Leave Me Alone, I'm Digging

Now Open at Our New Location

2008-11-16T09:35:00.002-05:00

Leave Me Alone, I'm Digging is now up at a new location. Click here to keep updated on what's going on in my garden. The site is still under construction, so look for new additions in coming weeks.

Shade Garden Remix

2008-11-10T21:46:00.007-05:00

I wish I had a really good reason for taking a break from blogging for a while, like tracking the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker or winning the starting point-guard position at Carolina, but I don't. Although I haven't been writing about gardening, I have been getting my hands dirty, which I suppose is better than the reverse.

My front flowerbed occupies a square of real estate in the corner formed by the driveway and front walk. Two dogwoods keep the back section in deep shade throughout the growing season, and it is here that my hellebores, hostas, lungworts, astilbes, and foamflowers exist in what is essentially a tiny patch of forest. The front part of the bed, however, faces southeast, so that the outer edge is in the sun all day, creating a desert-like habitat that once fried a creeping phlox. (My mother was astounded to hear this, observing that phlox can grow on a sidewalk...maybe so, but not during the hellish summer of 2007.) The in-between area varies from part sun to part shade, depending on the angle of the sun in the sky.

This is also the most visible part of the yard. You see it from the street, we walk by it on our way to the front door, and it is what we see from the big windows in the living room, where I sit with my cat Casey and drink my tea in the morning. Last year it looked lovely in April and May, but rather nondescript the rest of the year, so I wanted to give this bed some year-round interest.

I found a December-blooming camellia in the back yard that had done poorly in two locations, so I hauled it up to the front yard and combined it with a deciduous azalea, ("Swamp Azalea" as it's called in South Carolina). I added some Epimedium, a few dozen daffodils, and a Dwarf Hinoki Cypress and a collection of various heucheras. Then I rearranged the gumpo azaleas and some of the hellebores into a clump surrounding the birdbath.

A few days later, I noticed what looked like hostas coming up in the middle of the gumpos and struggling to get out from under the concrete birdbath. "Now that's weird," I thought. "Hostas don't come up in October."

"No, you idiot, but Arums do."

It's always something...

First Junco...and Election Commentary

2008-11-08T09:21:00.001-05:00

When I was in college, our campus newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel, always did an April Fool edition on April 1, filled with ridiculously impossible news stories. Things like America electing an African-American President, or the UNC football team having a winning season. So imagine my surprise when I opened the paper the other day and saw that Butch Davis, the UNC football coach, was having to deny rumors that he was being courted for the job at Tennessee....Nobody ever wants any of our coaches. So then I see on the front page that Barack Obama has won the election, including NC, and I figure it's gotta be April Fool's Day. I mean, come on. The learned governor of Alaska herself said that North Carolina was one of the "pro-American parts of the country..."

But if it's April Fool's Day, then what's that junco doing scratching around among the fallen leaves? And why are there two white-throated sparrows sitting on my fence? Those are November birds. You don't suppose that newspaper was real, do you? President Obama, okay, but Carolina ranked #17 with a 7-2 record???

Talking With a Snake in the Garden

2008-09-22T22:09:00.007-04:00

I was working in the garden in the cool of the evening when a voice spoke to me.

"Hey, watch it with that pitchfork, chief."

I looked down and saw a little brown snake on the ground.

"Hmmm. Talking snake...garden....I don't like where this is leading."

"Very funny," replied the snake. "Do you know how much trouble that story has caused for my kind over the centuries? People see me and freak out. Then they go get a hoe and try to chop my head off. Trust me, there's a lot of evil in the world, but snakes aren't the cause of it."

"Sorry, my little friend. I was only kidding. You're welcome in my garden. I didn't mean to frighten you with the pitchfork. I was just moving some compost. You know, you're the first snake I've seen in my garden. I wondered if I was doing something wrong."

"You mean you like snakes?"

"Oh yeah. You guys are cool. Admittedly I'm more fond of nonvenomous types like you than I am of Copperheads, but yeah, snakes are awesome."

"Boy, that's a new one. I usually hate encountering humans."

"I know what you mean. I try to limit my dealings with them too. That's why I come out here."

I sat on the ground beside the snake. For a while, we were silent, just watching the birds and late summer butterflies.

"You write a blog, don't you?" the snake asked.

"I must say that you're a very well-informed snake. I'll bet there are some political candidates who don't know what a blog is."

"That's another thing. Why do people refer to slimy politicians as "snakes?" WE aren't slimy."

"Good question. But isn't "slimy politician" redundant?"

"Forgive me. I was asking about your blog. I expect that many of your readers are not as snake-tolerant as yourself."

"That's probably a safe assumption."

"Well, could you put in a good word for snakes on your next post? At least for Brown Snakes. We're harmless to humans. I mean look at me. I'm 8 inches long, I have no fangs, and I eat insects and slugs. There's no need to go all crazy and start chopping at me. Really, all I want is to be left alone. Could you put that in there?"

"My blog is all about being left alone in the garden. Consider it done."

How Many Times Can I Rearrange the Shade Garden?

