skip to main |
skip to sidebar
It was another lovely Spring day here today, though not as warm and a bit windy, but still a far cry from our recent frigid weather! We took Hanna and ran a few errands early today, then came back to do some more clean up out front before the rainy weather predicted for the next few days moves in ... we got the rest of the dead stuff cleared yesterday bagged up for city compost and filled up the last of our bags (we're up to 8 so far!). It's amazing how fast things are progressing now ... I found a few tulips had come up literally overnight in a couple of spots, and crocus just uncovered yesterday were blooming today! Unfortunately we were both so busy that we didn't have the camera with us, so didn't get any new shots ... so these photos are from my session after work from last Thursday (3-19-09). The first shot is one of our 'Blue Princess' Hollies (Ilex meserveae), which of course is one of our few evergreen plants (unless you count the messy Blue Spruce in the back yard) ... you'll notice there are no remaining berries on it ... either the birds or other critters cleaned it out over the winter, which is just fine by us, since we have little use for them other than as Christmas decorations....
This is one of our Leatherwood Ferns in the Woodland Garden ... it's greening up nicely, but still remains prostrate which is normal until the weather warms up a bit more when it will go upright. It's the first of our many ferns to come back to life after a long winter and is a truly tough plant deserving of its tough guy name. As you can see, its companions the Maidenhair Ferns are still looking pretty crispy and won't spring back for a while ... even though they are such a delicate looking fern, they are really hardy and good multipliers in the Woodland Garden where they form a great fairy canopy every year. Our next clean up project is to get around to this side of the house and clear out the dead material ... we did get the Ostrich Plume Ferns cleared out today, but ran out of compost bags and decided to call it a day before moving on further. Since this garden is slower to wake up, we don't feel such a sense of urgency to get it cleaned up as we do in the front boulder bed....
As you can see in this shot, our little heirloom Sedum sarmentosum is already up and proliferating in the front beds and by June it will likely be in full bloom. As I chronicled last year, this used to be a plant we tried to eradicate (it was here when we got here), we finally made our peace with it and cherish it now ... it's one of those little sedums you can just yank, toss somewhere else (such as rock crevices) where it will quickly establish itself and return each year, and since we have lots of rock crevices, it comes in handy as a filler plant that will grow where others won't ... so, it's gone from being considered a pest to a valued member of the garden. Funny how things like that happen....
Now, just in case anyone was feeling puppy deprived in the last post, here are a couple of shots of Hanna playing with one of her favorite toys, her red Kong. Usually we stuff it with a few pieces of her food, some of the "Kong Stuffing" (peanut butter flavor), a little biscuit and any other treats we can pack into it. Being the quick puzzle solver she is, Hanna usually only needs about 10-15 minutes to get everything out, but then she loves to have us toss this Kong and make it bounce for her, something she never seems to tire of doing, unless, of course, it happens to land in Pepa's old bowl, which for some reason terrifies her....
Recently we have discovered a few little odd "issues" she has about things, and one of them is Pepa's bowl ... when Lacey was visiting we needed a bowl to feed her, so I was using Pepa's old bowl (which has only ever been used as a dog bowl) which we left out after she left. A week or so ago, we were tossing the Kong around for her (it has a crazy pinball type bounce to it) and it landed in the bowl. Hanna would not under any circumstances retrieve the Kong from the bowl. So Fernymoss tried sliding it across the floor to her, but the closer it got, the more terrified she got and ended up barking at it and running away from it. And now, she won't even go near this bowl, no matter what. She won't even retrieve a toy that is just close, but not in, the bowl ... we don't know whether she realizes it was someone else's bowl or if Pepa is haunting it and intimidating her, but I guess if we want her to leave something alone, we know where to put it!
Today we discovered another "issue." The garden rake! Our rake is so old that the wooden handle always gives us splinters when we use it, so Fernymoss decided to wrap it with duct tape to protect our hands and brought it into the dining room ... as he was wrapping it, Hanna was in the living room and saw the rake end moving a bit as he wrapped ... at first she had a freaked out look about it and the more it moved, the more perturbed she became, until she started barking at it and eventually ran away after Fernymoss shook it at her a couple of times just to see what her reaction would be. The longer we have Hanna, the more we realize just what a little individual she is as she reveals her idiosyncrasies! This one made us laugh a lot that she would be freaked out by a common garden implement, so now we know to tread lightly with the rakes around her ... who knew a simple rake could be so terrifying to a puppy?
