Weekend at the Farm October 19 - 21, 2017

Arrived Thursday afternoon with Bert and stayed through Sunday.  Weather very nice.

• Thursday I just spent the afternoon walking around and enjoying the day.
• Friday I spent time in the Rose Garden watering and fertilizing and weeding.  The California Poppies that I seeded last week are just beginning to germinate.  I can see the tiny little white sprouts emerging from the seed that is on the surface of the soil.  My plan:  Before I leave for the weekend I will pull up all the Turnera.  It is done for the season and has thrown off its seed.
• I did a lot of weeding in the Star Garden, and I pulled up lots of leggy zinnias.  The ageratum is mostly finished and gone to seed, and it's time to pull it up as well.  Maybe Sunday.  I cut away plants leaning into paths - the Four O'Clocks always require cutting. 
•  The Heavenly Blue morning glories are just beginning to bloom on the arbor at the front entrance to the Star Garden.  So pretty.
• I pulled up the eggplant in my wheelbarrow that I'm using as a planter, and I sowed it with lettuce seeds.  I also dug up some thyme from the path where it is taking over, and I stuck some in the wheelbarrow as well.
• My green beans in the Vegetable Garden are loaded with buds.
• My husband got some four by fours from the hardware store to re-build my rose arbor at the entrance to the Rose Garden.  The old arbor fell apart - well, it lasted many years.
• My hurricane lilies are doing fine in the many places I moved them.  Several weekends ago, I believe it was the weekend Koy was with me - I dug up a bunch of  Lycoris.  The Lycoris in the center bed of the Circle Drive didn't bloom this year.  That means over-crowding.  So I dug up 50 or 60 or so and moved them to various places in the Rose Garden and the Orchard.  I was so happy I did that.  When I dug up the clumps the bulbs were on top of each other and way too crowded.  
• Butterflies are everywhere.  Really pretty.  Sulphurs, Painted Ladies, American Beauties, Black Swallowtails of various varieties, Giant Swallowtails, Gulf Fritillaries, White-striped Longtails, Long-tailed Sippers, and all the myriad varieties that people tend not to notice because they are black or brown or beige  (but they create so much activity in the gardens).  I have not seen any Zebras or Julias, and Monarchs are as scarce as hens teeth unfortunately. 
• In the afternoon I swept and mopped the kitchen and living room and cleaned the big oven and then the sink.
• I cut back the Pringle Aster - that plant makes a lot of debris.  It stays as a low-growing rosette (no more than a foot tall) all winter and spring.  Then in the summer it sends out four foot tall branches covered with bristly greenery.  Then, in the fall it bursts into thousands of little white flowers.  The branches are what must be cut away.
• I dug up 10 or so Philippine Lily seedlings and moved them to the Shade Garden.  And I spread seed in lots of different places.  I cut back the tall stems of many of the lilies, but I'm waiting another week for some of them that are still really green and have lots of leaves.
• I transplanted 10 or so ox eye daisies from paths into beds.
• I am pleased at how many Rudbeckia Maxima seedlings I have in the Orchard.  I collected all the seeds from the flower heads in late summer and threw them down in the bed next to the Satsuma tree.  Nothing much grows there, so I thought I'd try Dumbo Ears.  There are maybe 20 seedlings, maybe more that have sprung up.  It is a very pretty perennial with blue-grey large-leaved foliage.  It blooms in early summer.
• Raked in the Star Garden.  The leaves are beginning to fall.  Another summer has come and gone. 
•  Saturday.  I worked in the Rose Garden for a while.  It's so pretty in there right now.  I scraped the ground and threw down lots of Standing Cypress seed in the natural bed in the corner of the Star Garden where the Fortune's Double Yellow is growing.  That area doesn't get much water.  And Standing Cypress is supposed to be drought tolerant.  I bought a pound of seed to throw in my meadow.  So I used some of it liberally in the Rose Garden.  I also spread some in the bed where the Monsieur Tillier used to be.  That area also does not get a lot of water. 
• I pulled up the last eggplant in the Vegetable Garden, prepared the bed and spread a package of dill (Tetra variety).  I pulled weeds for about 30 minutes or so.  
• Filled the wheel barrow with compost from my compost pile to fill my new bed in the Rose Garden.  Bert cut down some dead cedars and made the edging for me.  This is just an expansion of a bed - there has always been an open spot there, I don't know why I never used it before.  I'm going to move a bunch of my iris to that spot.  None of my iris thrive because they are always smothered with perennials that overcome them.  This year I'm vowing to give them a chance by putting them in a fresh clean bed with nothing else around them.
• I spread more Philippine Lily seed and watered them in.  I think, from a gardening perspective, out of all the things that I've done through the years and will do in the coming years, the activity that has the most meaning for me is multiplying my lilies.  I envision them 10 years from now being quite a spectacle - they already are quite a spectacle.  
• Around 2:00 I drove to the Antique Rose Emporium and bought two roses.  While I was there I surreptitiously took some seed from a variety of princess feathers that I have long admired that grows there every year.  It is a very tall variety that I have never seen offered in catalogues.  When I got home I threw the seed in a bed next to the house.  Maybe I'll have some next year, who knows. 
• Came home and planted both roses.  I planted Bermuda's Kathleen in the bed where the Lady Hillingdon was (and some rose that was such a disappointment I won't bother to name it).  Lady Hillingdon was one of the many roses I lost last summer.  I have grown Bermuda's Kathleen before.  She gets quite large.  I am partial to the huge rose shrubs.  I pruned her way, way hard one spring and she up and died on me.  She is floriferous, and I like her a lot.  So I bought another one.  I planted a Marie van Houtte in the spot where the Chrysler Imperial was growing.  It pained me, but I pulled up a lot of Tickseed so that Marie would not have any competition her first year.  It so hard to choose a rose.  I've grown many varieties, and I love some of them which makes me want to get another one, but there are so many that I've never grown.  It's always a pull between getting a proven winner and trying something different. 
• I trimmed back the trailing purple lantana in the Rose Garden and then raked that path.
• I pulled up some Turnera, cut off the seed heads and threw them in the flower beds in the Star Garden.  If I get a lot of Turnera next summer in the Star Garden that would be quite a new dynamic in that garden.  We'll see.
• Sunday morning - rain. 
• I got outside about 9:30.  I pulled up all the Turnera in one of the beds in the Rose Garden and seeded it with Moss Verbena and Tickseed.
• I pulled up a bunch of ageratum in the Star Garden and cleared the bed of debris and weeds, about a five foot long area.  Seeded it with Tickseed and Moss Verbena.
• I dug up a bunch of iris, mostly Prissy Missy, and planted them in the new bed in the Rose Garden. 
• I sprayed herbicide in the Greenhouse Garden and cut away a lot of Elderberry that was leaning into the paths.  Generally cleaned up in that area.  Didn't have time to rake, though.
• Puttered here and there and watched butterflies.  
• Headed home about 3:00.