I should be weeding, but was out wandering about in the rain snapping some plant portraits instead. Patti
plant portraits
I forgot the pictures. My brain must be soggy! Patti
Nice pictures Patti!
Wow, that is soooo beautiful!
Dave47, so you don't think I am a complete slacker, here is the project that I am right now avoiding. A new bed. But it looks like the rain is stopping now, so no more excuses. Patti
A slacker? On Nantucket? No way!
aaaaggghh. grass removal. I would avoid it too.
Dave47, I finished the "big dig" today. I will plant it up with some of parks/wayside cheap plants that I ordered the other day that are all deer resistant (that's as old and as laughable as, "the checks in the mail") as well as plants that I can spare from elsewhere in the yard. This bed is suppose to help hide part of the ugly deer fence. I'll post a picture when I plant it. I am putting in Ink berry, vitex, stag-horn tigers eye, Rosa rugosa, winter-berry, red leaf hydrangea, Iris, daffodils, hollyhocks & some rug juniper that I bought in error for somewhere else. And whatever else I think will survive the deer and the rabbits and help feed the birds in the winter. But as a treat to me for my hard work, I am going to be a real slacker tomorrow and go swimming. I was calling this the vitex bed, but now am changing it in my journal to "slacker bed" Patti
Good jod Patti! Do you have a little tiller? My Mantis makes breaking ground so much easier.
I just hit that Park's sale for the second time in 2 or 3 weeks. Its too cheap to avoid!
Do the deer swim or take the ferry to Nantucket?
I was recently bragging about (almost) no deer problems sinc I moved here. Guess what? Chomping on my front & back gardens including rosa rugosa. I spread some Millorganite but its too late for a few of my lilies. That kills me because once they nip those buds you have to wait another year to see your lily
Dave 47, No tiller, I always think I won't be doing anymore big beds. Swim vs boat ? Funny you should ask. The story is that a single Buck must have arrived via swimming. He was viewed as lonely, so the following year, some summer people from Michigan brought via steamship two females (most likely already pregnant) and thus we now have a massive number of deer and ticks. This was back before WWII. The recent 1980's arrival of squirrels is attributed to the fuel crisis and the importation of semi trailers filled with wood from Vt and a couple hitchhiking squirrels. The squirrels first appeared in Sconset( the site of the woodman who sold the trucked in cord wood) and then everyone watched them spread slowly about the island. Their migration was followed in the paper (latest squirrel sitings) We have had a couple recent moth infestations also brought via nursery loads of plants coming in via trucks on the ferry. But then I arrived the same way in 1964, which may have been the greatest infestation of all! Your deer are really hungry to be eating rugosa. We spray a variety of noxious stuff outside the deer fence to discourage them, but lilies won't survive their lily lust. Patti
I lived in the FL Keys for a couple of years. They have adorable key deer. Always amazed me the number of islands they had to swim to. I don't think key deer could reach the top of tall lilies. ;^)
I spray my plants with DeerOut and it seems to work...they did get a several of my lilly buds but that's because I had sprayed before the buds formed. I have now sprayed again (the buds) and they haven't touched them. I envy all your "open sun" areas bbrookrd. I think the rain is coming your way again..we are in for more thunderstorms today before it FINALLY leaves. Beautiful pictures by the way.
We ended up with creeping Charlie in a similar manner. It wasn't here in Minnesota until some kind nursery decided to bring it in as a beautiful ground cover. Well if it had it's way it would cover all of the ground in the state. I am constantly fighting the stuff. I left some by my driveway to see what it would do. It is trying to cover the cement driveway with tendril's. I guess it wants to cross it and get to the rest of the yard. I will need to pull it out before it gets there.
I went to our Vt garden and it was (guess?), raining. My husband managed on mowing the lawn between storms, but I just took pictures. I pulled almost no weeds as it is such a jungle from all the rain that it all blended into a nice green mass. We did have one very nice day and I visited Boojum amazing garden. Patti
On Sunday I returned to Nantucket which had plenty of sun and I took pictures of what had opened since Thursday. Here is some of the show. Patti
Patti...you have two amazing gardens can't imagine having to take care of two! Beautiful.
Dave47 This is the grand unveiling of "The Slacker Bed". There is a before picture of the area that I attacked with the weed whacker with a big cutter blade and then a shot of the middle part of the job done with the shovel and then two pictures of the bed with a few of the plants planted. I had a vitex in one corner of this jungle which is the only thing I saved. I hope the rest of the plants I ordered get here soon, so I can feel it is done. But now that I bushed cut a huge area beyond, I can see renting a tiller if I continue with the digging madness! Patti
Patti, Amazing photos, Just beautiful and such wonderful ground to work with.
I spent 3 hours weeding and deadheading this morning then went on a motorcycle ride with my sweetheart, up in the beautiful cool mountains. I do the sight seeing, he does the driving. There is still snow on some of the east sides. It was a WONDERFUL day.
great photos of the slacker bed. Don't forget to post again when the rest of the plants are in.
I am jealous of the multi-image post, whenever I try it doesn't work I will have to try again when dh is home to help me figure it out.
zenpotter, I use picasa from google to down load and organize my pictures. It is from goggle and is FREE. If you have trouble, d-mail me. I learned about it this spring on DG. There has been a couple of good threads about using picasa. Patti
This message was edited Jul 15, 2006 6:37 PM
Patti,
Thank you, I checked on it and I have an iMac and it is for a PC.
Pauline
Awesome pictures, Patti!! What is the white flowering plant in the first picture?
:) Donna
Donna, It is a zonal geranium white glitter (pelargonium) It is wonderful in containers. It was the only one they had. Patti
It's gorgeous, Patti! Luv it!! Which program did you use to create the plant portraits?
:) Donna
Donna, pop up four entries to see about Picasa2 . I use it like a visual diary, making colleges each week of what is happening in my garden. I also send collages to our son so he can see what he is missing at home without looking at a zillion pictures. Patti
Duh or what.....lol! I guess I'm blind. I thought that's what it was.
Thanks!
:) Donna