Saying yes...

The Last to Go

Our night temps have been brutal. Flowers that had struggled all summer-long due to lack of sun and cool weather, flowers that should have started to look ragged in September, but that found their stride due to late season warmth, were stopped in their tracks by temps in the 20's. Most of the garden areas are now filled with flower skeletons.

One scrappy flower has remained relatively untouched so far... an annual we bought on a whim due to the lamblets' urgings. It was called "Candy Corn" and looked really funky (click on it to enlarge it and see its fuzz).  A flowering vine actually, that is not supposed to winter in these areas. So far it hasn't realized that freezing temperatures are supposed to stop it. It's one of the few happy looking things left in the yard.

For any plant nerds out there... it's officially Manettia inflata or Manettia luteorubra.

As always... I'm not finished yet...

Got distracted from other artistic work yesterday. I went out to see how many tomatoes were left, how many more to expect in the tomato deluge that is this time of year, when I was hypnotized by the sun coming through the plants and bouncing around everywhere. I really wanted to paint it, other jobs be damned.

I'm at that infuriating spot where it's too wet to finish, but yesterday sure was fun.

I'm also wondering if I should call my Zazzle store, "It's not finished yet"...

Update: I worked on the tomatoes for a bit today. Hmmm, looks better in person. Apparently my camera doesn't have the new and improved monkey vision.

I think I'm finished for now. When looking at it in person, it's realistic, but also rather abstract. I kind of like the balance of tight/loose it's got going right now (more of which you can see in person). On the otherhand, for some reason, when I looked at it at one point today, it reminded me of upholstery tapestry! I'm not a big fan of upholstery tapestry so I think I'll tuck it away and will bring it out down the road and see what I think.

Mid-September Surprise

I hadn't checked the raspberry bushes in awhile. The last time I looked, they seemed rather meh.  They had a rough start this year between the weather and the ravenous Japanese beetles. I thought the season was going to be a wash. Well, they look like crap, but appear to be picking up momentum... if the weather holds, there are a bunch that will be ripening for at least another month. I'm all for late bloomers and I'll take fresh raspberries anytime they care to show up at my door.

And...  totally unrelated. This is kind of funny... I'm guessing there are a few of you out there who could add to it.

Eye Candy

I love summer flowers. Hot, hot summer flowers. Nothing high maintenance, nothing fancy, nothing rigid... just outrageous, vibrant colors on a stem. (Karla- recognize the vase?)

I knew it!

I knew he was out there... I could feel it... I could hear him at night, his grumbles and "meh-heh-heh's" wafting through my window and into my dreams... I checked everyday, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day, but did not see him. Still... I knew he was there.

FYI- I'm still gone, but lurking. In a couple of days I'll be really gone. God only knows what I'll come back to. It'll probably make this grumbling monster pale in comparison.

No rhyme or reason to the garden or the season

We're having a heatwave today. While 84 would normally be a mellow temp for this time of year, we've been a good 8-12 degrees below average so it feels downright toasty. The forecast for the next 10 days doesn't show a high reaching out of the 70's. Bizarre.

This weather has been totally messing with my plants. The weeds are loving it. Springtime plants are still loving it. We've got pansies that still look fresh as a daisy. Our daisies... they look like they're waiting for summer. So do some of our other heat-loving plants.

One thing I've noticed this year is just bizarre growing patterns even in the same type of plant. See to the left. These zinnias should be lush monsters by this point. They were started on time and went into the ground on time. One is as tall as it should be, but is spindly. See the two next to it?? They're the same type of zinnia. One is only 4 inches tall! The other is about 10 inches tall. They should be measured in feet and no ground should be showing. We've had the same deal with sunflowers... one tall, surrounded by mini-fleurs. What would normally be 8+ ft tall by this time is lucky if it's taller than the zucchini plants. Those, of course,
 are thriving. Those always thrive. I can hear them grumbling at night, no doubt cranking out the 2 ft long zucchini which will not be discovered until late August no matter how hard I search...

I can understand cool-loving, water-loving plants thriving in this weather. I can understand heat-loving, sunshine-loving plants not doing as well. What's I'm not getting is the disparity within the same type of plants... the same plants growing right next to each other. It's odd. I'd ask them what's up, but they're not talking.

Funky Thistle (non-invasive variety)

Grizzled bought me these as a joke a couple of years ago... after my attempts to be the Thistle Whisperer and woo the weeds in my garden into submission... the weeds won.

These intentional thistles are thriving as well, having hit their stride. You know what they say about perennials... the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, and the third year... they leap. These are definitely leaping and the thistle heads have taken on new and bizarre formations. They look fake. They kind of remind me of a disco ball... or maybe a Koosh Ball. (ignore the damn date stamp on the bottom. Grrrrrr.)

Have you ever licked an Alka-Seltzer??

Or perhaps, eaten a Zotz?? Well, this goofy looking little plant is a lot like those... It's called Spilanthes. I discovered them a number of years ago, liking the silly way they looked, kind of like a mutant green olive.  They make a fun border or an interesting addition in a pot.

