At the Farm During the Pandemic May 25 - 31, 2020

These are some of my pretty daylilies.

• Josh and the girls came for a visit arriving Monday evening (Memorial Day) and departing Wednesday afternoon.  We had a nice visit.  On Wednesday while the girls were napping I brought Josh out to the Rose Garden to see the baby cardinals in the nest, but they had fledged and were long gone.  I had seen them in the nest just the day before!
• Our first visitor showed up from the EcoLab program.  He walked the property and collected soil samples.  He is particularly interested in wooly croton, red lovegrass and partridge pea.  He wasn't too sociable and just came and went without much discussion.  I was hoping I could walk with him and he would name some of the vegetation for me, but he was in a hurry.
• Wednesday evening I spent about 2 hours in the Rose Garden.  It had rained and the temperature dropped.  It was easy work in the cool air.  I culled.  Pulled up Brown Eyed Susans, cut back Verbena Bonariensis, pulled weeds and lots of that nasty vine, deadheaded roses, cut back Tickseed, and spread seed. 
• Bert and I sat on the porch and watched a terrific storm come through - lightening strikes and thunder and thunderous rain.  The lightening continued long after we went to bed, lighting up the back over and over in very eerie and ghostly way.  I was glad I wasn't by myself!
• Thursday.  Bert called me out to the shed.  Lined up along the edge of our power washer were the four little wrens from the nest - learning to fly.  Pretty cute.  We were there to see the beginning.
• I did some more weeding in the Rose Garden.  Then I spent a little time in the Greenhouse Garden weeding.  I spent about 45 minutes in the Orchard weeding the Jujube bed.  I pulled up lots of dollar weed, some crabgrass, and some spent wildflowers.  I cut back my Duelberg salvia to rejuvenate it.
• The coneflower is magnificent right now.  I'm very proud of my coneflower.  I grew it from seed, and it took two years to get my first flowers. So it is a wonderful feeling looking at all the blooms.   
• After work I deadheaded my Indigo Spires salvia.  And I spent some time cleaning out the Bulb Bed of wilted, brown daffodil greenery and spent Ox Eye daisy flowers.  The white mist flower is coming on strong in there.  
• Weeded in the Star Garden.
• Cut back Four O'Clocks that were leaning into the path.
• Friday.Worked.
• Saturday.  I started laying down the rock that we retrieved from under the deck around the pool.  Bert nailed boards along the bottom of the deck to create an edge, so all the rock could be used for something else.  I used some of it along the edge of the apple bed in the Orchard.  The metal landscape edge had sunk into the ground over time, so there was no edging around that bed.  It looked bad.  It still needs more to complete the circle.
• I used some of the rock to line the path that leads from the back door to the pool.  The armadillos have really messed that up with dirt strewn everywhere.  I used my trowel to scoop dirt back into the bed and then I placed the rock.   I cut spent Ox Eye stems and pulled up scraggly stuff.  I didn't finish, but I stopped to eat some breakfast. 
• Sowed some zinnia seeds in the Star Garden.
• Pulled up the sweet peas.
• Finished laying down rock along the back path.  I planted plugs of Strawberry Begonia in a large section of the walkway bed.  Debra gave it to me.  I've never grown it, don't know much about it.  But that bed is in shade, so I think it will take off.
• I spent about 2 hours in the Orchard.  I trimmed away at the grape vines so that the little grapes could get sun.  I cut away at spent blackberry canes and hauled them off.  Picked blackberries.  Not enough to make jelly again, unfortunately.  Cobbler it is!  Trimmed low branches on the apple and the plums, just enough to make it easier to walk around.  Weeded a bit.
• I planted 8 hot pink / orange and pale pink / pale yellow lantana in the Rose Garden.  They are work horses in the Garden, they like it hot.  After all the Brown Eyed Susans finish blooming there will be nothing around the roes.  So I'm tucking them in here and there.  Butterflies love lantana.
• I planted 3 Ellen Bosanquet  crinum in the Long Border.  This fall, winter and spring I have planted crinums in the Long Border:  Summer Nocturne (pale pink based on the photo), some that Debra gave me (she told me they are dark pink), and now the Bosanquets.  None of them will bloom this year since they were just planted.  They take up a lot of space, and I need to fill up the Long Border.  I also moved some cannas in there last fall.  Along with the Indigo Spires, the phlox, some iris, some moss verbena, perennial ageratum, the cannas and crinums that have been there for years, cypress vine on a trellis, and two climbing roses (Peggy Martin and Veilcenblau) there is only a small space left for seeds.  That suits me fine.
• I planted two Biltmore Ballgown Abutilon in the Medicine Garden.  I already don't like where I planted them (too close together).  I dug up two Rosemary in order to put them there  The spot was always too shady for Rosemary, so that was a good think to do.  I planted the Rosemary in the Star Garden.  I like where I planted one of the Rosemary, but I will regret where I planted the other (amongst my Flowering Almond shrubs).  Maybe I will move it Sunday.
• Sunday.  I watered here and there with my watering can - seedlings, pots and such.
• I spent four hours in the Vegetable Garden.  I pulled up spent things like squash (burrowing insects get in the stem and kill them), dill, etc.  I harvested the last of the beets, the carrots, onions (small  and pathetic), squash, and potatoes. I hauled rock from next to the pool where Bert fixed the deck over to the little piece of bed next to the goat wire arbor.  I built up the bed with the rock.  Then I filled it with my compost and horse manure.  Turned it over.  I turned over five other beds.  Whew.  Hot work.  I sowed Clemson Spineless okra, red amaranth, red basil, lots of French marigolds (tucked in everywhere), and Giant Sunflower (just for fun).  Also sowed some zinnias in the buckets. I staked 2 Mexican sunflowers and another sunflower that I don't remember sowing - but good for me.  It has lots of buds on it, can't wait to see what it is.  Job well done.
• I drove to Antique Rose Emporium to see if they had any lantana since I'm on a lantana kick.  But they had none.  I drove home by way of Brenham to see if Home Depot had any lantana , but they didn't either.  I will have to wait until the weekend and get it at Arbor Gate.  Blake and her girlfriends are going to be here this weekend for a girls thing, and Bert and I are going to Houston.
• Weeded a bit, did a little bit of watering.  That was it for me.