LEAVING THE GARDEN

I'm leaving my garden.

Not permanently; perish the thought as I actually had a nightmare to this effect a few weeks ago. Nope, I'm just going out of town for little bit. But it's difficult to leave at this time of year. The garden is looking good. And between the heat of summer and the plentiful rain we've been getting things will be growing. Things, you'll note, will include both plants and weeds and the odds are good that both will be conspiring to create a jungle while I'm gone.

I have people looking in on the garden while I'm away, but I only ask them to do the bare necessities: watering and (hopefully) deer repellent.

It will be interesting to see what it looks like when I'm back. Here are  few quick shots of what it looked like the night before I left.

The gravel is in the circle garden path and it's looking good!

I ran around and did some last-minute weeding, particularly trying to grab the jewelweed before it flowers. 

I'm thrilled with the window box so far this year.

And below the window box, the skinny annual border is plenty bright.

'Etoile violette' clematis looking as charming as ever.

The first 'Windermere' roses in the driveway containers started blooming. They are smaller than I expected but I'm thinking that's related to the immaturity of the plant. 

Quite happy with how these containers are filling in as well.

I'll post as I'm able, but I never know what the internet/time situation will be. Do follow me on Instagram and on the Facebook page, where I'm more likely to be popping up a picture or two.

TAMING THE JUNGLE: HOW A GARDEN FARES ON ITS OWN

On Monday I shared with you a few photos of what my garden looked like before I left for 10 days. I mentioned that I did my best to cut as many flowers as I could so the plants would keep producing flowers without needing deadheading while I was gone. By and large that was a worthwhile effort. Lots of new dahlia bloom awaited me and none of the plants showed signs of slowing down on producing flowers.

I was impressed in particular with how good the big planter by the front door looked. The 'Roxy' dahlias were blooming well, and even though the Eupatorium 'Elegant Feather' was showing signs of needing some water (it has a good tell: the tips flop), overall this container fared well. (The housesitter was watering the containers for me).

The 'Betty Corning' clematis by the front door was also in full bloom and looking fantastic, but it is mature enough that whatever it does, it does all on its own.

But other areas of the garden weren't looking as great. In fact, they were positively junglelike. There is a fine line between lush and overgrown and I'm pretty sure my garden crossed over it while I was gone.

I meant to trim back the nepeta along the path before I left but I ran out of time, so when I got home it was completely flopped. One of the first jobs was cutting it back (for I think the third time this year). It will rebound quickly and look great in a couple weeks.

I also should have anticipated that the 'Annabelle' hydrangea would need some support. That's just the nature of Annabelles and it does it every year but it never occurred to me. Now it's completely flopped and I'm not sure there's any propping it up. Unfortunately and surprisingly the 'Incrediball' and 'Invincibelle Spirit' hydrangeas also flopped over, which is uncommon. I think we had some serious rain while I was gone.

One of the things I was fastidious about before I left was deadheading the roses and that definitely paid off. The container rose is full of new buds.

Cutting off all of the sweet pea flowers before I left (for the best smelling bouquet ever) also paid off. The vines were covered in new fragrant flowers when I got home and the very first thing I did was cut a new bouquet. Cutting back, weeding and generally wading through an unkempt garden can wait when there are sweet pea blooms to smell.

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GETTING THE GARDEN VACATION READY

So I'm alive. I feel like I should probably clarify that since I just totally disappeared on you. Once again I got behind on things before I headed out of town to go sailing and then the posts I had scheduled to go up didn't and well, I figured you'd all hang in there and wait for me.

I snapped a quick shot of the garden off the deck as I was running around before I left. 

I was off on my annual summer sailing trip (it was highly successful and full of great sailing, warm Lake Michigan water and lots of sun), but one of the posts I had planned for you while I was gone was about preparing to leave your garden for a week or more. It's scary to do, especially at this time of year when everything is growing so much, but after doing it every year, I've developed a few strategies.

