Some Things Should Not Be Rushed

Morning coffee, hosta unfurling their eyes, the bloom of tulips, the blossoms of a crabapple, childhood...

Some things should not be rushed.

Hosta...Surprise!

More from the Outagamie Garden Walk 2013

A very innocuous entrance...

I posted some pictures from the Master gardeners Walk on the garden ornamentation and containers, but I didn't say much about the actual gardens on the walk.  Having my own garden scheduled to be part of a walk has been an eye opener and impetus to finally get my actual garden to look like the space I see in my head., rather than the ongoing project(s) it really is.  So, let me say, I give it up to anyone who has the stuff to put their garden out there, whether as part of a walk, garden conservancy days, or just for nickel tours.

This blogpost is solely pictures from one of the gardens, in my mind the most impressive.

The gardener is also an award winning quilter, and you can see this in her subtle blending of colors, shapes, and types of plants.  The park-like setting and size of her garden also made me drool a bit, but I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

...opened up to this...

and this,

and this.

I got the impression this back deck was a newer area; it wasn't as finely honed and integrated into the back yard as the yard itself.  There was a lot of space and as all gardeners want to do, she was busy filling it.  Her garden was a surprisingly four years old, but she conceded she had brought some good sized hostas with her from her previous garden.

As I mentioned, though plant selection for color and texture was where she excelled.

Hosta Gunther's Prize

She also, in my opinion, had the best garden ornamentation.

It was an amazing garden in many ways.

Just (Random) Pictures

Just some random pictures from earlier this summer. Blaze and Pink Knockout roses with a white peony, a deeply corrugated lime-yellow hosta, and a butterfly bush that is not truly hardy here, buddleia alternifolia. It is sort of a weeping buddleia. This is maybe the second time it has bloomed, because, surprise, surprise; it likes it HOT!

Scenes from the Garden

The long border is just a long expanse of green. The rest of the garden does have its moments.

Around the Garden: What's Up, What's Blooming, Booming...

The star of the garden show, my rhododendron 'PJM', blooming nearly a month earlier than it ever has.


These scilla bloom under the carefully manicured privet hedge. They are only truly visible to my ankles and the rabbit. The privet is just starting to leaf out so there is a bit of a blue glow about the base that is visible, and that's cool.

These are the unopened flower of the prairie smoke, geum triflorum. Each phase of the flowering, bud, flower, and seed pod looks like a "flower" so the triflorum part, I suppose. Although, if I actually pulled one apart, I'd bet I see only three sepals or tepals.

A better look at those pretty blue scilla.

Raddichio in garden, coming up from last year. It seemed to have a very bitter taste last year. I see this morning the rabbits have found it. The flavor must have improved.

Lysimachia 'Gold Coin', has a beautiful gold glow this time of year.

Rhubarb just coming up.

There's a lot going on in the potager. The peas I have planted are up. I got a great stand, good germination rate. I typically plan on 50% -65%, but I would guess it is closer to 100%. This March has certainly been good pea weather, unlike last year.

That means over in the family garden the peas are certainly coming up, too. These are the peas my sister-in-law asked me to please plant for baby Asher, who has stubbornly not made his way into the world.

Other things have been stubborn this March, too. My Internet connection has been driving me nuts. Currently, we are able to make only a tenuous hardline connection to the Internet, in a household filled with wannabee wireless devices. Probably a router, but maybe a cable. More trouble-shooting this time-waster.

The huge limb that broke off and hung up 30' up in my white pine crashed to the ground last night. Just last week, I was calling around to find someone with a cherry picker to come and charge me an arm and a leg to remove it from the tree. Last night's wind did the job for me, saving me $250 to $500, maybe more.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif My calling range was getting increasingly larger, 100 miles. No one had the type of equipment that would have been needed. With our early spring, I was increasingly worrying about finding someone with equipment, AFTER my gorgeous hosta had poke up their eyes and started unfurling their leaves. I had ghastly images in my mind of torn, tattered, and bedraggled hosta just in time for my Handsome Son's graduation party.

And, I heard that another boom rocked Clintonville last night. Out of curiosity, I will check the vertical ground tracking on the Shiocton seismography station. (It does appear there was some heavier vertical plate grinding between 4 and 6 AM.)

My son and I always talk about preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse. Perhaps, we should now be thinking earthquakes, instead. Possible the earthquake dislodged my stubborn white pine widow-maker?

Tonight, as fate would have it the Emergency Management Direc`tor for the county has a tabletop disaster exercise planned. I get to play myself, village trustee. Invite only, it should be interesting.