Wash, Rinse, Repeat

After those weeks of no rain in early May, I was wondering if we would ever break the cycle. Now, we've entered a new loop. The humidity from the previous day's rainfall forms new storm clouds which dump more rain the next day. As temperatures rise into the low 90s later this week, the chance of rain increases every day. There's no real end in sight with the next 5 days showing at least 20% chance, with 40% being the norm. Yesterday, another 1/2" of rain fell. Storms predicted this afternoon. The high will reach the mid 80s. It's 72 degrees, clear, and muggy.

My only blooming hydrangea seems happy. It's planted on the North side of the house and receives no direct sunlight.



Fragrant lilies purchased after Easter last year are blooming.



A new variety of cosmos is blooming. I'll be saving and scattering seeds to fill in the blank spots all summer.



Pink bee balm by the street is blooming. Carla's red bee balm, dug from my yard, is just starting to open. Mine is waiting.



The recent rains have sent the brugmansia into overdrive. All three returning yellow/orange plants from last year are about 2' tall. The leaves are getting large, just like last year.



There's a dehumidifier in the basement. I've got it running on a three hour cycle. The water is drying, slowly. Today, I'll be picking up the vinyl tile for the kitchen. I just finished some work for my former boss, giving me a little extra spending money. The white paint is sitting out waiting for me to get home from work this evening. I've already masked the edges of the small room off the kitchen. The plan is to have that much finished by the weekend.

Rain is coming.

We've got a good chance of rain this afternoon.



New things are popping up all over. The rain should kick things into overdrive.





The ferns I transplanted last week are starting to unfurl.



Black & Blue salvia is returning. This one is pineapple sage. That's the first time I've ever had this plant return from the roots. The three others show no signs of life.



Brugmansias have new growth too.



It's 61 degrees. There's a coolness to the air.

Azaleas are blooming.

Across the street, the azaleas and wisteria are in bloom. That's 18 days ahead of last year. The dogwoods are blooming too.



In my yard, a single azalea bloom was found yesterday.



My two clematis vines are growing by leaps and bounds. I've never had luck with these before. Maybe ignoring them helped.





The Muskogee Crape Myrtle is leafing out. It's way too early for this.



The maple trees in the gully.



The Asian cabbages are bolting.



In the perennial bed, I think I have problems. Reseeds.



And I planted out 10 brugmansias. I'll take Nell's advice. If a frost does come, I'll use containers and buckets to cover everything I can.



It's 54 degrees. Another upper 80s day is in the forecast. By Tuesday, 90.

The View.

I moved daffodils and three red maples. I weeded a bit. I scattered seeds. I will not be scraping paint. It's too nice a day to be on a ladder on the shady side of the house. It will just have to wait.



The over wintering plants have been trundled back outside. The brugs are once again infested by aphids. I found a lizard and encouraged it to have lunch.



I won't be cutting grass either. The only things that need mowing are the onions that continue to grow. Instead, I marveled at the violets on the front slope.



The rest of the afternoon will be spent taking in the view. The hammock is back in place for another season.



It's 70 degrees and sunny.

Daylight comes

and I want to go home. For lunch.

The greenery in the meadow really sparkled this morning as I was leaving. The headlights of the truck told me lots of new growth was evident.



The larkspur is really gushing forth. Other seedlings have started to appear.



In the perennial bed, daffodils are making their presence known. I plan to move a lot more to this area in a few weeks. I've got huge clumps in the woods that don't bloom. Each clump will probably net me 25+ bulbs. Planted ages ago by the previous owner.



A dark centered daffodil by the tree has appeared.



The plants are loving the warm weather, cool rain, and overcast skies. The brugs are very happy.



It's 63 degrees and has been drizzling on and off this morning.

The Winter Garden.

No, this is not about snow. It's about all the things I have growing under lights in the basement. Outside, it's 25 degrees and cold. On my little rack of sunshine, it's a balmy 76 degrees. When the wood heater gets back up to speed, it can reach 90 in the basement quickly.

Brugmansia seedlings.



I pruned a few of my yellow orange brugs. The leaves were getting in the way of the lights. They were looking sort of tortured. I didn't take cuttings of these since I already have too many.



It's hard to tell unless you know what to look for, but my black mission figs are beginning to push out roots. I've been keeping them on top of the uppermost fluorescent light. It's very warm up there. I need to keep an eye out for any mold that might develop. I did clean these with a 10% bleach solution, but you can never be too safe.



The weeping willow cuttings are pushing out tiny roots too. I'll be planting a clump on the other side of the stream in the gully. I'd love to hide some of the houses I can now see on Brown Ave.



Of course, I fed the birds today. With so many waiting to take turns at the feeders, I thought I would scatter some seeds on the ground. Juncos, Eastern Bluebirds, cardinals, and what I think is a sparrow have all shown up to eat. There are more Juncos than anything else in this photo.



I can't wait for spring. Next week, I'll be able to check on my wintersown seedlings. The tiny sprouts should survive this cold spell just fine, but I can tell from just looking that the bottles are frozen solid out there.

Summertime.

That's what it feels like outside tonight. This morning, it was cool and brisk. I wore my hat to work and removed several layers of clothing throughout the day. By the time I had lunch, we were in the 50s. Tonight, it's 63 and, breezy would be an understatement. It's windy. The hurricane chime on the perennial bed arbor has been sounding steadily since sunset. It's made from long pieces of chainlink fence posts and requires a decent amount of air movement to make it sing.

