moss boss

May and June are the prettiest time in the garden.  It's still early, but I love seeing things come up that I planted years ago.  

Front garden, which had a few desultory daffodils when we moved in

I'm especially glad that I planted "cemetery moss" - the color is so vibrant and it spreads like crazy!

Side "rose garden" is starting to fill in, all perennials

I'm waiting for the peonies to start...they're so beautiful with the purple of the false baptisia and the yellow of the irises.  Total accident!

I've had a little trouble up here, though.  The deer, which have never bothered this garden in the past, have been mowing down my bee balm.

En route, they're stepping on and crushing the little seedlings I've planted around it.  I'm going to have to replace about a fourth of what I've planted.  

Our front red maple has filled in quickly.  I'd never noticed one before we moved here, but I love it so much.  A few more weeks until it's totally lush!  

I've been doing some work in the garden, but I have to pace myself.  I have so many other projects, and my regular job as well.  One really pleasurable project is this pair of bedroom side tables that I found at a thrift store for $14 each...on half-off day.  That's right, I got the pair for $14!  I knew they were good quality...solid wood...and checking inside, I saw that they were Ethan Allen.  When I did a price check, I discovered that they're selling for hundreds of dollars online.  Score!

They were a little beat up, though, and I didn't like the orangey stain.  I'm in the process of sanding them...

...to give them a really natural finish.  I'm about halfway done!

I'm continuing to spot spring ephemerals on our walks...

celadine poppy

trillium flexipes

dwarf larkspur

jack-in-the-pulpit

white baneberry

...and lazy kittens while working at home.

We're loving this time before the dread humidity and heat of summer sets in.  As long as it's not too bad, I'm going to try to continue to take short reading breaks on the porch swing.  It's so peaceful, especially with the garden filling in around it!

Have a great week!

milk snake double take

It's been a busy and beautiful week!

muliflora rose from the field

The peonies are in bloom this week and it's heavenly.

I fill the rooms with bouquets.  I keep telling myself to add some variety...purple salvia, yellow loosestrife, white chamomile...but all the the bouquets are simple, just peonies and mint.  I like the color contrast.

Sometimes I'll put a lone bud on a shelf and watch it get bigger and looser, day by day.  

"The yellows" are starting to come in...the loosestrife...

The sedum is blooming yellow, too.

Lots of color...

It's hard to select photos at this time of year.  Every day, I bring my camera when I go out and I take hundreds of photos...anything that interests me.  Not just plants, but lots of animals.  Sometimes I'll get a glimpse of turkeys in the barnyard...

...a chog by the barn...

Deer watching from across the pond...

Todd set a loose birdhouse on one of our fence posts two weeks ago, and it was quickly claimed by a bluebird.  

I peeked in when she was away once...we're going to have babies!!

Todd unearthed this Eastern milk snake while pitching compost this week.  What a beauty!!

Farmers used to call them 'milk snakes' because they were seen so much around barns that farmers thought the snakes were slipping in to steal milk from the cows at night.  Actually, they prey on familiar barn pests...mice and voles.  They're great to have around!

So, so many more things that will have to wait for another post.  We're both busy with work and getting the garden ready.  We had the back left field plowed last week...

...and ordered a drip irrigation system and garden fabric...WITH holes for seeds/plants.  It's more expensive, but I'm done fighting the weeks and ticks in that garden, and it's just too much to water by hand when I have four other garden beds to deal with.  Already this early summer we're two weeks without rain and no rain in sight, which means up early and watering at least 30 minutes before work to keep things alive.  Todd has been busy measuring and pounding stakes...

Each row has to be measured for the fabric we bought, and the paths stomped down.  It's daunting...by the time everything is laid out, it will be ready for over 2,000 seeds/seedlings!  Quite a bit for a home garden but I love being surrounded by flowers and I'm getting such a late start (most of these flowers should've been started inside a month ago) that I probably won't even see blooms until late July.  No matter...I'll enjoy the growing things no matter what.  

Have a great week!

a little spittle

May and June are truly lovely months in the Midwest.  Before the really brutal humidity hits...there's plenty of time for porch picnics...

...cats lolling in open windows...

...and easy bouquets from random corners of the yard.

It's not quite time for peonies yet, but irises are looking lovely.

Oh, little bits of color everywhere.  Especially my favorite...chartreuse green.

Despite zero effort on my part, winter sowing was a great success.  These are just the cooler weather flowers!  Warmer weather stuff starts...whenever I get around to it.

My goal is to plant one...container...daily.  I put on my grubby clothes, coat my pants in DEET (it's a bad year for ticks)...carefully weed a large space...plant...and water.   Long ago, I accepted that I cycle through hobbies with varying degrees of obsessiveness.  I hit a gardening peak two years ago and now it's on the decline, although I know it will come back again, hard.  So, I've mentally let go of the back plowed plot, thigh-high with weeds and a few straggly biennials.  I've let go of my expectations for the larger plowed plot, too.  Weeds have come roaring into the beds, and I just do a bit every day.  I have hundreds of sunflower seeds, lots of easy zinnias, cosmos, and celosia too.  All can be direct-seeded into the soil, late May.  Shovel up the worst of the weeds and just let the rest go.  Laying down new fabric paths will help.  

Since I'm so apathetic about gardening this year, I find little things to make it more pleasurable.  Digging up toads while weeding is a nice surprise!

Finding spittlebug nymphs in a froth of bubbles is, too.

The bubbles protect the nymphs from predators - even pesticide! - and keep them from drying out.  They're fairly harmless in the garden, and I always think that they look like they're lounging in tiny luxurious bubble baths.  

Todd spotted this luna moth on the porch.

They have no mouth parts, since they only live for a week and their sole purpose in that week is to reproduce.  Love them!

Claudia, of course, is always great company outdoors.

Our yellowwood trees bloomed this week.  They're odd ducks, sporadically blooming every few years.  Their distribution is patchy as well.  We live in that tiny northernmost circle...the only place in Indiana where they grow.  But they're everywhere here, and we even have a Yellowwood Forest locally.

The cascading white flowers look lovely in bud vases.  They dangle over our country road, neatly replacing the spent redbuds for color.  By the time the yellowwoods are done blooming, every tree will be completely leafed out, and it will truly be summer!  

Have a great week!