It must be time for an update
Jun. 27th, 2006 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanDavid and I (mostly David, though I wrote the text, such as it is) updated http://www.dd-b.net/pddb/. I'm not sure that there is anything there that you wouldn't know from reading this journal, but there's a photograph of me sitting amidst a batch of daisies, holding the new edition of Tam Lin and looking smug.
The daisies are in the back yard, in the lawn. They began as a demure little clump in a flower bed, but they have rampaged into the sunniest part of the lawn, and I mow carefully around them every year until they've finished blooming. I'm delighted that there are now enough of them for a background.
The yard and garden are not yet at their midsummer peak, because the weather has been odd, but they are near it. Two and a half of the garden beds in the front have gone to rack and ruin, which means that they contain wild four-o'clock, hairy bellflower, orange daylilies, and a lot of miscellaneous and uninteresting weeds, with the addition of unwanted volunteer saplings of various sizes. The less uncivilized bits include the hydrangea my mother gave me, which is now talll enough that I have ceased to worry that I'll yank it up while weeding out the plaintain., It's blooming pink at the moment, but I'm going to mulch it with some pine needles, and then it will bloom blue. Lydy's hens and chicks are thriving, even though some idiot (or child; hard to say) stole all the potsherds that she had put around them both to make an environment they would like and to discourage the squirrels, which dug up a previous batch until it disappeared.
One set of hens and chicks is in the stump of the downed arborvita. In the suddenly sunny space next to it I stuck in a purple and a regular sage, and they have doubled in size since being planted. The bleeding heart under the other arborvita is still above ground, but no longer blooming. The hostas in that bed are confused, probably by an excess of sunlight. Down in front, the threadleaf coreopsis is blooming and the coreopsis Moonbeam is thinking about it. My pink primrose didn't come back, but the bee balm has spread madly and some plants have buds. It's the native kind, with lavender flowers. It comes in two clumps; one is surroundiing, but very unlikely to conquer, one of those huge hostas that has blue-green leaves edged with white, and white flowers, now in bloom. The dark pink Asiatic lilies with yellow throats, that turn pale pink after a few days of sun, are blooming. There were once yellow ones in there too, but they disappeared or converted to pink.
The lawn is mostly plantain, with outposts of white Dutch clover. The north side of the house is a mess, but the dark pink lilies with white throats (either Sorbet or LaToya, I don't remember which) are starting to open, and the morning glories that Lydy planted are climbing their bamboo stakes so that they can twin around the porch railing.
The back is quite pretty right now, with ranks and ranks of orange daylilies. There are seven clumps of black-eyed Susan. Only one of them is actually in a garden bed, but I don't really care. The daisy fleabane is also mostly in the yard, some intermingled with the real daisies and the rest scattered about. With the orange of the daylilies, the purple of the hairiy bellflower, the white of daisy and daisy fleabane, and the violent gold of the rudbeckia, it's a nice vivid sight. Lydy's morning glories are starting to climb the trellis and making inroads on the lilies.
The white trumpet lilies that I put in a few years ago are still struggling along; this year there are two buds on each of the two surviving plants. The mystery Asiatic lilies that I don't recall planting turn out to be a brilliant orange, with no spots. They look pretty startling next to the dark pink (LayToya or Sorbet) lilies from which they are separated only by some gone-to-seed dame's rocket. I've also got some tall mystery lilies back amongst one clump of daylilies, and they are now revealed to be trumpet lilies too. They haven't bloomed yet, but their buds are turning down rather than pointing skywards, so I know what kind they are if not what color. The phlox is still making leaves and consolidating its position against the hairy bellflower. It doesn't need help, but I've yanked a lot of bellflower out anyway because I discovered that the veronica is still there; it just hasn't had the heart to bloom for a few years.
On the south side of the house I yanked out more bellflower and a lot of lily-of-the-valley and put in tomatoes, two heirlooms and a hybrid. They seem pretty happy.
I should really be out there cutting back Japanese knotweed and pullling up motherwort and getting the endless volunteer trees out of everywhere, rather than writing this. Just one or two more notes.
I was trying to recall the last time I had seen anybody other than the people I live with and my mother, and realized that it was when David and I went to Northfeild to see his mother Before that, well, I went to a pleasant birthday party with gaming, but that's a while ago now. I'm not sure if these hermitish tendencies are the result of mere inertia or of the fact that the book has entered one of many periods where grim slogging is necessary.
Well, I'd better either go glare at it or destroy some weeds.
P.
The daisies are in the back yard, in the lawn. They began as a demure little clump in a flower bed, but they have rampaged into the sunniest part of the lawn, and I mow carefully around them every year until they've finished blooming. I'm delighted that there are now enough of them for a background.
