Frazzled, Frantic, and Frenzied

If last week was crazy, then this week has been pure chaos.  After two weeks of spending every moment possible trying to get the garden in order, it was time to get my house in order.  Husband, aka Mr. Procrastinator, finally got around to some of the chores on the to-do list I had made up nearly 10 months ago, and once he started, I didn't think he was going to stop.  Weeds were trimmed around every outbuilding on the farm, and broken or dead limbs cut from every tree until we had a brush pile big enough for a Homecoming bonfire. 

The front yard, where a wedding reception/party for Daughter and new Son-in-law will be held, is looking good.  But if Hubby is Mr. P, then I am definitely his soulmate, Mrs. Procrastinator. 

After months of indecision, I finally decided on new carpeting for the living room and family room, and new tile for the kitchen.  When would it be put in? Why, this week, of course!  Why not add to the chaos by moving all the furniture out for three days and trying to remember where I moved the phone or the coffeepot?  Working around the flooring installers and coordinating deliveries and last-minute details, my mind is going in thirty different directions, unable to focus on one task for very long.

I walk around the garden each day, pulling the overlooked weed, wondering what will be in bloom by Saturday.  Probably no one will venture as far as the lily bed, so they will miss seeing the new Byzantine glads at the back of this border.

The purple iris' blooms will probably have faded by Saturday.

Plans to move all the furniture back in place Tuesday night were stalled when I was told the grout had to sit for another twenty-four hours, and the carpeting--promised as a one-day job--wasn't finished.  Breathe in the perfume of the nearly blue new iris, Rose . . . it will all get done eventually.

Wednesday morning the tent was put up, and I started to worry about rain . . . or even worse, strong storms like last week.  But the weather forecast is for 0% chance of precipitation . . . let's hope they're right for once. 

 With the tent in the middle of the yard, probably very few, if any, will even venture up to look closely at the garden.  But it's hard to miss the red Knockouts blooming away in the front bed, where 'May Night' salvia and 'Walker's Low' nepeta vie for attention.

All the containers have been filled to add some color in this in-between stage of blooms.  On the back steps, this container only got a quick infusion of yellow petunias, as the pansies just weren't ready to give up yet.  How they've survived this week of 90-degree heat is beyond me.

Lefover impatiens from another project went into the blue pot in the shade garden along with a caladium and coleus.

The new spirea in front of the house--name escapes me at the moment--is putting out its first blooms.

The shade garden has been top priority in the last two weeks, since it is the most visible from the party area. 

The good thing is that plants are so crowded together here there's little chance for weeds to grow.  Even the lamium that refuses to stay in its place is putting out a few blooms to add to the festivities.

If anyone wants to look closely, maybe they will notice a few late hellebore blooms instead of a stray weed. Even I didn't notice them hidden under the growing hydrangeas.

Or maybe their eyes will be drawn to the Heucheras, like this glowing 'Tiramisu.'

Or if a guest wants to look more closely, I'll point out my new namesake, the dainty little tiarella 'Rosalie.'

I'm frazzled and frenzied, bone tired at the end of each day.  But don't worry about me--I'm typically stressed out before any big event I plan.  By Saturday evening I will relax and enjoy greeting family and friends.  There will be time next week for relaxing, reading blogs, and catching up on some much-needed sleep.

There will be time then to stop and smell the roses.

I've Got It Made in the Shade

Is there such a thing as a perfect garden?  After viewing many public gardens and some magnificent private ones, both large and small, in the past few years, I think there might be such a thing..  But I can assure you that if perfection exists, it's in someone else's garden---definitely not in mine. 

There is always a long list of unfinished chores to accomplish--weeding, edging, trimming, fertilizing, and on and on.  Or looking at the garden in bloom, I realize I need more color or different textures or some height.  Looking at the shade garden (above) in mid-April, I enjoyed the spring-flowering bulbs, but realized I should have planted more last fall.

But in mid-May, with the spring bloomers fading and the heart of this garden finally in full growth, I had a moment of bliss.  My shade garden, for me at least, is almost perfect.

I had just planted a small shady area at our old house, when we decided to move to the family farm in the late summer of 2004.  I didn't want to abandon all those new plants, so one fall weekend I dug most of them up and hastily transplanted them to the easiest shady spot I could find here--right next to a huge spruce tree.  They thrived in spite of fighting for water with the spreading roots of the spruce.

The pricey (at that time) 'Endless Summer' hydrangeas settled in as well as several other single specimen plants.  But the mainstays of the garden then and now are the hostas.  Most of them are NOIDS, being either passalongs or part of a "bargain bag" collection offered by a discount plant catalog. A few more were purchased later and added, but their tags are buried somewhere.  I wish I knew the name of this chartreuse hosta and where it came from, because it's my favorite. Serendipitously, it's at the center of a grouping of hostas.