2008-09-07T19:59:00.006-04:00

The shade garden by my front walk has been bothering me ever since the last time I rearranged it. There were too many gaps, especially in winter. This is a bed that has to look good twelve months of the year, because it's at the front of the house and I walk right past it on the way to and from the front door. Lately, every time I've walked past, I said, "I need to do something about this bed."

The main problem was that the gumpo azaleas are shorter than the hellebores, and you couldn't see them, so I pulled all of the azaleas to the edge of the bed, moved the birdbath, leaving the hellebores further back. Behind them are the taller bear-claw hellebores, then a camellia which hasn't done well anywhere else in the yard, so I'm trying it here.Because I consolidated the hellebores which were scattered all over the bed, I now have a big empty space that I need to fill. I'd like to try some new plants, and I'm open to suggestions for what might look good here. I'd like something that is drought tolerant, and that can handle the dry shade beneath dogwoods. (It's full/partial shade except winter and early spring.) Here's a list of some plants I'm considering. If you've had experience, good or bad, with these, please let me know...or if you have other suggestions. Mostly I want short plants, 1-2 feet tall. Thanks in advance!

Spotted Dead Nettle
Epimedium (Barrenwort)
Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla)
Heuchera
Euphorbia 'Helena'
Winter Daphne

Yes, I'm Alive ...and Wet

2008-08-28T19:40:00.005-04:00

"You haven't updated your blog lately, have you?" Sandra asked. We were at our brand new Wild Birds Unlimited store, getting ready for the Labor Day opening.

"No, sometimes you just run out of stuff to write about. I griped about the drought all last year, so I thought about just running the same posts again and changing the date, but somehow that seemed intellectually dishonest."

"Well, you can't write about that now."

I'll say. The remnants of Hurricane Fay came to Greensboro yesterday and drenched...and I mean drenched...the city. 6.6" of rain at my house, most of it in less than 24 hours.

So that's the news from my garden. I've got some other stuff going on, a few rootings, still working on my new flowerbed, but I'll get to all that later on. College football starts tonight on ESPN, so I gotta go.

Oh, wait...I have to show you the most recent visitor to my garden:

Garden Art Meets Academic Prose

2008-07-28T21:37:00.009-04:00

A climbing rose has appeared in my garden, likely planted by the garden gnomes, since I have no recollection of planting it, and I was thinking how grand it would be to have a sturdy trellis for it to climb. I have some scraps of cedar wood that would make a fine trellis, if I ever took the initiative to put them together. They have been under my deck for nearly three years, however, because I dislike any project involving tools that do not go into dirt, as well as anything requiring nails and screws.

Fortunately, as I was walking around the neighborhood one Sunday evening, I discovered this deck railing on someone's trash pile. I considered returning home for my car, but I feared that another scavenger might happen along and realize its value, so I hoisted the thing onto my shoulder and made my way back home, looking like some bizarre performance artist.

Which made me wonder...since my carbon offset scheme...er...program went nowhere, perhaps I could apply for an artist's grant. I'll call it a sculpture, and use words like "oevre," "verticality," "ontological" "juxtapose," and "paradigm" in my artist's statement.

So what do you think of my piece? (Real artists just say "piece," which is short for "piece of scrap lumber I found on the side of the road." If you work in academia you know these things.) Is it a commentary on bourgeoisie striving, symbolized by a ladder leading nowhere? Or a subtle evocation of Jacob's ladder, probing the man-God dialectic in ancient Hebrew thought? (I gotta stop--this is like shooting fish in a barrel. I knew I should have finished grad school!)

Baby Mockingbirds

2008-07-22T22:33:00.001-04:00

Baby Mockingbirds
Originally uploaded by cturtle0782

These babies live in a dogwood tree at the college where I work. If the photo's a bit blurry, it's because both parents kept assaulting me while I was taking pictures. This photo was taken about 9 days ago. Needless to say, they are much larger now.

A Curmudgeon Collects Redbuds

2008-07-19T19:07:00.006-04:00

Some people cannot bear to throw anything away. I am not one of those people. Every year, and sometimes two or more times in a year, I have a "throwing out" in which stuff gets taken to Goodwill, posted on Freecycle, or put in the trash. I do this with no remorse. If I do not have an immediate need for something, I do not want it cluttering up my house.

But then there is the matter of redbud seedlings. It began with one, which sprouted in my butterfly garden in 2006. It was my first spring in my new garden, which at the time was essentially a football field with a couple of lantanas growing at the 20 yard-line. I admired Nature's pluck, the way she had no doubt been throwing seedlings on this piece of land every year for over a century, only to have them dug up by a farmer's plow or later beheaded by a lawnmower, so I decided that this tree would be the first successful re-colonizer of my backyard.

Knowing that it will eventually throw more shade than I want in the butterfly garden, I moved it across the field and down to about the five yard line, where I let things grow kind of wild, and there it is growing nicely.

This year, another redbud sprouted in one of my new beds, in the exact spot where I had been contemplating putting a small tree. I took this as a sign that a tree was indeed meant to go there, and am now tending to it as well. (Not that they need much tending--mainly it amounts to shouting "Don't step on my tree!" every time Teresa ventures in that part of the garden. She responds with some remark about curmudgeons, which pleases me greatly. Not all wives are so supportive of their husband's career aspirations.

