Busy day in the yard today. We started out by covering the blueberries with bird netting. Last year we only got one berry each before the birds picked the bushes clean! This year we have a much bigger crop coming, which we'd like to eat ourselves. We had already done the bird netting, when we covered them with plastic. But we didn't know what we were doing, and we put the stakes too close to the bushes, and when it got windy the netting got all caught in the branches.
Turns out bird netting is annoying stuff that gets caught on everything. Disentangling the netting from the blueberries was a tricky chore. Unfortunately we pulled a few baby berries off, but only a few. We moved the stakes further away from the bushes, and pulled the netting taut over the frames so it wouldn't get tangled on the branches. And we did a good job if I do say so myself. I dare the birds to eat our blueberries now!
While we were down at that end of the yard, we noticed an open flower on one of the roses! My first rose bloom! It's the Reve D'Or, a noisette climber. It was described as a buff-yellow but it looks off-white to me. The flower is beautiful. I love antique roses. Both the single kind with only five petals, like the Tudor rose, and the kind with many many petals, like noisettes.
Unfortunately the Crepuscule up by the house isn't doing so well in terms of flowers. It has about a half-dozen buds, but they get all crumply and don't open. I think this is called "balling" (no dirty jokes please!) and we suspect it's because the weather has been wet and the rose isn't getting enough sun. That spot got full afternoon sun last summer, but the oak tree seems to have grown and is now shading that area.
In the afternoon Georg unloaded the rest of the soil from the truck and into the new bed. He also cut a branch from the oak tree to let poor Crepuscule get some sun. Meanwhile I did less strenuous work, mostly planting. Let's see, I planted a blue columbine on the north side of the house. Also two six-packs of torenia (a cute shade annual with trumpet-shaped blue flowers) under the hydrangeas. The special alstroemeria from Messenbrink went into the bank along the driveway. I had planned to put it in the bare spot where a caryopteris had died over the winter. But when I stuck in my trowel, I discovered new shoots from the caryopteris! It didn't die! What a nice surprise. Caryopteris is a small (approx 2 feet tall) woody shrub with tiny blue flowers in late summer, which bees and butterflies love. Luckily there was a space next to the caryopteris where I could put the alstroemeria. I also planted a bright red verbena in a red/orange bed down near the road.
Then I went to work on my seedlings. We started a bunch of perennials from seed over the winter. It's such a huge savings -- $3 for a whole packet of seeds vs. $6-10 per plant -- that I don't even mind that they won't bloom this year. The seedlings all did well in their little peat pots, and they've gotten to the point where the peat pots are too small and they can't grow any bigger until they get into the ground. I planted all the baby yarrows in the new bed by the house, the one where Georg was unloading soil today. I also sowed a few hollyhock seeds behind the yarrow. I understand it may be several years before the hollyhocks bloom but it will be worth it.
I also planted baby butterfly weeds, up in the butterfly garden and also down in the red/orange bed with the new verbena. And I put the artichoke seedlings in pots, because I don't have the space ready in the ground for them yet. The pots aren't big enough to be their permanent homes, but it will do for now.
And Georg and I planted another rose. I never even mentioned that after my big order from Ashdown, I also ordered a couple from Roses Unlimited (also in SC), which arrived last weekend. These are Secret Garden Musk Climber, a rare (seriously, I searched a bunch of rose vendors before I found one who had it) & acclaimed climbing rose that someone discovered in an antique garden and propagated. It's supposed to be vigorous, disease resistant and covered with clusters of single white flowers. Perfect for filling in that high slope down by the road. We got one of them into the ground today & only have one left to plant.
Well, by this point Georg and I were both exhausted. Even though I had taken an hour nap in the afternoon! I'm kind of frustrated with myself for tiring out so easily. I guess I just have to work a little every day and build back up to my prior activity level.
I had planned to make a simple dinner, a riff on Barbara Tropp's curried lamb fried rice. Until we discovered that we're out of rice! So much for that plan. Instead we had a lovely dinner at the Barbecue Joint. On the way there we drove past several chain restaurants with dozens of people standing outside, waiting for tables. I will never understand why so many people will wait 45 minutes for a table at a mediocre, noisy chain restaurant, when they could go someplace awesome like the Barbecue Joint and get better food that costs less, with no wait.
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