But the thing with the bowl mystifies us still ... maybe she senses Pepa's presence too strongly by it (after all it was Pepa's exclusive bowl for her entire life ... I bought it at Target for her right after I got her and it has only been used as her food bowl all these years) ... but whatever the reason, it truly spooks her! If this means that Pepa is still around here constantly, that makes me feel relieved she's still with us in some form. But I'd hope that Hanna would feel more gratitude toward her (maybe she will in time) because without that dream I had with Pepa in it where she gave us permission to adopt Hanna, she very well might not have ended up living with us. But then again, maybe she's just teaching her that it's not nice to poach from another dog's bowl? Whatever the reason, it's really odd that she would develop bowl and rake phobias! Just another one of those moments I wish I could read her thoughts to find out what she's thinking! But I just haven't developed that super dog power yet....
This is one of our other sedums that I mentioned in last week's post on Iowa hardy sedums. I was finally able to identify this one thanks to a post on Davesgarden, after spending a fair amount of time Googling around the myriad species of sedums. It's a mouthful to say Sedum Khamtschaticum, but it does give a clue as to its origins in Russia, thus one of its common names, Russian Stonecrop. It seems like almost all the sedums I've researched recently get pegged with some variant of Stonecrop, though when I see that name I tend to think of the taller, erect varieties that bloom in the fall. Now, I'm obviously no expert on sedums (I spend a lot more time on Hibiscus and Delphiniums and such), but it seems kind of misleading to me to lump the mounding and creeping varieties in with the larger more vertical species. Sure, they're all members of the Crassulaceae, which points to innumerable species of succulents (such as the common houseplant called "Jade Tree"). But in most common gardener's parlance, the mention of Stonecrop tends to conjure up the fall blooming variety... so yeah, I'm one to quibble on plant nomenclature on occasion (don't get me going on the Delphinium ambigua versus D. elatum!) so I'll politely let it go at this point.
I took these shots on 11 June, when it was just starting to bloom, I noticed yesterday when I was out weeding (for 3 hours!) that it's now mostly open and looking quite cheery. Though I characterized it as 'heirloom,' it's not one of the original plants growing here when we moved in in fall 1998 ... this comes from my sister's backyard, where it grows in rampant abundance by her garage. She likes it and lets a lot of it stake out its space, but whenever it starts going further than she'd like, she just digs it up and brings it over to us, so in a way, it is an heirloom, just not from our garden. And I always happily oblige her, because this is my very favorite sedum we have planted. Unlike Sedum sarmentosum, it's a much more well behaved plant and is hardly as profligate as its relative. The best feature about S. khamtschaticum, at least for me, is that it has a very nice, clean mounding habit that will fill whatever space you give it, and even when it's not blooming, its attractive fleshy foliage will usually keep down whatever weeds that try to horn in on its territory. And, if you're a fan of rock gardens, this is, in my humble opinion, a must have ... as you can see from these photos, it's quite happy to grow at the base of the boulder bed (see second photo above) or in the various crevices that I've plugged it into around the front beds. Once planted, you can basically ignore it and it will happily go on its way in the worst of conditions (rain or drought) and reward you in June (at least here) with its clusters of cheery yellow flowers right on through to early July, when it goes all foliage. Truly, it's a real no maintenance plant once the planting is done, and like S. sarmentosum, it cleans itself up after frost by just quietly disappearing for the winter, only to return in Spring, vigorous as ever. If I could only have one sedum, this would be my choice, no question.
I'm trying an experiment this year in my Butterfly Bush/Hibiscus/Kniphofia bed that has been getting overrun by weeds in mid-summer ... My sister gave me a bunch last year that I never got planted, and the pots just sat on the patio all summer through the winter, then courageously came back in force this spring, so I decided to turn it loose in that bed to try to tame the increasingly rampant Coreopsis I have there. I know there are a lot of Coreopsis fans out there, but the variety I planted years ago has been really honking me off the last few years ... it's spreading, weed-like, and moving into areas where I don't want it. Yes, it has lovely bright yellow flowers, but the plants are so prone to just flopping around all over that I get weary trying to prop them up. I was ready to just yank them all out and say let's be done with it this year, until Fernymoss reminded me that I discovered our first Praying Mantis on it last year, which ended that discussion quickly. We were so thrilled to have Mantises in our yard that we want to give them as much encouragement to stick around as we can, because they're such beneficial and fascinating insects to have in the garden, so the Coreopsis has a stay of execution, for now. I'm just hoping that this sedum will spread sufficiently to fill in the front part of the bed (where I usually plant Nasturtiums) that it will keep the Coreopsis in line ... time will tell, and by the time the Hibiscus are blooming, we should have a better idea.
Flooding situation update: Fortunately, Des Moines has had a 3 day reprieve from rain, with plentiful sunshine since Friday, and the forecast for next week has nary a mention of serious threats of rain. Des Moines, in particular, has dodged the bullet for the most part, except for the Birdland Neighborhood in the NE part of the city, which has experienced serious devastation due to the failure of a levee late Friday into Saturday. This was a very old (50's era) levee that just couldn't hold any longer and residents in that area are truly in a world of hurt at present. There was some flooding downtown in various places Friday night, but not as bad as some were predicting. The Water Works is safe at this point, and there haven't been any interruptions in the water supply (which was our biggest worry). The Des Moines river has crested and is receding, so a week of drier days will do wonders to alleviate the anxiety that has been palpable over the past week.