Anyway, back to redbuds. They are coming up everywhere now. Two in Teresa's birdbath garden, which she says must be moved this fall as she is not growing a forest there; two or three more in the butterfly garden, and still more along the fence. Every time I weed, I see another two or three little redbuds, and I know I don't have room for all of them, but somehow I always seem to miss them as I pull the grass, pokeweed, and other stuff from around them. I fear that this may get out of hand.

At least my yard...er...forest...will be pretty in spring!

Straw Bales

2008-07-12T22:14:00.005-04:00

Lisa at Greenbow requested some photos to show how the straw bales were holding up, and you know that I live to serve, so here you are, Lisa!

An early lesson that we learned is to get bales that are tightly bound. This was the first one we bought, back in January, and it was not wrapped very tightly. It also had the heaviest plant, a zucchini, and you can see that it is collapsing like the Tar Heels in last year's Final Four.

The bottom picture, in contrast, was tighter, we put it out in April, and it has green beans, which are much lighter. It's holding up well. If you click the photo for a closer look, you can see the copper scouring pads which deter the slugs.

Teresa's Farm Report

2008-07-10T09:00:00.005-04:00

As I wrote before, I was skeptical about the idea of growing vegetables in bales of wheat straw. Obviously, my doubts were unfounded. Every day we pick more squash and zucchini, way more than we can eat. Fortunately my students like it too, so every couple of days I come to class with a bag of fresh vegetables and tell them to help themselves.

The green beans have begun to come in now too. We only have about 5 or 6 plants, which haven't produced a great quantity of beans, so next year we will probably plant more.

The only problem we've encountered, other than the hailstorm, has been slugs on the beans. Teresa read that slugs have an aversion to copper, so she placed some copper scouring pads around the base of each bean plant and that seems to have repelled them.

The bales don't require as much water as I thought they would. Initially we thought we'd need to water twice a day, but the bales seem to hold water pretty well--we neglected them for 5 days of 100-degree weather in June and they came out fine.

Anybody want some squash????

Turtles and the Question of Good and Evil

2008-07-01T13:10:00.004-04:00

It's no secret that I take a dim view of human nature in general. Most of the time I think people are no damn good (readers of this blog excepted, of course!) and I greatly prefer the company of animals to that of humans.

Every so often, however, something happens that makes me reconsider. Yesterday afternoon I was driving down Bryan Boulevard at rush hour and noticed a couple of cars parked on the shoulder, and a large brown thing in the middle of the road. As I passed the object, I realized it was a large turtle trying to cross two lanes of heavy 55mph traffic, and that the people getting out of the cars were trying to figure out how to help the animal without getting themselves killed.

I pulled off the highway and began backing up in the breakdown lane, all the while watching the turtle. I knew that it would meet its death because of some idiot jabbering on a cell phone, or worse, because of some evil bastard (and I use the word "evil" in its fullest theological sense) who would hit the turtle on purpose. (Note--if you ever hear that someone was murdered after they deliberately harmed an animal, please tell the cops that I was at your house all day. I'll need the alibi.)

Miraculously, one driver after another, including one in a semi, swerved to miss the creature. Then, a red pickup cut across two lanes of traffic and braked to a stop. A man got out and hesitated only an instant before stepping into the nearest lane of traffic, and signaled authoritatively for cars to keep to the left lane. Having created a break in the traffic, the man dashed across the freeway, scooped up the turtle, and hauled it safely out of the road as it waved its stubby legs in the air.

The rest of the day I wondered what to conclude about humans. As a species, we are obviously capable of great evil, but what is it that made four people set aside convenience and safety to save the life of one animal? There seems to be something else at work here...

House and Garden Gripes

2008-06-29T21:45:00.006-04:00

Seventeen years ago, I lived in a tiny...and I mean tiny...rental house out in the country near Chapel Hill. I could fit everything I owned into one pickup load. My life was a lot simpler then. If something needed fixing or replacing, I knocked on the door of my next-door neighbor, 81 year-old Ralph, who owned the house, and he took care of it. I didn't have to think about it.

I looked forward to one day owning my own house, but I didn't appreciate the freedom of not having to worry about a damn thing except paying the rent on time and making sure I was home in time for Northern Exposure on Monday nights. Money was spent on myself. If I wanted books, I bought them. If I wanted to go to the beach, I went.

Don't get me wrong. I like my house. But there are days when I wonder if I own the house, or if the house owns me. Case in point: astute readers of this blog will notice that we have a new roof, and that the trim on the right side of the house is now white. (Seriously, if you noticed that, you need to get a life, or else I'm calling the cops because you are obviously paying way too much attention to my house...)

The thing is, I'm tired of house projects. Since we bought the place, in addition to the roof, we've stripped wallpaper and/or painted in 6 rooms, replaced carpet in 3, refinished hardwoods in 1, and still need to replace the deck and the heat pump. I'm tired of thinking of what's next on the list. What I'd like to do is have a tiny cabin like Thoreau's--or like my little house in Chapel Hill--in the middle of my garden. Something that required minimal upkeep. A place to sleep, shower, and read. I'll bet I would have a lot more money, not to mention time, do deal with something that I enjoy--my plants.

