Arrived Sunday afternoon after babysitting all week for Josh and Blake who went to Mexico for their 10 year anniversary.
- I planted an alocasia in a big pot and placed it in the Medicine Garden. I don't know what variety it is , there was no name on it. But it is pretty with a bit of ruffle to the leaves and reddish stems. Alocasia leaves point up and Colocasia leaves point down.
- I mixed up vermiculite and potting soil and made 2 cuttings of my oakleaf hydrangeas. Dipped the stems in rooting hormone. Covered the cuttings with plastic bags and pinned down the ends of the bags with clothes pins against the pot. Hopefully they will take root. They are so expensive, it would be great if I could grow them on my own. I'd love to plant some more along the Boardwalk. They are so beautiful.
- I harvested seed off of the white larkspur that I marked several weeks ago. I tied green garden ties on a few of the white larkspur to keep track of them vs the purple and pink so that I could harvest the white seed for my mom's garden. Spread them in her garden.
- Cut back the white petunias in mom's garden, I don't know if they will make a surge or just die. Petunias don't like heat, but the new crop of petunias are more heat tolerant than in my younger days when I planted lots of annuals. So I cut them back to see what they will do. But I planted white yarrow between the sheared petunias. I'm golden no matter what happens, I will have white flowers in that spot.
- Monday. Memorial Day. Up early and straight outside to use my flamethrower in the lower part of the Meadow. I wanted to burn up a particularly yucky area of peppervine and beautyberry. It has been raining so much over the past two weeks, and everything was really wet. But I persevered and hit everything I wanted to hit. But it didn't want to burn, and I felt like I was wasting propane. I will hit some more areas the next time we come up here.
- I planted 2 Poquito Orange Agastache in one of the front beds. Voles love agastache, but this bed, in terms of its placement, is really in the hinterlands for the voles. Beyond the spot where the Agastache were planted is driveway, so maybe the voles won't venture over there. I also planted 4 Pirates Pearl in the front bed.
- Did a lot of weeding in the Rose Garden and the Star Garden. I pulled up brown eyes.
- Picked a big bowl of green beans in the Vegetable Garden. Picked an eggplant and 3 big yellow peppers. Did some clean up in there. I cleared out all the calendulas. In their place I will plant sun flowers and amaranth. No okra this year. I'm just not feelin' it.
- Mom, Dad, Nancy and Lisa arrived. We spent the day together. Memorial day. We can never understand their sacrifice or repay it. The six of us had lunch and sat by the pool. The weather was changeable. We never went swimming, but the weather was quite pleasant and we sat outside by the pool after lunch for about 4 hours and talked.
- After everyone headed home I went out to the Rose Garden and cut back to the ground 2 blue salvia that were spent. They will come up from the roots and have another big bloom in a month or so. I pulled up lots of Tall Poppy Mallow in the front bed of the Rose Garden where La Vesuve grows and in the back bed where Fortune's Double grows (or used to grow - I can hardly believe the freeze killed it). I pulled a bunch of Tall Poppy Mallow out of the arbor box. The Coral Honeysuckle vine in the arbor box that I dug up on my plant hunt with Amy is alive. It will make it if I give it just the bit slightest bit of attention this summer. That sounds easy, but I have so many, many, many plants, that I forget what to baby along through their first hot summer. I cut away oregano from my small roses. I cut back Tickseed and Ox Eyes. I cut away and culled many armfuls of debris.
- I walked the Meadow. Again, I will say that the Meadow is absolutely fascinating to me. The biodiversity is endlessly interesting to me. And in most cases, I didn't introduce it. And even if it is seed that I collected and distributed, it is really hard / impossible to connect that seed distribution to the plants that are growing in the Meadow. It may take years for my seed distribution to bear a plant that can be noticed. And the seed in my seed bank could be 10 or 20 years old and still be viable. So was it me or was it my seed bank that made that plant?
- I planted 4 gomphrena in the bed at the front of the Rose Garden where I pulled up some Brown Eyes.
- Spent some time cleaning out the Kitchen Herb Garden. I cut back lemon balm (that stuff gets crazy) and pulling up lots of mint. Very pleasant work because it smells so nice. Lots of ageratum has snuck in there too, so I pulled it up. I am trying to remember to pay attention to my little herb garden so that my chives, thyme, marjoram, and oregano don't get smothered.
- Tuesday. Vacation day.
- I went straight out to the Orchard to work there. I stayed in there for about 4 hours culling. I pulled up ageratum, Tall Poppy Mallow, and zillions of brown eyes. Weeded, weeded, weeded. Cut lots of salvia to the ground. I trimmed a lot of grape vines down to the point where the grapes were growing. I spent a lot of time doing that. I surrounded some areas with chicken wire. The armadillos really like to get in the Orchard. I filled the cadet up twice with debris until it was so tall I couldn't reach to get more stuff in there.
- Picked some tomatoes in the Vegetable Garden.
- I planted a butterfly vine against the conveyor belt in the Star Garden.
- I planted a Cinderella milkweed in the Star Garden.
- Sowed some Grey Striped Sunflowers and red amaranth in the Vegetable Garden.
- Headed back to Houston about 5:00.
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