A Day at the Farm 05/13-15/10

Easy Ned Daylilies loaded with buds.

I like Easy Ned because the flowers have a different shape than most daylilies.

Easy Ned flower with several insects on it. I let insects live. So many of them serve a good purpose. Why spray?

It rained pretty steady Saturday morning so we went to town for breakfast and went to the hardware store. It cleared up by 9:00.

• Fertilized all the shrubs around the pool while it was raining so they would get a good soak.
  
• Fertilized my Salvia and Impatiens around the pool with fertilizer and some of the rainwater I am collecting in rain barrels now. I am recycling water in three rain barrels my husband placed around the house.
  
• Fertilized Mlle Fanziska Kruger and Belinda's Dream in front of the house.
  
• Fertilized Honey Sweet, Pearlie Mae, Livin' Easy, Lady Hillingdon, Souvenir de la Malmaison, Mdm. Isaac Pereire, Valentine, and Monsieur Tillier in the Rose Garden.


• Fertilized all of my La Marne roses that line the driveway. They have small flowers but a very good smell.
  
• Weeded, weeded, weeded.


• Staked my cucumbers.


• Harvested billions of poppy seeds. I really mean billions. I can't believe how many I have.
  
• Staked my morning glories so they will climb the arbor.
• Planted a Pennisetum 'Fireworks" in the Wave Garden. I'm on the look-out for some Little Bunny Grass and some more of the wonderfully colorful Fireworks Pennisetum. They have both been hard to find thus far.
  
• Worked in the Vegetable Garden. Fertilized the tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, and peppers.


• Fertilized the Big Daddy Hydrangeas and Salvia in that flowerbed.


• Fertilized the point in the Star Garden that holds my Joe Pye Weed, Verbena Bonariensis, and Red Cauli Stone Crop.
  
• Fertilized my Rudbeckia Maxima.


• Weeded, weeded, weeded some more!
• Cleaned out the bird baths. What a yucky chore...when you wait 4 months to do it...


• I have never seen so many caterpillars in my life. They are on everything. They have eaten many of my plants down to the nub. Everywhere I look they are hanging on branches and stems, eating, eating, eating. They aren't butterfly caterpillars unfortunately. They are moth caterpillars. Generally speaking moths larvae are furry and butterfly larvae are hairless. But I'm just leaving them to their business. I'm not killing them. They make things look ugly, but they don't harm anything. My husband even remarked on how many there are. It's like some sort of weird science fiction movie - Attack of the Moth Larvae.


• Butterflies are starting to get plentiful. I saw a Variegated Fritillary today, among others. They are very pretty! Also saw some Red Admirals. They are very distinctive. I'm trying to get a picture, but they move so fast!