William Shenstone, an 18th century writer, may have put his finger on part of the reason for my discontent:

The works of a person that builds, begins immediately to decay; while those of him who plants, begins directly to improve.

All that stuff we do to the house starts to wear out or get old the moment we're done. I know, I know, you gotta have a roof, but still...I wish I could reverse the ratio of money and time I spend on the house versus the garden.

Speaking of the garden, I took some photos this afternoon after the thunderstorm. Check them out.
Andy's Garden. I still miss that cat.

Teresa's Farm Recovers from Hail

2008-06-16T21:54:00.005-04:00

When we left for vacation, Teresa's straw bale garden had been shredded by the hail. We didn't bother to have anyone water it, thinking that we would just start over with new plants after we returned.

Surprisingly, the squash, zucchini, and beans have come back better than ever. I had thought that they would have dried up, because straw bale gardens are supposed to need a lot of water, but apparently not as much as I thought.

(We went to Chincoteague, Virginia for our vacation. Click here for photos.)

What's Next, Locusts???

2008-06-10T21:23:00.003-04:00

First it was an hour-long hailstorm. Now it's the heat. The same hellish, broiling heat, with no rain, no breeze, no clouds overhead that we had last June...and July...and August...and September...and October.

I've been on vacation so I can't give you the exact temperatures, but according to Steve's Weather Page, which is not far from my house, the high temps have ranged between 97 and 100 for the past week. At some point during the week, mine hit 102 (and that's in the shade on the north side of the house.)

This is %&#$%*&^% ridiculous. This is North Carolina. Not Death Valley. I want to move up north. I don't care if I need an interpreter, and I don't care if I can't order sweet tea in a restaurant. I just want to get away from this heat. I can learn to Garden in Zone 5. If Carolyn can go from Alabama to Chicago, then I can go from NC to Maine...or Canada. I have had enough!

Hail Storm Shreds My Garden

2008-05-31T20:58:00.025-04:00

When I was young, I was often cared for by E, an elderly black lady who had helped to raise my father, and then a generation later, my brother and me. During thunderstorms, she made Barry and me lie quietly on the bed until the tempest had blown over. We always wanted to play with our fire trucks, and I asked her once why we had to stop playing just because it was storming outside.

"The Lord is working," she said, "and you ought to show respect."

Today I witnessed a storm, for which the only proper response is silent awe.

Never in my life have I seen such . For more than an hour, hailstones pelted the city like rocks hurled by an angry god. The wind roared and torrential rains poured from the sky. Three times the onslaught eased, only to begin again with renewed fury. Windblown hail slammed into the windows like bullets, and it seemed like the sky had shattered and the whole of heaven was falling, hurtling to the ground in icy shards.

When the sky at last cleared, I ventured cautiously outside and found my garden in shreds, with 2 inches of ice around the battered stalks..

Every squash, zucchini, bean, and pea plant in Teresa's straw bale garden was stripped of its leaves. She is very discouraged, because she's worked so hard on her garden--it was her first one-- and was looking forward to fresh yellow squash in a couple of weeks.

From our front yard, I could hear rushing water and knew that our quiet little creek at the end of the street must have become a river...

Down in the valley where the creek runs, a heavy fog had settled, turning an ordinary suburban street into a surreal landscape of light and shadow, with ghostly figures appearing and disappearing into the mist...

Bluebirds Undeterred by Housing Slump

2008-05-24T22:04:00.004-04:00

Despite the uncertainty in the housing market, these bluebirds are eager to set up their new household. The male captured this earthworm and held it for several minutes while the female gathered dried grass clippings for her nest.

When she took a break, he flew to her side and gave her the worm to eat. Wish I had captured that moment!

Jane and I are Finished

2008-05-21T20:43:00.006-04:00

She looked so inviting in her photos, and from her description she seemed the perfect match. We met a few months ago, hit it off well, and so she came home with me.

All was good for a while, but then, I began to see a side of Jane that I didn't like. I had seen it before in others, and I knew that no good was going to come of this. At first it was the little things, but as always happens little things led to bigger things and it became clear that there was no future in our relationship.

Maybe it was the way she was raised. I don't really know what sort of home she came from. She was a foreigner, you know...not that I have anything foreigners, (I teach English as a Second Language) but when you get involved with someone who's not from around here, well, just know you're opening yourself up to all kinds of trouble.

My next relationship is going to be with a North Carolina girl, or at least a Southern one. I don't care if she likes grits or NASCAR or Tar Heel basketball, but she's got to be native to my part of the world. I'd prefer one who likes birds, and whom the birds like. And not too tall either--I don't want some 40-footer towering over me. And she has to love the sun, hot all day sun. If you know anyone like this, I'd appreciate it if you'd give me her name and tell me what you know about her.

In case you think I'm being too hard on poor Jane, let me show you a picture of what I'm talking about. And don't even let her try to blame me. I've been in relationships with others...who aren't named Jane...and everything was fine. In fact, I still see one of them every day and she will tell you how well I treat her. The problem lies wholly with Jane.