Residents of Cedar Rapids and Iowa City (and numerous smaller towns) haven't been so lucky, however. The Cedar and Iowa rivers have yet to crest and much of both cities remains under water at this point. The University of Iowa in particular has been really hard hit, and a great deal of the campus (which adjoins the riverfront) is still under water as well. Coralville (right next to IC) with its dam, still remains in peril and will experience catastrophic losses of property, business as well as residential. It's going to be a long recovery for these folks, so send your best vibes, prayers or whatever their way, because they're going to need it!! I read tonight that Southeastern Iowa is now experiencing problems as water moves downstream, so include them as well ... I-80 east of Iowa City remains closed until further notice, so if anyone reading this who might be planning on heading that way (e.g. to Chicago and points east) should take that into account. Yes, we've had 3 days of dry weather here, but it's not over yet, and the recovery has yet to begin ... wish us luck!
It was another lovely Spring day here today, though not as warm and a bit windy, but still a far cry from our recent frigid weather! We took Hanna and ran a few errands early today, then came back to do some more clean up out front before the rainy weather predicted for the next few days moves in ... we got the rest of the dead stuff cleared yesterday bagged up for city compost and filled up the last of our bags (we're up to 8 so far!). It's amazing how fast things are progressing now ... I found a few tulips had come up literally overnight in a couple of spots, and crocus just uncovered yesterday were blooming today! Unfortunately we were both so busy that we didn't have the camera with us, so didn't get any new shots ... so these photos are from my session after work from last Thursday (3-19-09). The first shot is one of our 'Blue Princess' Hollies (Ilex meserveae), which of course is one of our few evergreen plants (unless you count the messy Blue Spruce in the back yard) ... you'll notice there are no remaining berries on it ... either the birds or other critters cleaned it out over the winter, which is just fine by us, since we have little use for them other than as Christmas decorations....
This is one of our Leatherwood Ferns in the Woodland Garden ... it's greening up nicely, but still remains prostrate which is normal until the weather warms up a bit more when it will go upright. It's the first of our many ferns to come back to life after a long winter and is a truly tough plant deserving of its tough guy name. As you can see, its companions the Maidenhair Ferns are still looking pretty crispy and won't spring back for a while ... even though they are such a delicate looking fern, they are really hardy and good multipliers in the Woodland Garden where they form a great fairy canopy every year. Our next clean up project is to get around to this side of the house and clear out the dead material ... we did get the Ostrich Plume Ferns cleared out today, but ran out of compost bags and decided to call it a day before moving on further. Since this garden is slower to wake up, we don't feel such a sense of urgency to get it cleaned up as we do in the front boulder bed....
As you can see in this shot, our little heirloom Sedum sarmentosum is already up and proliferating in the front beds and by June it will likely be in full bloom. As I chronicled last year, this used to be a plant we tried to eradicate (it was here when we got here), we finally made our peace with it and cherish it now ... it's one of those little sedums you can just yank, toss somewhere else (such as rock crevices) where it will quickly establish itself and return each year, and since we have lots of rock crevices, it comes in handy as a filler plant that will grow where others won't ... so, it's gone from being considered a pest to a valued member of the garden. Funny how things like that happen....
Now, just in case anyone was feeling puppy deprived in the last post, here are a couple of shots of Hanna playing with one of her favorite toys, her red Kong. Usually we stuff it with a few pieces of her food, some of the "Kong Stuffing" (peanut butter flavor), a little biscuit and any other treats we can pack into it. Being the quick puzzle solver she is, Hanna usually only needs about 10-15 minutes to get everything out, but then she loves to have us toss this Kong and make it bounce for her, something she never seems to tire of doing, unless, of course, it happens to land in Pepa's old bowl, which for some reason terrifies her....
Recently we have discovered a few little odd "issues" she has about things, and one of them is Pepa's bowl ... when Lacey was visiting we needed a bowl to feed her, so I was using Pepa's old bowl (which has only ever been used as a dog bowl) which we left out after she left. A week or so ago, we were tossing the Kong around for her (it has a crazy pinball type bounce to it) and it landed in the bowl. Hanna would not under any circumstances retrieve the Kong from the bowl. So Fernymoss tried sliding it across the floor to her, but the closer it got, the more terrified she got and ended up barking at it and running away from it. And now, she won't even go near this bowl, no matter what. She won't even retrieve a toy that is just close, but not in, the bowl ... we don't know whether she realizes it was someone else's bowl or if Pepa is haunting it and intimidating her, but I guess if we want her to leave something alone, we know where to put it! 
