Arrived Friday afternoon with Bert. I like coming together, we had really gotten away from that in the past year or so. And we certainly save a lot on gas! Bert went to Groesbeck on Saturday to give William all the lumber we had after tearing down the screened-in porch. The family is on high alert, Josh and Amy's baby will be born any day now.
- Saturday morning I walked around the gardens looking at everything. The colors in the Star Garden are purple, hot pink, yellow and peach. My Obedient Plant and Butterfly Bush are supplying the pretty purple colors. The hot pink, yellow and peach colors are my Cannas. Cannas are among the most useful plants in August here in my garden. Not many things will bloom in this heat. The Americrinum, Hurricane, and Schoolhouse Lilies are also blooming. But their bloom time is short - the beginning and end will only be a few weeks. My cannas have been blooming their hearts out all summer long.
- The roses in the Rose Garden are starting to perk up, a combination of my watering schedule and the approach of fall.
- I watered the roses for about an hour then set about weeding the most horrible weed that God ever slayed us with - Day Flower, or at least it is in that family. And it is a fitting name because I wrestle with it every day. This weed can have one single tiny leaf sprouted and the roots will already be 4 inches long. You cannot pull it up by grabbing the greenery and pulling because it breaks off below the surface of the soil at a knobby point from which the stems and roots emanate. The roots are thick and fleshy, there are many of them, they grow straight down, and they can be six, seven, eight inches long. You have to pull them up by driving your fingers down into the soil, getting below the knob from which the roots grow, and pulling it up with all your might because these weeds don't like to be pulled up, and they pull back! And there are billions of them. I spent over two hours out there on the Day Flower mission - total eradication once and for all of that irksome weed. It may take many weeks of determined pulling because they come back from little bits of root that you cannot manage to pull up. But I got rid of nut sedge, another really tenacious weed, long roots although of a different size and shape.
- Came in during the hottest part of the day and watched Casablanca.
- Deadheaded the Verbena Bonariensis and pulled weeds in the front flower beds.
- Pulled weeds in the Star Garden, deadheaded zinnias and spread the seeds throughout the beds. Pulled up some Forsythia that had tip rooted and therefore gotten too big for its britches. Forsythia appears to be a host for nematodes. When I have occasion to pull it up I notice that the roots are very knobby.
- I sprayed herbicide on the Wild Border. I cut everything down with the weed eater a few weeks ago. Now I am starting with a blank slate. I'll cover it with fallen leaves in the fall.
- Sprayed herbicide around the pool area and here and there in the Orchard.
- Spent time in the Orchard pulling up salvia, deadheading zinnias and spreading the seeds on the ground I loosened when I pulled up the salvia. The zinnia seeds I sowed last weekend have sprouted.
- Swam in the pool throughout the day.
- Coq au vin and onion gratin for dinner.
- Sunday morning. I planted my four new bearded iris that I ordered from Schreiner's Iris Gardens. They are nice big rhizomes. I planted them all in the Rose Garden: Sentimental Rose (peach standard, rose fall) next to Chorale, Deliciously Different (Orange standard, pale orange fall with orange edges) next to my half-dead Duchess de Brabant, Sofia (white standard, pale yellow fall with white edging) next to the Noisettes, Gaelic Jig (a pale, almost grey iris) next to Perl d Or.
- I decided to separate the Clyde Redmond iris growing next to Cadenza rose because they were crowded with the Day Flower weed, and they had spread to the edge of the flowerbed (iris spread in one direction and when they get to a stopping point the rhizomes start piling on top of each other). I had a gazillion after I started digging them up. So I started planting them everywhere I could find a spot. I planted here, I plated there. Yes, I planted everywhere. That is a Dr. Seuss reference. In particular I planted about 10 rhizomes in the flower bed that surrounds the dead tree in the Rose Garden. I have needed something permanent there for a while now. I probably have a hundred iris plantings in the Rose Garden now. Spring should be beautiful, or at the very least, two springs from now should be gorgeous. Clyde Redmond is a pure, very dark blue iris. It is not a bearded iris, but has a really beautiful blue color.
- Sprayed herbicide on the back walkway and a bit in the Star Garden.
- The seed pods of some of the Cleome in the Star Garden have dried and split open, so I spread them around to various spots in the Star Garden.
- I spayed herbicide in a few spots in the the Vegetable Garden that I missed last week and pulled some weeds. The lettuce seed and the green beans that I sowed last week have sprouted. The Vegetable Garden looks pretty good. The asparagus is tall and ferny. The leaves of the sweet potato vines are green and purple. Hyacinth Bean vine is crawling up the goat wire arbor (not edible, but pretty).
- I cut back the trailing purple lantana that was growing into the path. Bert pointed it out to me last night. Sometimes I don't notice when a plant starts encroaching.
- Cleaned the bathrooms.
- Took a nap. Swam in the pool for a bit.
- Watered in the Medicine Garden and around the pool.
- Headed home.
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