See what I mean?

Now, I've had my eye on this cute little Serviceberry...anything I should know about her???

Happy Mother's Day to the Hellebore Queen

2008-05-11T19:56:00.005-04:00

I inherited my love of plants from my mother, the Hellebore Queen. She often took me plant-shopping with her at Mr. Miles' nursery, a wonderfully shabby labyrinth of clear-plastic greenhouses and planting beds behind a modest house on the other side of town. I would like to say that I was a plant prodigy, that at age five I knew the best cultivars for our Zone 8 climate, and that I frequently stopped on my tricycle to advise gardeners on proper pruning technique.

I'd like to say that, but it's not true. I probably knew the names of more plants than your average kindergartener, but mainly what I knew was that I loved being surrounded by plants. I loved the woods and swamp behind our house and am grateful to my mother for letting me wander alone out there for hours, requiring only that I be home for supper. I loved the enormous magnolia in our front yard, the top of which afforded me a view of our neighborhood available to no one else. I loved the azaleas that attracted bees, the crabapple tree which provided my brother and me a fine supply of grenades to hurl at each other, the Wandering Jew and ivy vines which developed roots like magic if you put them in water for a few days.

My mother bought me my first plant from Mr. Miles. I remember that it was an evergreen, I think some variety of Euonymus, which I planted beside the garage where it thrived under, or maybe in spite of, my watchful care. She bought me tiny cacti from Edward's department store, which I kept in my room, as well as an asparagus fern which I believed needed to be talked to in order to grow. (I spoke to it regularly and it did quite well, so who's to say?)

When I was in college and scavenging furniture for my first apartment, she provided me with a variegated philodendron in a straw basket. (I think maybe she didn't really like it but felt badly about throwing out a perfectly healthy plant.) In any case, the philodendron went to my apartment, followed me to two more apartments in Chapel Hill, a bachelor pad in Greensboro, Teresa's and my first house, then to Edenton, and back to Greensboro, where it trails off the bookcase over my right shoulder. It has lost its variegation over these last twenty years, and it often doesn't get watered for months at a time, and I'm not fond of houseplants, but of course I can't get rid of it now.

If you really want to see my mother's influence on my garden, come to my house. The hellebores in the front bed...from her. The beardtongue in the Charleston garden, the lantana that tempts the butterflies and hummingbirds, the forsythia that welcomes spring in an explosion of yellow, the deciduous azalea, the bearded irises, the Stella d'Oro, the hyacinths, the beebalm, the yarrow...I've never counted, but I'll bet more than half of my plants came from her. (To see the number of plants she's given me, you would think her yard is bare now. You would be wrong.)

More valuable than all the plants, however, she has given me a love of dirt and the things that grow in it, two gifts that I can take with me anywhere and which always keep me close to the Source of all life.

Thank you, Mama, and Happy Mother's Day!

New Blooms and a New Path

2008-04-27T21:12:00.006-04:00

My favorite iris opened this morning...

and remember that Baptisia that I moved last year, in willful violation of all the Garden Rules???
It bloomed yesterday.

I picked up some more stepping stones and made a path through the butterfly garden. I need to be careful, though, about publicizing all these projects. Barbara at Wild Birds Unlimited is beginning to wonder how I can accomplish so much in my garden and so little at work. My wife has expressed similar amazement.

First Hummingbird!

2008-04-27T21:11:00.001-04:00

You have to get up pretty early to see a newly arrived migratory bird before Iris spots it at Greensboro Birds. She's keeping a running calendar of when she sees the first and last migratory species this year. (I thought I had her on the first Catbird of the year, which arrived in my garden on Friday, but naturally, Iris saw one Thursday.)

Well, I didn't get up early this morning but Teresa did, and she was rewarded with a glimpse of the first hummingbird of 2008! (We just put the feeder up yesterday.) I saw the little creature this afternoon, so I can vouch that she wasn't making it up.

(And I'm still seeing white-throated sparrows. Doesn't it seem a bit late for them to be hanging around?)

Product Review: Timberwolf Composite Edging

2008-04-27T19:34:00.009-04:00

Which is the most baldfaced lie?

A) I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

B) Iraq is producing weapons of mass destruction

C) Easy to install!

I bought some edging materials today for Teresa's Charleston Garden, and unpacked it with no small amount of trepidation, for emblazoned on the box were those three words: Easy To Install.

The box also said that the edging strips were made in the United States from 100% post-consumer recycled materials, so I patted myself on the back for finding a reasonably green product and one not from China, but still, there was the installation looming at the periphery of my consciousness.

The product itself is a 16-foot strip of composite material that looks more or less like wood, but is flexible. It comes rolled up, so you have to stretch it out and let it "relax," according to the instructions. So I let the strips sun themselves on the deck while I dug a trench along the edge of the flowerbed and pressed the stakes as far down in the dirt as they would go. (Sorry that I don't have photos...it was raining, which is always good if you need to hammer something in red NC clay.)

Once the strips were sufficiently rested, I slid them into the slots at the top of the stakes, attached the little pounding block that came in the package, and drove them into the dirt with my rubber mallet.