This was the topic of an article I wrote for the Troy-Bilt e-newsletter "The Dirt." We always have someone stay at the house to take care of the animals and the containers, so I'm fortunate that I don't have to worry much about container watering.

I love a bouquet of sweet peas and sometimes the smaller they are, the more charming.

Even though I was running around like crazy before I left (this is my natural state of being before I go anywhere; I am always running around like crazy), one of the last things I did was make several big bouquets for the house. Sure they are a nice treat for the housesitter, but I have a much more selfish for cutting every flower I can: There will be more for me later. Flowers keep producing when they are deadheaded, but lots of spend blooms go undeadheaded when you're gone. By cutting all the flowers I can I get a head start on the deadheading. Sure the garden lacks some color while I'm gone, but who cares? I'm gone!

The 'David Howard' dahlias were going nuts when I left so I cut everyone I could find.

I also made sure to fertilize all of the containers (I don't ask the housesitter to fertilize, just water) and water them really, really well. And the last thing I did was run around (in the dark, for the most part) with the deer spray.

Only one 'Crichton Honey' dahlia was blooming when I left but I cut that too. I can't get over the gorgeous color on this one. 

I don't have a lot coming out of the veggie garden yet, but if I did I would have made sure to harvest any ripe vegetables so the plants keep producing.

So how did the garden fare while I was gone for 10 days? I'll show you the "after" tomorrow.

I wanted to share just one photo from while I was gone. We left to take the boat to Chicago at 11 p.m. Tuesday during the Buck moon. By 5:30 a.m. or so, the moon was still shining brightly while the sun was rising. I took this panoramic photo (and yes it's a real, untouched photo) that managed to capture both the full moon and the sun rise at the same time on opposite sides of the boat. 

GARDEN TRIAGE

If it ever seems like your garden changes very slowly, just leave it for a couple weeks in the middle of summer and see what it looks like when you get back.

Although I do this (rarely for this long, however) every year, it never ceases to amaze me how much the garden changes in what seems like a short period of time. Of course the average temperature increased by about 15 degrees and we had several good rainfalls while I was gone, so it was optimal growing conditions.

That means that I came home to a pretty overgrown situation. Fortunately I got home with a couple hours of gardening time left in the day (laundry can wait), so I was able to deal with the most dire situations. It was garden triage time.

Weeds have grown amazingly well and lots of plants need deadheading, but that is part of more finely tuned gardening. What I needed to do was quickly assess the areas that were most in need of assistance.

The cardoon was badly in need of water but it will perk up.

The first task was watering. Because of the rain, most of the garden was well hydrated, but the beds alongside the house and the containers were in desperate need of a drink. We have great dogsitters who do their best when it comes to the garden but I want them to focus on the dogs. And Mr. Much More Patient, who made a brief stop home last week, apparently does not follow the head gardener's very explicit watering instructions.

The cardoon was a droopy mess, as were the verbena in the large container by the front door. The cardoon will be fine, but I may have to prune out the floppy verbena. No worries, it will send up new flowers in no time.

The dahlias alongside the house were very unhappy. I gave them all big drinks and they perked up but I hate to stress a plant that should be focusing on flowering.

The dahlia in back was droopy and unhappy and the nasturtiums are attempting to take over the world.

In other areas of the garden, the immediate danger to some plants was not related to hydration, rather smothering from other runaway growers. Garden triage is no time for delicate pruning. I just went in there and hacked away the offending parts of plants. I will go back later to neaten that up, but for now a hack will do.

How did a weed get that big, that quickly?

More nasturtiums staging a garden coup, but the castor bean plants are doing really well and I love them.

The window box, which was dry as a bone, is a total mess. After it gets rehydrated I'll have to do some reassessing.

There's nothing neat about this kind of gardening. There's no time to grab the wheelbarrow to collect prunings and pullings. I just made piles around the garden and I'll go back later to clean up.

Speaking of coups, the goji berry plants are completely out of control. And there's  poppy. There are so many random poppies around!

Anyone need some parsley?

Official pea tester.

