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A while back I posted that something was eating the petals off our gerbera daisies, and blamed the rabbits as the likely culprint. I figured rabbits are only rodent in the yard big enough to reach the daisies. Well it turns out I was totally wrong. This morning I was looking out the window at the garden, and saw a goldfinch fly into the cutting garden, settle on a zinnia, and proceed to carefully pull about 1/4 of the petals out. It looked like the goldfinch was trying to get to the seed in the center of the flower, and the petals were in the way.

I'm not sure exactly what to do. On the one hand, I like birds (especially goldfinches) and want to encourage them to stay in our yard. We've been planting with birds in mind; this fall we're even planning to put in a winter bird garden with beautyberry and other things for the birds to eat. On the other hand, it would be nice if the birds would let us enjoy the flowers first! They can have the seeds after the blossoms have faded. I guess it will be better when more of the flowers are in bloom. Then there will be enough for all of us to enjoy. In the meantime, we refilled the thistle feeder in hopes that the goldfinches will find that easier pickings.

On the bright side, the birds don't seem to have discovered the blueberries. Two of the bushes have fruit, and it's starting to ripen on one of them! Yesterday Georg and I shared the first few ripe berries. I must say, if I have to identify the one moment when I could think of myself as a gardener for real, that would be it. Eating blueberries that I just picked from my own garden. Wow.

We didn't do as much planting this weekend as in previous weeks, but we got a few good things. A creamy light yellow stokes aster (I thought they only came in blue, but the guy at Messenbrinks told us they also have purple and multicolored), a pink yarrow (again I thought they only came in one color: yellow), several gazanias, and a couple of things I'm really excited about: first, a hybrid echinacea with a deep bright magenta color. This is from the same place where we got the razzmatazz double echinacea a few weeks ago. I asked the guy where he gets such unusual varieties and he said he buys them from a European hybridizer. Second, a Chinese foxglove. Which is a shade plant that looks just like foxglove, but isn't digitalis, and therefore isn't toxic. We love foxglove, but all our shady areas are inside the fence where the dogs could get them. So we were resigned to never planting it. But now we can! I put it under the oak tree and I must say it looks nice there.

We also admired but did not buy an unusual rudbeckia (black eyed susan) with white/blue stems that grow 7 feet tall! We didn't want to buy it unless we knew where we could put it. As I said to Georg at the time, I can imagine gardens where this would look great; I just can't imagine it in our garden.

When we got home we looked around the yard and figured out a great place for it: over at the far side of the yard, behind the blueberries, up against the neighbor's fence. There's nothing going on over there and I don't go to that part of the yard often, and so it gets weedy and overgrown. I've been wanting for awhile to turn that area into garden space and plant it up with something that would be pretty from a distance, and wouldn't require much care. Which sounds a lot like 7 foot tall rudbeckia to me!

Unfortunately I don't think we'll have time before Vegas to clear that area of weeds, dig up the soil, add nice soil, and get the rudbeckia planted. I think next weekend I'm going to ask the guy if I can buy a couple of them and have him keep them for a few weeks. Rudbeckia is a tough cookie, I think it will be OK to plant them in July.

I also admired the gardenias, which are in bloom now. Unfortunately I know exactly where I want to plant a gardenia and the spot is currently planted up with sunflowers. So we'll have to wait until fall for that.

Anyway, we got all our purchases into ground, and finally planted the hardy amaryllis we had bought last week. Georg dug a new bed for it in a semi-shady spot where I think it will be happy. The only bummer is that it was rootbound, and I had such a hard time getting it out of the pot I knocked one of the two blossoms off. Dang! Well, on the bright side it had lots of new shoots in the pot, so I hope next year we'll get more than just one flower stem.