotherer and a monster. Too bad I could not tell the difference the first year (I stupidly let it seed… waiting for those gourds, remember…)
Welcome, Susan, and thanks for all the kind words. Sweet of you. Yes, I think you are right; the hellebores like a little light — or at least in the North they do, and so I put them under deciduous trees but where there is bright shade mostly. Glad to “meet” you and do come again soon and day hello.
Margaret,
Next year (always next year…) I am going to garden alongside of you here in PA. My flat of hellbores arrived last week and I am now making their beds, having found that they prefer their shade more open than I’ve given most of them so far. Should I transplant the ones along my wooded paths?
You are such an inspiration. Your slide shows are lovely. Your photographic eye unerring.
But your patio… *sigh*
Thank you again for this blog.
Susan in PA
Hello all, Margaret, that vine looks faintly like a wild native cucurbit vine illustrated in an older book I have.
I have a question – I’ve been growing Brugmansias for almost 15 years and have yet to get one to overwinter. I’ve decided to simply baby them in my greenhouse from October to July, if necessary, and making sure they get plenty of fertilizer. What size pot do you overwinter yours in? Also, can you recommend a good fertilizer? I’m using manure tea and (ack!) Schultz’s blue granular mixed with water.
Welcome, Cathy. Mine is quickly outgrowing a pot that’s about two feet across and quite tall. Very large…but I need to go larger and haven’t figure that out yet…looking for the next lightweight but giant vessel. :) I don’t like chemical fertilizers, and I am seeing more all-natural organic formulas in the nursery these days so ask at your local place what they can offer. I would not feed in the offseason — promotes weak growth because of the shorter/lower light in winter days — so let it rest, no? You can read about my regimen for the Brugmansia storage here.
Reading your posts is like having the BEST neighbor live right next door. But this way you have no one peering over the “garden fence.” Thank you for that slide show! Your crazy vine looks like my bottle gourd, at the moment. I have planted it in the totally wrong place – a mere obelisk will not hold it. Yours looks to be traveling to California or CHina as well!
Love, love, love your photos Margaret… Interestingly, I just pulled a very similar vine off of some ladies mantle that you found on your rhodie. I guess I’m not as patient as you are… Let me know if I’ve missed anything!
Love the bottlebrush buckeye. We planted a small one this spring and, after seeing your photos, all I can say is “Wow, hope ours does half as well”
Lovely and you’re so right to appreciate all the in-between. I encountered bottlebrush buckeye for the first time last weekend at Longwood Gardens. THAT is an impressive species! Hooray for more salad seedlings, too.
Martha, thank you for the stroll through your garden! Can’t wait to see it in person during Copake Day at the end of August!!!
Welcome, Kate. Funny, like so many people (even years later now) you called me Martha. Sweet! Nice to hear from you and looking forward to a proper hello in August.
Margaret: love your pictures especially on my iPad…..Jack the demon is so handsome, we also await the summer color.ps: the chipmunks have grown tired of our stewartia,we took your advice. And relaxed, realizing they had to eat too!
so many nice things going on in your garden! Pots filled with gold foliage plants look great but those pink paws and that cute little sleeping face steal the show!
Jack’s toe beans are delicious :)
Check your weed sites for that cucumber-like vine? I think it might be burrcucumber or Sicyos angulatus.
Welcome, P. Lotvin. Yes, I kept saying to myself, “I think I have seen this before,” but you have to admire such a lusty thing. :) I will wait till it flowers to see if it’s what you think, or a lookalike…as on this Virginia Tech page with photos. The fascination of nature, right? See you soon again, I hope.
Wonderful photography, Margaret. Please do let us know what that weed is, if you can. I have one growing up through the exact middle of an Indian Hawthorne.
The “spider in poppy” photo is so beautiful–how did you ever get your model to pose so perfectly upon the dark pink? I am going to have to try to paint this! Just gorgeous.
Never seen baneberry before. Is it edible?
@Meemsnyc: As the caption mentions, baneberry is DEFINITELY poisonous!!!!! Beautiful but not for anything but show.
Love the pink cat paws, and yellow spider.