I consulted the instructions again for the next step. There was no next step. That was it. No attaching Flange A to Base 49.6 with the Blue 1/2" pin. It took maybe ten minutes. In the rain. And it looks damn good if I do say so myself.

(Editor's Note: LMAID received no compensation from Fibertech Polymers for this glowing, erudite, and witty product review...But if you guys at Fibertech want to send me several hundred more linear feet of edging for the rest of my garden, I'll make sure that box appears in every photo for the next 6 months. )

Rose Breasted Grosbeak

2008-04-26T21:03:00.003-04:00

Grosbeaks are rare visitors to my garden. This is only the third time I've seen one!
They spend the winter in Central and South America and the Caribbean, and summer up north. They are usually seen in Greensboro during their migration, although their summer range does extend into the NC mountains.

The photo below is for Iris at Greensboro Birds, who always likes to see different species hanging out together.

Straw Bale Gardening

2008-04-25T20:56:00.004-04:00

Last winter Teresa asked me if I had ever heard of growing vegetables in straw bales.

"In what?"

"Straw bales. You know, wheat straw. The stuff people put over their lawns after they plant grass seed. You buy it out the back of a big truck..."

"I know what wheat straw is. But how are you going to grow vegetables in it? Last time I checked, plants needed dirt to grow. They've got these things called roots, and they're sort of important."

"Here, read this." She handed me a sheaf of printouts from various websites.

"Well. I stand corrected. If it's on the Internet, it must be true."

"Look. You buy the bales in winter and let them sit out for several months. They start to break down and get all soft, then you make a hole in the bale, put in some dirt, and plant your vegetables."

"I don't know, Teresa. It sounds sorta gimmicky to me."

"It might work. It's sort of like planting stuff in your compost pile. Remember that pumpkin that came up last year?"

"I remember the pumpkin."

"I want to try it."

I was gratified that for once, Teresa wanted to begin a project that did not require any tool more complicated than a trowel, so I was more than happy to get the straw bales. They sat behind the butterfly garden all spring, soaking up rain (yes, it's actually rained!) and getting nice and soft. The other day I plunged my hand into the center of a bale and found that the consistency was similar to that of rich compost. I could maybe envision a plant growing here.

We went to the farmer's market last week and came home with squash, zucchini, beans, peas, and asparagus. (The asparagus went in the ground, since it's a perennial.) Yesterday, Teresa spaded some dirt into the bales and planted her crops. She said they would need to be watered more frequently than a regular vegetable garden--I volunteered to water in the mornings if that meant I didn't have to make up the bed. (The latter seems such a waste of time--I'm going to get right back in it at night...)

So we'll see what happens. Stay tuned...

Beuller, Beuller...Anyone???

2008-04-23T20:39:00.013-04:00

Remember the scene in Ferris Beuller's Day Off where the protagonist's bedroom is filled with flowers and balloons from well-wishers all over Chicago? That's sort of how Andy's garden is beginning to look, with gifts of white flowers. My mother, the Hellebore Queen, gave us a white Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis "Alba"), and her friend Judy sent some white creeping phlox. (The roses that we incorporated into Andy's garden also came from Judy.) Fellow NC blogger Carla sent a thoughtful card, with a packet of Thunbergia seeds inside.

Elsewhere, work continues on the big center island bed. I dig up big chunks of sod, cart them over to the back border where I lay them upside down, then cover the whole affair with sheets of wet cardboard...

and cover that with grass clippings, mulched leaves, and old wheat straw from where Andy used to sleep under the deck. It is pretty labor intensive, and it's not the way to create a bed in a hurry, but I tried this on a smaller scale last year and was amazed at what it did for the soil. I don't plan (read "don't have the money to buy") anything for this back border right now, so I can afford to invest the time for nature do the real work.

Like I said, there are quicker ways to prepare a flowerbed but as Ferris observed:

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around, you might miss it."

Magnolia Problems

2008-04-22T18:22:00.008-04:00

Any imbecile, it seems, can grow a Jane Magnolia. Among the adjectives used to describe it on various websites are: "hardy," "disease-resistant," "foolproof," "can't-miss." One site even listed it as an ideal plant for the horticulturally challenged, along with Daylilies and English Ivy.

I know all of this because I've been searching for an explanation as to why my Jane Magnolia died.

I bought three of them back in February and planted them in the same general area. The one that died, I planted on Feb 9, the others a month later. We had several nights in the 20s in February and March, but I can't imagine that would have killed the tree. Buds, yes, but not the tree.

Whatever it was seemed to be some kind of rot, and it seemed to die from the top down. The stems turned dark and when I scraped the bark with my fingernail, it felt like mush. It leafed out, but within days, each new leaf had died. (A second tree seems to have a little of this at the stem tip, but so far is doing okay.)

I keep all my plant receipts for just this reason, so I dug up the tree and took it back to Lowes, where I got a refund with no problem. Their few remaining Janes didn't look too good, but I found another, unlabeled Magnolia soulangiana, which seems identical to one I planted three years ago and which has given me no trouble.

(I saved the tag from that one, but it is most unhelpful, as it neglects to mention the cultivar. This one has darker leaves than Jane, and its blooms are a darker purple. Both bloom about the same time. Any Magnolia experts out there care to hazard a guess? Jane is on the left, the new one is on the right.)