Before I headed back to work this afternoon, I moved all the indoor cuttings outside. I know. Brugmansia and pineapple sage outside in January. The nighttime temperature is supposed to fall to 51 with a 64 degree high tomorrow. I'm contemplating leaving them out there all night. They could use the rain. By now, the soil is stagnant and needs to be refreshed. Rainfall nutrients can't do much harm. However, the wind might. I pulled the rack up close to the house. I can always wheel it into the garage door if I need to, and in a hurry.



I haven't really been paying much attention to these plants lately. They've just been doing their own thing. Lights come on at 7am, go off at 7pm. They get watered when I think about it (or notice a crunchy leaf). I guess I hadn't realized there was so much sage in bloom.



I'll have to pull them back inside tomorrow if the sun threatens to show its face. But for tonight, they can dream about warmer days. The rain has started already. It's blowing fierce against the bedroom windows. I'm thinking about calling it a night and turning in early.

Blooms in the Basement

It's 36 degrees. It was a beautiful sunrise. With less than 2 months til spring, the sun is slowly moving back to the east each morning.



The yellow brugmansia opened last night. The fragrance was nice, but not as strong as the ones in the yard this summer.



Pineapple sage is also blooming. Several plants are pushing out tiny, weak blooms under the fluorescent lights.



A Salvia leucantha cutting is trying really hard to keep up.



Brugmansia seedlings. These are the ones I sowed more than a month ago. I can't wait to see them bloom.



Today, I'm off work. Have plans to head over to Carla's to help cut and split some wood from a tree taken down this summer. Also planning to prune her very large, overgrown Brown Turkey fig tree. From my perennial bed, I'm taking her several butterfly bushes. They were grown from cuttings stuck last year where I wanted them to grow. I just pushed the limbs into the ground and trimmed them way back. All of them survived and bloomed again this year. I'm taking them out of the circle bed near the birdbath. Tomorrow morning, I plan to remove even more plants from that space. I want a cleaner slate when the wintersown perennials are planted out.

The forecast today: 67 degrees. It's January.

5:54pm - Spent the day between Carla's and the gully. We chopped and split some wood for her sister at her house, trimmed a fig tree, and planted some butterfly bushes. In the gully, we pulled out some stones to finish her edging along the front of the house.

I came back, cleaned and wrapped some fig cuttings from her possible brown turkey. I bleached them in a 10% solution, wrapped them in newspaper, and put them in gallon ziplocks. They'll stay there for the next month. In early March, they'll be put in containers in the hoophouse.

I also brought back a piece of her fig tree that had some small roots. It's about 4' tall and 1.5" in diameter. I'm hoping it takes.



Outside, I have more sprouts.













The high today reached 64. It's 59 degrees currently. The sun has almost disappeared below the horizon.

7:16pm - 20 more containers have been sown. The White Texas Star seeds from two of my recent trades arrived. I sowed 4 containers of each. Solidago fireworks, euphorbia marginata, and Chocolate Joe Pye Weed were some of the others.

Progress in the Backyard

Last December, the backyard was a blank slate.



Yesterday, I took this series of images and used an autostitch program to create the panorama. The fence isn't actually curved, the software did that.



Things are very different back there now. Three raised beds for the vegetable garden next year, paths and a meadow garden, and of course, the dead oak tree have all helped shape the back yard into something I'm very happy with so far. A few "constructive staring" episodes this summer and fall have given me more ideas. Once the wintersown plants start germinating, they'll be used to fill in beds that were created this summer.

Between my yard and the neighbor's property, there is a stand of trees I like to call "The Wild". There are a few huge oaks, some smaller maples, a few Magnolias, and what I believe are sour gums. These last ones turn bright red in the fall. They're very slow growing and could take decades to reach a noticeable size. Another panoramic was taken from where I spent most of my day cutting wood.



In the gully, I finished moving most of the brush to the other side of the stream. You can almost see the depression where water collects during heavy rainstorms. This is where I will be planting my bog plants this spring. I've got three trades of Hibiscus coccineus 'alba' underway now. Those should go nicely with my Red Texas Stars that will be moved from the perennial bed once the threat of frost has passed. There will be some effort required to kill off the existing English ivy and vinca major that has taken over. It will be a never ending battle.



Water collects in any depression. I moved a large log which left a hole. It filled with water quickly.



I'm considering heading out there today to do a little more firewood splitting. But it's only 18 degrees. The batteries in the hoophouse thermometer must be frozen. It's not registering on the indoor receiver this morning.

In the basement, the yellow/orange brug cuttings are sporting flower pods. This is the largest.



Now that I've noticed them, they'll surely fall off before opening. There are several others just starting to appear on other cuttings.



Off from work today, I'm not sure what I intend to do. I'll have another cup of coffee before I make any decisions.

12:34pm - I've split another pallet of firewood. Both pallets in the basement are full. Mom called this morning to discuss Saturday and people I don't know that have died in the past two weeks. My sister got the cotton from a Q-tip stuck in her ear and had to have it removed by a doctor. So nothing has really happened in their world lately. I'm going to have some lunch, run to Lowe's and pick up a new damper for the little wood stove I'm hoping to sell tonight, and then I'll be cleaning the house for the rest of the day. It's 39 degrees outside, 66 inside the hoophouse.