The yard and garden are not yet at their midsummer peak, because the weather has been odd, but they are near it. Two and a half of the garden beds in the front have gone to rack and ruin, which means that they contain wild four-o'clock, hairy bellflower, orange daylilies, and a lot of miscellaneous and uninteresting weeds, with the addition of unwanted volunteer saplings of various sizes. The less uncivilized bits include the hydrangea my mother gave me, which is now talll enough that I have ceased to worry that I'll yank it up while weeding out the plaintain., It's blooming pink at the moment, but I'm going to mulch it with some pine needles, and then it will bloom blue. Lydy's hens and chicks are thriving, even though some idiot (or child; hard to say) stole all the potsherds that she had put around them both to make an environment they would like and to discourage the squirrels, which dug up a previous batch until it disappeared.
One set of hens and chicks is in the stump of the downed arborvita. In the suddenly sunny space next to it I stuck in a purple and a regular sage, and they have doubled in size since being planted. The bleeding heart under the other arborvita is still above ground, but no longer blooming. The hostas in that bed are confused, probably by an excess of sunlight. Down in front, the threadleaf coreopsis is blooming and the coreopsis Moonbeam is thinking about it. My pink primrose didn't come back, but the bee balm has spread madly and some plants have buds. It's the native kind, with lavender flowers. It comes in two clumps; one is surroundiing, but very unlikely to conquer, one of those huge hostas that has blue-green leaves edged with white, and white flowers, now in bloom. The dark pink Asiatic lilies with yellow throats, that turn pale pink after a few days of sun, are blooming. There were once yellow ones in there too, but they disappeared or converted to pink.
The lawn is mostly plantain, with outposts of white Dutch clover. The north side of the house is a mess, but the dark pink lilies with white throats (either Sorbet or LaToya, I don't remember which) are starting to open, and the morning glories that Lydy planted are climbing their bamboo stakes so that they can twin around the porch railing.
The back is quite pretty right now, with ranks and ranks of orange daylilies. There are seven clumps of black-eyed Susan. Only one of them is actually in a garden bed, but I don't really care. The daisy fleabane is also mostly in the yard, some intermingled with the real daisies and the rest scattered about. With the orange of the daylilies, the purple of the hairiy bellflower, the white of daisy and daisy fleabane, and the violent gold of the rudbeckia, it's a nice vivid sight. Lydy's morning glories are starting to climb the trellis and making inroads on the lilies.
The white trumpet lilies that I put in a few years ago are still struggling along; this year there are two buds on each of the two surviving plants. The mystery Asiatic lilies that I don't recall planting turn out to be a brilliant orange, with no spots. They look pretty startling next to the dark pink (LayToya or Sorbet) lilies from which they are separated only by some gone-to-seed dame's rocket. I've also got some tall mystery lilies back amongst one clump of daylilies, and they are now revealed to be trumpet lilies too. They haven't bloomed yet, but their buds are turning down rather than pointing skywards, so I know what kind they are if not what color. The phlox is still making leaves and consolidating its position against the hairy bellflower. It doesn't need help, but I've yanked a lot of bellflower out anyway because I discovered that the veronica is still there; it just hasn't had the heart to bloom for a few years.
On the south side of the house I yanked out more bellflower and a lot of lily-of-the-valley and put in tomatoes, two heirlooms and a hybrid. They seem pretty happy.
I should really be out there cutting back Japanese knotweed and pullling up motherwort and getting the endless volunteer trees out of everywhere, rather than writing this. Just one or two more notes.
I was trying to recall the last time I had seen anybody other than the people I live with and my mother, and realized that it was when David and I went to Northfeild to see his mother Before that, well, I went to a pleasant birthday party with gaming, but that's a while ago now. I'm not sure if these hermitish tendencies are the result of mere inertia or of the fact that the book has entered one of many periods where grim slogging is necessary.
Well, I'd better either go glare at it or destroy some weeds.
P.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 05:08 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 05:08 pm (UTC)Um, wow. I'm honored.
P.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 05:12 pm (UTC)I love that cover, too. I shall have to purchase a new edition.
(You have an extra . at the end of your URL, btw)
Reading about your garden makes me happy.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 05:19 pm (UTC)I took out the ., and also demolished a horde of extraneous "i"'s that I swear appeared after I saved the entry. Thanks.
My garden is barely out of the wilderness stage, but I do love it.
P.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 05:15 pm (UTC)MKK
no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 05:20 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 06:19 pm (UTC)I am, however, beginning to have a good deal of success letting the buttercups and wild geranium soften the angular corners of the back yard - the bits overhung by lilac bushes and plum tree are looking quite nice. I need to remind the mower-mad lawn man *not* to cut back there.
I need more perennials - big ones that come back of their own accord. And I need to figure out why the poppy mixtures I sow every year never manage to sprout.
Good on ya!
Date: 2006-06-27 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 06:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-27 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 01:23 am (UTC)Making Light has an open thread which contains much gardening info, including how much work people have put into getting rid of Japanese knotweed in their own gardens (at http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007679.html#007679), if you're looking for commiseration).
Your garden sounds absolutely lovely, by the way.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 06:08 am (UTC)Hmm
no subject
Date: 2006-07-01 03:18 am (UTC)