In the vegetable garden, which is not receiving the bulk of my attention this year and is worse for it, it's a little wild. I enjoyed eating the first peas (yes, I'm just now getting peas) as did my canine assistant, Rita. The parsley is insane and I hacked at that without even trying to save any of it. There was just no time for that. There's plenty for me and the rest of the town to eat.

The tomatoes have serious issues. I have a single cordon system going, but most of the tomatoes grew 18 inches or more while I was gone, so the system has gone to pieces. Not sure what I'm going to do to straighten that situation out but it definitely requires some attention.

There are a lot of good things happening in the garden as well. The chive hedge, which I cut back right before I left, is already regrown and looking great.

The sweet peas are starting to bloom and they are so lovely!

'Niobe' clematis looks great.

The circle garden is pretty nutty, but I think this picture shows that sometimes a riot of color can work out just fine.

The garden will require many hours of work over the next week or so and that's OK, I missed my time there. Being away from the garden is a good way to realize just how important those mini gardening sessions that occur when you're drinking your coffee or a cocktail really are.


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California dreamin'

As you know I was out of town a couple weeks ago (you know, when I just ditched you all without even attempting to blog while I was gone?). Mr. Much More Patient and I headed off to the great state of California for a little bit of work and a little bit of pleasure.

It was my first time in San Francisco. I love discovering new cities. I also discovered a deep hatred for the Maps app on my phone, which sent us on a walking route that went straight up the most enormous set of stairs I've ever seen and then right back down the other side to get to our hotel. Anyway, we were there for the America's Cup (unfortunately before it got really exciting) and got to see some racing and I even did a bit of work.

We watched some of the races from an apartment that Mr. MMP's company rented for the event. Since the best viewing was really on television, it was cool to be able to watch it on the TV there and then look out the window to the bay to see the action.

I went on a behind-scenes-tour of the television operation for the event which was really interesting. The entire "television city" is set up in a series of shipping containers because it traveled with the America's Cup World Series for the two previous years before landing in San Fran for the big event. 

This is the fourth America's Cup that I've covered and it was much different than the others I've been to. There were very few superyachts around, but this one was impressive enough (from a size standpoint) that I thought it was worth a photo. 

We went to a sushi place with some friends and the chef sent out some appetizers (one of the people we were with was friends with the chef), including this "smoking" sushi tray.

This sculpture was so cool because the whole center was huge succulents.

Our last night there, a friend invited us to her house for a barbecue in San Rafael. I was so envious of her palm trees and lemon tree.

And then we headed north to Napa for a few days of R&R.

It was harvest time and absolutely gorgeous. I feel like I've been to a lot of beautiful places but I'm not sure I've ever been somewhere where you can drive for miles and just be stunned by the beauty.

It was so inspirational from gardening standpoint. I came home all invigorated to get in the garden, which is not easy to do in fall.

This fountain was at what we decided was our favorite of the many wineries we went to: Silver Oak. 

We went to Rutherford Hill Winery because we want to tour their wine caves, which was very interesting, although a little less rustic than I was expecting.

The chandeliers were imported from Italy and they were amazing.

This massive trellis was outside the entrance to the cave.

And this was the few of the valley from one of their picnic areas.

Just a random vineyard.

Another beautiful fountain. This one at Chimney Rock.

We ate dinner at a place called Brix that had the most amazing gardens. I ditched Mr. MMP at the table to run out and take some pictures before the sun set. I wish we would have planned to have lunch there instead so I would have had more time to explore the garden.

I'm so envious that roses seem to grow like weeds there. I grabbed this picture because this walkway was lined with rose standards already in Wisconsin Badgers colors, but the star for me was all the white roses. I'm not a huge lover of white flowers but now I really feel like I need more of them.

Of course I've not had the best of luck with fancy roses. Maybe I should stick with a mushroom garden like this one we spotted at the St. Helena post office.

 It was an amazing trip and a wonderful way to celebrate our 10th anniversary (at least that's how we justified a lot of great dinners). Such a beautiful place, but of course, it's always nice to come home again too.