Dahlias and more dahlias

The package called this one "Sight of Summer" but I'm not finding that variety online. The Connecticut Dahlia Society website claims there are as many as 40,000 named varieties of dahlias. Some of them are pretty hideous to me, looking more like plastic flowers than real flowers, but some of the forms are so elaborate that you can't help but admire them!

New camera!

Keeping a photographic record of the garden inspired me to spring for a decent camera today. So, four years and many meals later, here's the finished patio.

I've been rushing home each day to inspect the progress of four plants that are about ready to flower: Crocosmia Lucifer, "Black and Blue" salvia, a hollyhock I have no recollection of adding to the garden and the first of some cheap dahlias I bought this winter. Finally, one lone dahlia bud began to open. I am so pleased and relieved about its color. It looks like it will be a wonderful crimson and gold echo for the Crocosmia in front of it. Now, if I could just do something about that magenta Bee Balm lurking behind!

The "Black and Blue" is from the Farmer's Market last year. I bought some after seeing Mama's plant blooming like crazy (even in semi-shade) by her cobalt blue glass bird bath. It was such a gorgeous sight, I had to have some. Right now it is competing with all of the Larkspur that just doesn't want to give up early summer. As soon as it really blooms, I think I'll pull out the nearby Larkspur.

The hollyhock is adorable! It looks like lots of little party dresses. I wish I could remember how I came by it and what it's called. I'll add it to my "research list!"

I bought tomatoes at the Farmer's Market this morning, and can't wait to harvest the first basil tonight and have a caprese salad. The dill has grown by leaps and bounds this past week, but the Lavendula Grosso that Becky suggested isn't looking very "grosso" yet. I'm hoping this variety will change my luck with lavender. We saw fields of it in Michigan last week, and beautiful little pots (like we get African violets) of it in the grocery store. Darn it all.

Also note the Dianthus that just won't go away. They were from centerpieces (bedding plants wrapped in plastic, then tissue paper) at a conference in the spring, and what could I do? I had to give them a home. My friend Pat took two and I foisted more off on my newlywed friends.

Now for a confession. I had been fretting over the climbing rose, Cecille Brunner, that I've had for five or six years. It is so aggressive that it was shading the hisbiscus, the peonies, the foxglove, and it was like a war zone getting in there to weed (terrible, tiny, numerous thorns). Two weeks ago, I put on heavy long sleeves and jeans, armed myself with a staple gun, twine and pruning shears and "went under." Before I knew it, this is what I had done! Worse still, I was so horrified by my pruning spree that I couldn't do the right thing and finish the job - take off the length of it along the fence. I know if I don't I'll never have any real growth in the middle. What a mess. I may have to ask Kurt to jump in for me. He likes to prune and see what happens (I'll post a photo of the chaste tree some time soon).

Caroline is looking into climbing hydrangeas, so I've been studying mine this week. One of them is lovely right now. It was actually a mistake purchase. I was on a garden tour in North Carolina and meant to buy the "Moonlight" variety of this plant, which is beautiful with lightly shaded edges in silver. I saw it in Elizabeth Lawrence's garden in Charlotte. It's funny the plants and plantings you remember. Three more from the garden tours Mama and I took stand out to me: Elizabeth Lawrence's bamboo screen RIGHT outside her breakfast room window to block the neighbor's close house; the George Tabor (maybe) azalea surrounded by holly fern in a Charleston garden; and the Muhly grass in another Charleston garden. I wonder which ones Mama remembers.


Back to our hydrangea. Even though it isn't Moonlight (or maybe Moonbeam), I love the flowers on this. They remind me of a Calder mobile.

Our other climbing hydrangea is such an effective cover for the neighbor's fence. It looks a little prehistoric in the winter, but I like that about it too.

I'm doing battle right now with Japanese beetles - discovered this morning when I noticed one of my roses looked a little droopy. I just plain despise those things. But I have found a satisfying way to deal with them. Take a small plastic bag and hold it under the beetle. Tap the leaf. They fall into the bag. Gather as many in the same bag as you can - they are too stupid to fly out. Tie a knot in the top of the bag and step on the whole thing. (OK - I do feel kind of badly, but I can't believe they have any natural predators in this country except ME!)

Garden records

I've tried diaries, files, blank books and scraps of paper stuck in gardening reference books as garden records, but I always end up wishing for a photographic record and the text ends up being sporadic. April 2002 followed immediately by April 2007. This should be different....

....but here I am browsing old and new photos to decide how to start and I'm meandering again. I'm missing Byron and Peter after our weekend in Michigan, and I found this picture of Byron laying the brickwork for our patio three summers ago. He designed it and built most of it himself, and we love it. Bits of mazus and lots of moss grow between some of the bricks now. I know I should pull them out, and I do periodically and replenish the sand, but it pains me to do it.

More recent garden construction here: the dreadful sod project this spring. Frog Hollow Farm does make the best sod though. The grass is still weed-free and thriving in the back and along our impossible utility strip - even in the shade.

Kurt is faithful about recording progress in our garden, with a crummy little camera. I am so grateful for the photos. It's staggering when you see the contrast between winter and summer and the difference four years makes to a camellia.

I can't wait to get out with the camera tomorrow and record the progress of the daring Crocosmia Lucifer!