Weekend at the Farm July 25 - 26, 2015

This is a Moonflower only partially open.  Moonflower is a vine.  The 8 inch flowers open up in the evening, and they close at dawn, lasting only one day.  The vine is not as vigorous and leafy as Morning Glory.  I plant the two vines together for a pretty morning and evening display.  Moths are drawn to these nocturnal flowers all night long.

Arrived with Bert on Saturday about noon.  We rarely drive here in the same car anymore because we are arriving from different places or I want to stay until Monday morning and drive in to work.  We stopped at the hardware store and bought new sprinkler timers for the Rose Garden and the Medicine Garden.

• Spent about an hour installing the new sprinklers.  That's always good for an argument.  Fooling with the hoses drive Bert absolutely crazy!  It is hot work, and getting all the drips and leaks to stop, putting on new clamps and nozzles, etc is not fun. It is very dry.  We need rain.  We had such a wet spring, but now we are in a dry spell.
• Put on jeans and a long sleeved shirt to weed-eat my "wild" borders.  A hundred degrees, I sweated buckets.  It was a mess, the weeds were two feet tall.  Bert kept warning me to do it before it became difficult, but I didn't heed the warning. I will be re-thinking my wild border next spring.  I will cover the entire area with leaves to discourage the weeds.  With some diligence I will keep the weeds down and only my daffodils will pop up.  I will likely clear some limited space of all undergrowth and sow wildflowers in those spots - spots where the irrigation system reaches.  This fall I have a whole new strategy for gathering my leaf mulch.  Previously I raked leaves and immediately put them through the shredder.  Fatigue and an unpredictable, hard-to-start shredder has begun to limit my mulch production.  And at some point my frustrated husband just starts raking up the leaves and burning them in the name of  "neatness".  My valuable leaves!  Now I'm going to rake the leaves and pile them up next to the Vegetable Garden - this will be a massive pile of leaves.  Then I will use them throughout the year, either I will shred them, or I will use the unshredded, partially decomposed leaves in my flowerbeds.
• I weeded in the long flowerbed in the back of the house.  I cut back all the spent black and blue salvia and bee balm.  I cut back the white Four O'Clocks that were sprawling everywhere.  I weeded around all the red autumn sage and pulled up Tuber Vervain that was crawling everywhere.  The armadillos have realy turned one section of that bed up  They haven't managed to find the opening in the bed where all my African Hostas are growing, thankfully  I surrounded it almost completely with chicken wire because they have always destroyed that bed which causes the African Hostas to go dormant way before they should.  So far so good, I'm very happy with my deterrent.
• My copperhead showed up again.  Bert spotted him on the back porch and killed him with a shovel.  Well, he had to go.  You can't allow a poisonous snake to hang out near your dogs and ... your fingers and toes.  My guess is that he was in the flowerbed along the back of the house, and when I started thrashing around in there doing my weeding he slithered to the back porch to get away from the activity.
• Did some deep watering in all the beds in the Greenhouse Garden.
• Thinned zinnia seedlings in the Star Garden and the Orchard.
• My Muscadine grapes are big but still green.  A few are starting to have a purple blush.  My guess is they will be ripe next weekend, but the whole family is having a "staycation" at the lake.   So I will have to come up for an overnighter some time next week or very early in the week after that.  The animals will surely eat all of them if I do not get to them promptly.
• I'm starting to receive bulb catalogues for the fall planting season.  I have already started reading and studying up on what I want..  I generally buy at least 100 bulbs every year, but often I buy many more than that. This year I am considering several varieites of daffodils that do well in the lower south:  Sweetness, Trevithian, Thalia, Avalanche, and Saint Keverne.  I almost always buy my bulbs from Brent and Becky's web site.  The bulbs are not top-size, but they are the best price I've found anywhere - and I've visited every site.  I always consider buying from Old House Gardens.  They have a very interesting web site, and a serious commitment to preserving really special, rare heirloom bulbs.  But they are so expensive that I never do it.  They contend that they sell the "real deal" bulbs, not imitators and imposters, but the true heirlooms that they find on old homesteads, etc.   There is a difference in bulbs, no question about it.  And you have to plant bulbs that are right for your area or they won't bloom.  And some bulbs won't bloom year after year, they will only put off greenery.  Two years ago I dug up a mass of bulbs that had been growing in the back yard in Houston.  They had multiplied all on top of each other, and I had about 50 bulbs.  I planted them all around the place thinking that, after being thinned out they would bloom and be something pretty.  I had no idea what they were or how they had gotten there.  Well, they have not bloomed for two straight seasons.  So I'm digging them up - to the compost pile they go.  Life's too short to put up with that when there are varieties that will give me pleasure for years to come with their beautiful blooms.
• Bert and I went to dinner at JW's Steakhouse in Carmine.  When we left we rolled down all the windows, and as we drove through all the gravel back roads we smelled the wonderful smells of cut grass in the pastures and the moist earth.  It was wonderful.  That smell will take you back to something you didn't even realize was a part of your youth. 
• Up early Sunday morning.  Hank, the neighbors' dog, is already here lying on the cold cement floor trying to cool off..  When I woke up he was staring into the bedroom window:  Hey everybody, whatcha doing?  Can I come in?
• I spent most of my morning in the Rose Garden.  I pulled weeds and pulled up this kind of spindly vine that often covers things around here.  It had covered my Noisette roses.  It is easy to pull off, but getting the little green seed balls it drops is another matter.  I weeded around all the roses, there wasn't much to do since I had already done a pretty thorough job last weekend.  I cut back the Harlequin Glorybower branches that were blocking the sprinkler.  Hauled three wheelbarrows of debris over to the neighbors' property and dumped it.  I also watered the roses  - they are gasping.
• The Moonflower and Heavenly Blue Morning Glories have sprouted that I planted last weekend.  I surrounded them with chicken wire to protect them from the rabbits.
• Drank mimosas while I watered.  Swam in the pool.  Lovely day, hot but lovely.
• Sprayed herbicide in the Vegetable Garden, the Rose Garden, and the Star Garden.
• Napped during the hot part of the day.
• Tinkered with the sprinklers.  
• Headed home about four o'clock.