Animals and the Afterlife

2008-04-20T15:38:00.005-04:00

Coincidentally (or perhaps not?) our minister's sermon this morning was on animals and the afterlife. (Planned well before Andy's death, in case you're wondering.) You can click here to read the sermon in its entirety, and I recommend it to you even if you are the kind of person who wouldn't be caught dead reading a sermon on the Internet.

I do want to share with you this story from Michael's sermon...

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead. He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them. After a while, they came to a high, white stonewall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.

When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side. When he was close enough, he called out, "Excuse me, where are we?”

"This is Heaven, sir," the man answered.

"Wow! Would you happen to have some water?" the man asked.

"Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up." The man gestured, and the gate began to open.

"Can my friend," gesturing toward his dog, "come in, too?" the traveler asked.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets." The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.

After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book. "Excuse me!" he called to the man. "Do you have any water?"

"Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there, come on in."

"How about my friend here?" the traveler gestured to the dog.

"There should be a bowl by the pump.” They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog.

When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree. "What do you call this place?" the traveler asked.

"This is Heaven," he answered.

"Well, that's confusing," the traveler said. "The man down the road said that was Heaven, too."

"Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's the other place."

"Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?"

"No, we're just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind."

Andy's Garden

2008-04-12T22:24:00.007-04:00

Somehow, a simple trip to the garden center for white flowers turned into the re-creation of an entire garden. Teresa and I went out this morning to get some candytuft to plant around Andy's grave. After much discussion about where to place the candytuft, we decided that it would be nice as an edging along the path. Except there wasn't any path.

Teresa found a few stepping stones she had made years ago, but we needed more, so out we went, searching for round stepping stones. After several fruitless ventures, we found ourselves at a local hardware store, the farthest thing from a big box retailer you can find. They had the perfect stones, priced very reasonably, on a display in front of the store.

We paid the man at the counter, who directed us to "drive around to the yard" and someone would help us. Indeed, a small boy who could not have been more than seven, dressed in sturdy work pants, a brown jacket, and a baseball cap, pulled up in a golf cart and asked, "What can I help you with sir?"

"I'd like to pick up some stepping stones."

He took my receipt and studied it with a businesslike air. "What color stones do you need?"

"Uh, gray, please." The whole scene felt rather surreal, as though I were being waited on by Oliver Twist, except that the lad was clearly enjoying his position, whatever it was. I could imagine him chuckling as his classmates are being herded off to closely supervised play dates, tubes of hand sanitizer bulging in their pockets, while he gets to drive a golf cart around the stone yard and chat up the cute second grade girls out shopping with their parents. Dude!

He handed me back the receipt. "Wait right here, please, and I'll go get the bossman." He parked his conveyance, hopped out, and strode purposefully over to said bossman and engaged him in conversation.

"He'll be right with you," the boy said, and sped away on his cart to his next errand. For all I know the kid was off to a meeting with a fertilizer supplier to negotiate a discount on his next shipment. He was a real pro.

We got the stones and began working on what we were already calling "Andy's Garden." I planted the Gypsophila and moved the white irises and azaleas that were blooming, seemingly in Andy's honor, to his grave, and divided some Shasta Daisies that were growing nearby. I then edged the bed with variegated liriope while Teresa placed the stones, moved the roses, and pulled up all the weeds. I found some more chunks of quartz and placed them in a circle over Andy's resting place, and added the old stone that Teresa made years ago.

I think I'll plant some white Creeping Phlox inside the circle tomorrow, and add some white Coneflowers when I find some.

We were exhausted, as we've been all week, but this time, it was the good kind of tired.

A Gift

2008-04-11T20:30:00.008-04:00

Do I work for the nicest people in the world or what? Barbara left the store early Thursday, and I figured she was going to Target. (Not that she spends an excessive amount of money there or anything, but last year when she went on vacation, the Target on Lawndale Drive laid off a third of its employees...)

Anyway, when I got home from work, look what was sitting on my front steps:

It's a Gypsophila 'Snowflake' (Baby's Breath), a sun-loving perennial with white flowers to plant in memory of Andy. Thanks, Barbara--you're the best!

Funny thing--we've got fifty million irises in our garden, but only the white ones are blooming now. Around our neighborhood, red and pink azaleas are popping out everywhere, but at our house, only one is in bloom. The white one.

Earlier this evening, as night was falling, Teresa and I were sitting on the front steps, talking about Andy. Of course, we both kept thinking we heard the jangling of his collar, but we knew it was only our imaginations. Then the motion-sensor light at the driveway flipped on. I got up and walked over to see what might have set it off, but nothing was moving, and there was no wind. We laughed and said maybe it was a big white kitty. Our neighbor walked by with her dog on a leash. The dog stopped in front of our driveway and started barking at nothing that we could see.

I'm sure it was just a rabbit.