Of course, I love the varied foliage of hostas, but I also enjoy the purple and white blooms that appear above them in mid-summer, adding a little color to an otherwise predominantly green landscape.

This shady area was very small, so in the fall after I retired, I decided to expand it, digging it up by hand and doubling its size.  It's still a small garden by most standards--I've said before not to expect any expansive sweeps of gardens if you visit here; all I really have are some flowerbeds situated hither and yon that I collectively call my "garden."  But for me, what the shade garden lacks in size, it makes up for in beauty. 

The next spring--two years ago--I decided to border the expanded area with old-fashioned coral bells.  Several very small, inexpensive plants were purchased that filled in only the center front of the garden.

But then I discovered the wonderful world of heucheras!  'Purple Palace,' 'Plum Pudding,' (I still don't remember which is which), 'Dolce Creme Brulee,' 'Key Lime Pie,' 'Tiramisu' all called out to me with their promises of no-calorie sweetness. The border is now filled with these, which I much prefer to the plain old coral bells.  (Though 'Key Lime Pie' has since disappeared--perhaps another hungry varmint thought it made a good dessert.)

And what better companion for hostas and heucheras than ferns. Only one Japanese painted fern was originally moved, then a few bareroot starts from the same discount catalog were planted. 

They did nothing for the first two years, but suddenly they have taken the leap and even multiplied.  Add to those, some passalong cinnamon ferns kindly given to me by Lisa, and I now have almost as many ferns as hostas.

Astilbe haven't fared as well here, but the constant rains of June gave my lone survivor a better start this year.

This area is actually what you would call dappled shade and gets a few hours of direct sunlight, making it possible to grow a sun-lover like this daylily glaring in the sun.

As you can see, everything is packed in tight here, meaning you must look closely or you might miss something.

This spring I noticed this stem coming up and wondered what it was.  Fortunately, I realized it wasn't a weed and left it alone.  On the garden walk last week, I saw much larger specimens of this plant and realized it was Solomon's Seal.  A few minutes of thought, and it came to me that this must have come in with the cinnamon ferns.  Thanks, Lisa, for the bonus plant!

Careful inspection on a dewy early morning may find heuchera blooms draped with glistening spiderwebs.

Often small creatures can be found hiding in the blooms or the foliage, like this daddy-long-legs on a hydrangea bloom.

Even stranger creatures might be found like this gift from Beckie.  Actually, I staged this photo, considering writing a parody of Stevie Smith's "Not Waving, But Drowning" for June's Muse Day post.  But as much as I like that poem, it's rather depressing for a Garden Muse Day, and Mr. Troll is far too jovial for gloomy thoughts.

Still, he does look as if he's drowning in this sea of lamium, doesn't he?  A few  lamium once bordered  the shade garden, but as they encroached upon other more desirable plants, I've moved them--and moved more of them--to a bare area underneath the spruce.  It's not looking this good right now, but in early June it certainly made me look like a gardener with a very green thumb.

As summer has progressed, the nearly perfect garden of May is showing some imperfections.  Tiny holes are evident in nearly every leaf, probably the work of earwigs, the worst infestation I've ever seen here.

Probably the biggest flaw, though, is of my own doing.  I keep buying plants and more plants, then "shoehorning" them into small bare spots ala Joy, without thinking about the size they will become when mature.  Spring sale impulse buys included this heucherella, 'Sweet Tea,' which fortunately fit into a small spot.

It was a tighter squeeze, though, for this peachy-bronze heuchera bought at the same sale.  'Southern Comfort' provides a little liquid refreshment to go with all those dessert heucheras:)

A much larger bare spot was found for another impulse purchase,  this Jacob's Ladder 'Snow and Sapphires."

But a few weeks later, when I added this pink caladium nearby,  there no longer was a spot of soil visible. Today as I look at the shade garden at the height of summer, I am beginning to think everything is much too crowded, and some thinning out needs to be done.  I think it's time to get out the spade again and head westward . . . or maybe northward . . .

Another example of  "it seemed like a good idea at the time" is this fountain given as a birthday gift by my daughters.  I loved this small water feature, and the blue is the perfect accent here in the shade garden.  There's only one problem--it's a solar fountain, and the water flows only when the sun is shining on the collector.  Oh well, it's still pretty to look at.

And finally, while I'm being critical, this garden lacks a focal point, unless you count the large 'Sum and Substance' hosta at the back of the garden.  I may have solved this problem, however, after a shopping trip to a garden center with Beckie yesterday . . . stay tuned for a later update.

Despite the obvious imperfections, I still enjoy this garden area where I have it made in the shade.

Thanks for hanging in here with me on this long post--I can't seem to stop talking once I start:)  But I hope it wasn't too bad, because I neglected to mention one obvious advantage to this area this hot summer-it's the only cool spot in the garden!