Gnats in My Coffee

As I stroll through my garden, I hold a cup of coffee, the sweet kind with additives that are purported to transport one to exotic locations. It is early morning. I am still wearing my pajamas. My husband fusses at me for walking around that way, but who is to see? I am blessed with privacy. The atmosphere is warm and laden with moisture: 100% humidity. I move slowly through the thick air, like a vacationer drifting in a tube down one of those lazy river rides, breathing in the vapors of the surrounding waters.I don't mind the mugginess of a summer morning when a view like this one in the front garden is waiting for me. Above are more midsummer views of the front garden. The shrubs with lavender blooms are a dwarf form of Crepe Myrtle.

The problem with this scenario is the coffee. What nut drinks coffee outside on such a muggy summer morning? Ice water would be more appropriate, but old habits, acquired in a cooler season, are hard to break. And there is another purpose for the coffee. It is difficult to pull weeds while carrying a mug of steaming coffee. Even with one hand free, the danger of spilling hot coffee is too great to be bending over and tugging at offenders near the ground. So the coffee is to keep me on task, which is to enjoy a morning stroll. I want to concentrate on the garden while the birds are active and before the glare of the white hot sun begins to scorch the skin and dazzle the eyes.Assorted coneflowers(echinacea) are blooming in the front garden now.Penelope Rose in the front garden bloomed lavishly earlier this year and is beginning to put out a second flush of flowers.Colorful exotics like Stromanthe 'Tricolor' bring a dash of color to the summer woodland garden.
Top is 'Limelight' Hydrangea, just coming into its summer glory. Below Limelight is Hydrangea 'Lady in Red', fading but still lovely. Its blooms, originally blue in my acid soil, have turned to rose.

The coffee doesn't work. It never does, and I don't know why I retain the silly notion that it might. A weed right there demands my attention. If I wait till later, it will be two feet tall with offsprings of thousands. So I sit my coffee down on a nearby stump. It will only take a moment to yank the weed out of the ground. An hour later I return to the coffee. A pile of weeds, long snaky vines, and clippings from a shrub lay nearby. The coffee is cold, and an assortment of tiny twigs and dead gnats are floating in it. I sigh. I didn't need to drink the stuff anyway. What I do need is a bath. It is time to start the day.

Here Comes the Sun!

One can read only so many garden magazines. The catalogues with their perfect plants are page worn. All the old garden books are memorized. The internet! But one's eyes eventually glaze over, and there is deep longing for fresh air. What's a pent-up gardener to do? Order a new birdhouse. Order a new tree. And pace, pace, watching the weather, hoping for a day of sunshine.

I would definitely be in trouble if I lived in the far reaches of the North, where there are months of winter gloom. I have had to deal with a few weeks, and finally the sun has returned. On Saturday I stumbled out of the house and gulped the warm rays. The temperature went up into the fifties. Spring! Not really, only a tease, but I didn't care.
The front garden, with the sun shining!

I planted this little coral bark tree last fall. I am impressed with its winter color and look forward to the impact it will make when it grows larger.

The dried stems behind the tree trunk is the ground cover indigofera, in the woodland garden. It has fern-like leaves and pink flowers in the spring.
More views around the woodland garden.

I grabbed my unfortunate son who came for a visit and headed for the garden. We planted the new tree, a variegated weeping redbud, Cercis canadensis 'Whitewater'. I have high hopes for it. Because our ground doesn't freeze, winter is a great time for planting new trees, allowing roots to take hold before the stress of summer heat arrives.It's hard to imagine that this old oak tree behind our house was once as small as my newly planted redbud! It has lived through many years of stressful weather. In 1990, its top was ripped away by a tornado, but it continues to survive.

We also transplanted a dozen ferns. My neighbor Betty had told me there were ferns in the valley behind our house, but although this property belongs to us, the hill is steep and the area wild so I rarely go down there. But on Saturday I was in the mood to plant. I wanted to add to the fern glade in the woodland garden, so I dragged my son down into the wilderness and we began digging. Most of the ferns are beautiful evergreen, holly type woodland ferns. My muscular son got to haul them up the steep hill and then dig holes for me in their new location. There are plenty more left in the valley, and I am looking forward to another pleasant day, hopefully when my son will be visiting, so I can continue to enlarge the fern glade. 

Meanwhile, Lou and I have pruned the apple trees and the crepe myrtles, properly — we commit no crepe murder! (This link takes you to a great article published by Southern Living magazine about pruning crepe myrtles.) I also have potted up some pansies. 

The sun is peeking in and out today. Lou is going to install my new birdhouse. We are rushing to take advantage of the nice weather, as rain will be returning tomorrow, or sooner, as already I see storm clouds on the horizon. Soon we will spray the apple trees and many of our shrubs with an ecologically friendly dormant oil. This will reduce insect damage later in the season and also helps to fight some types of fungus. Our season warms up so quickly that this must be done now, before growth starts.

It may be a few days before I can get out to enjoy my garden again. Here are some more images from here and there, photographed while I was taking in the sunshine:

I hope you are enjoying the week!   Deborah