It turns out, they're a medicinal herb... known to aid in good dental health. Eating one of these puppies (yes, they're edible... trust me!) will cause your mouth to start tingling and the saliva to start flowing... for quite awhile.

 I've been guilty of inflicting them on numerous people... Grizzled thinks it's cruel. I think it's educational. It's not painful... merely like chewing on a 9-volt. :)

Tree in the Big City

The first Christmas we were in this house, some 8+ years ago, Grizzled purchased a small tabletop Norfolk Pine along with some poinsettias. Although we tried to save the poinsettias after Christmas was over, we never had that much luck with them. They're too much work to get them back to their original splendor, the pine however, joined our cluster of houseplants.

Over the years the pine vacillated between thriving and struggling... most of it having to do with its environment and certainly not its pure pine determination.

As with many of our other plants, he was rotated out into the yard once the weather was nice enough. He was generally kept in a spot that offered enough shade, but it came to our attention one summer that too much sun was sneaking through and the poor pine haf been "crisped". We cut off his dead branches, making him look much more like a Norfolk Palm, but he survived.

He even survived the one summer where he kept being blown over by the crazy winds, spending an entire August on his side because we though he had surely given up the ghost... but he hadn't and back in he came.

He survived our one dog that liked to chew on his bark... our dog's bite happened to be worse than the bark... he survived the lamblets hanging various decorations on him, some too heavy and snapping a branch here or there...

But he triumphed and slowly got stronger and bigger. Grizzled did fertilized him regularly and repotted him many times. Eventually he stopped going outside for the summer. He was just too big to move. Eventually it became obvious he was becoming too big for the house, he had about 9 more inches to grow before hitting the ceiling. We looked for people to take him, but no one wanted a tree that big. We thought of letting him have one last summer outside and then going to sleep that winter never to waken again, but we couldn't. He had been through too much and had done so well. We'd have to find another solution.

Grizzled decided to ask the man who manages the plants in his building if he might want him. This man handles the plants for numerous facilities including Navy Pier...the man said yes, our pine would fit right in in the atrium at Navy Pier. He'd love to take him.

He came yesterday to pick him up... I felt like one of my own was leaving the nest. While I was bummed to see him go, I was also happy he'd have room to thrive and would also have such a great view!!! I can only wonder what adventures await him in the big city... I'm sure they won't all be pretty. He's tough though... he's been left for dead, he's been chewed on, he's thrived in the less than thrilling burbs. It's time for him to spread his fronds. At least we can still visit him.

Moment of Zen

Spent a lot of time in the dirt this weekend... planting a few remaining things, pulling out lots of overachieving weeds or overly zealous cilantro or chives. It was lovely out... sunny, warm, but with a nice, cool breeze. It was a weekend to be spent outside. At first I thought I'd rather be doing anything outside other than weeding, but as usual, if I just get into it, I swear, I feel the mental knots loosen and the superfluous thoughts just spill out into the ground. At one point, I remember being aware of the fact that the mental transition had taken place and I was observing it. I was in the dirt, pulling away the last few weeds, sifting out those that had fallen back to the ground, when I realized, I wasn't thinking, my head felt empty and I felt like I could sift through that patch of dirt for hours especially if it meant a vacation from nagging thoughts.

I love dirt, love messing with dirt. I don't mind getting dirty. Never have. When I was little, a favorite pastime of friends and one of my siblings, was making mud/clay cubes from chunks of clay that we had unearthed. The ultimate version of this was a visit to my paternal grandparents when they had a house that was on a huge stretch of wooded land that ended up at a creek, a creek that was filled with orange clay. My grandfather would help us dig it out and we'd make little animals out of it. If our visit was long enough, long enough to let the animals dry adequately, he'd let us glaze and fire them. It was amazing, from clay taken out of a creek to shiny little animal in your hand. I wish I still had one.

One other thing that my grandfather would do was send us on safaris in that huge yard. He had a large stack of photos of animals from the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History. He take the pictures and would hide them all over the wooded lot. We'd hunt in rotting tree trunks, under piles of leaves, up in trees, until we had found the animal he had directed us to get. We all loved it. After my grandfather's death, almost every grandchild wanted those photos. I think we each decided to take one. I still have my kangaroo.

When my eldest lamblet was about 3 or so, we still lived in the city, but had a courtyard patio that had garden beds in it. Grizzled and I planted quite a bit in those beds and got quite a bit out of them considering their small size. When I'd go out to work on them, I'd take EL out to dig in them as well. I'd tell her that our building had been there a long time and that Chicago was an old city so who knows what she'd find when she dug. I'd seed the dirt with a few items beforehand so she wouldn't be totally frustrated if she didn't find anything. Over time I buried an old earring, a few coins, a shell, a little ceramic figure or two from a box of Rose Tea. She'd dig and dig and sure enough she'd find something. If she dug long enough, she'd find something that I hadn't even planted, as I suspected she would. I asked her to imagine who it had belonged to and how did it end up there... what was the story. If I play in the dirt or dig long enough, I find something as well. Peace of mind. No story, just peace and quiet.