The Champ (1997-2008)

2008-04-09T20:39:00.008-04:00

Andy lived life on his own terms. He loved being a cat, and relished every minute of life in the yard. He filled his days with sleeping in the sun, stalking (and unfortunately, catching) songbirds, and rolling in the dirt. Nights he would prowl the neighborhood, starting fights with other cats. Some he won, some he lost, and it was his last fight that ultimately led to his demise. He went to his grave, however, insisting that the other cat had simply gotten lucky that night, and if given a rematch, he would kick the other cat's butt.

I spoke with two vets, both of whom suspect that Andy had some sort of cancer, lymphoma, maybe, that we didn't know about, and the stress of his injuries was just too much for his weakened system to overcome. The weeks have been a blur--Teresa and I have lost track of time and were astonished this afternoon, after burying Andy, to realize that it was only yesterday that we brought him home from the vet. It seems like three or four days. I cannot imagine how people deal with a human loved one whose death drags on for weeks and months. I am exhausted.

His last two days were not bad. His eyes remained bright and he seemed comfortable, though weak. He rested peacefully on the sofa this morning while we were at work. At lunchtime, when I came home, he struggled to his feet and found the strength to go outside, where he lay in the sun for a while, then made it over to his favorite sleeping spot behind the nandina bush.

I brought him in because I had to go to the dentist, and I could tell that the exertion had taken a lot out of him. I feared that he might pass away before I returned, but he was still alive when I got back.

He began to struggle, and for the first time seemed frightened and in pain. I had hoped he could die at home, but knew that he now needed some help, so I called our vet, who promised to have everything ready when we arrived.

I held him for his two injections, and he went very quickly. We buried him in the garden, along with his collar, food bowl, and one of my shirts that he loved to sleep on. We took some black South Carolina dirt from a pile where he delighted in rolling, and sprinkled it in the bottom of his grave. A chunk of white quartz marks his resting place, very near the spot where he used to crouch and watch the birds at the feeder. I will plant things with white blooms there, so that their color will always remind me of my friend.

Our vet gave us a wonderful book called Cat Heaven; my favorite illustration is this picture of God walking through his garden with a cat asleep on his head. The book in his hand is titled "Garden Tips."

I have no doubt that animals have souls, a part of God within them that lives on after death--I've never met an animal who did not seem to have some spark of the divine within him or her. (Unfortunately I can't say the same about every human I've met.) So, goodbye for now, Big Kitty. I want you to be waiting for me on the steps when I get there. And if you want to visit me in my dreams sometime, you are always welcome.(Bill Watterson drew this strip after his cat, Sprite, died.)

A Sad Day

2008-04-08T20:37:00.003-04:00

I haven't written in a while because I've been too sad. My cat, Andy, is dying. He got in a fight a few weeks ago, and although he is strong and brave, he hasn't been able to recover from complications to his immune system. He has been gradually declining over the last week; I took him back to the vet today, and she said that he has only a few days.

We brought him home to die in familiar surroundings. Please pray that he goes quickly and without pain. I'll write more when I feel like it.

Japanese Maple

2008-03-24T10:38:00.004-04:00

My Winter Garden has a new tree! This Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum "Pixie") was a gift from my mother.

I am becoming a fan of small trees. After living in a house surrounded by huge poplars and oaks, I've enjoyed being able to plant enormous beds of sun-loving plants in this yard. Every time I think about planting a big tree, I realize that eventually it's going to shade an area that I don't want shaded. (Of course, I'll be 90 by then...but anyway...)

It Landed Right There!

2008-03-23T21:33:00.009-04:00

It looks like one of those crop circles, where a UFO has landed in someone's cornfield, but it's just the outline of my new perennial bed. For months I had the hose lying out in the middle of the yard in roughly the shape I wanted, but every few days I'd change my mind and try something else. So after I got the outline dug, Teresa came home and said, "I didn't know we had decided on the shape of the bed. I was thinking about a circle."

Oops. Too late now.

In other news, the Yoshino Cherry opened its first blooms, the first buds appeared on the Japanese Magnolia, and the first Bearded Iris buds appeared this Saturday (3/22)

The Color Purple

2008-03-19T15:54:00.014-04:00

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it."

--Shug, in The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Not wishing to annoy God more than necessary, I made sure to notice all the purple in my garden...even the weeds.

Yellow!

2008-03-16T10:04:00.008-04:00

March's color is yellow. Forsythia blooms in March announce that winter is almost over.

Yellow daffodils brighten the woodland garden.

Every spring, when the daffodils emerge, I think how fine it would be to buy thousands of daffodil bulbs and plant them everywhere, so that in March the entire yard would look like the student section at a Georgia Tech football game.

Clean-Up Day

2008-03-02T19:55:00.004-05:00

Saturday morning found me driving south on Highway 220, bound for South Carolina and a day of work at my grandparents' house. The first project was to help my dad repair the pump on the swimming pool. I use the term "help" in its loosest sense--I handed him tools and washed the gunk off the filters while he did the actual repairs. (People familiar with my own mechanical incompetence are astounded to learn that my father is quite handy when it comes to fixing things, and Teresa has wondered more than once how I managed to live with my dad for 18 years and not learn anything except how to catch fish and play centerfield.)

Once that was done (and I must say that those filters WERE exceptionally clean) my mother and I began cleaning out one of the two sheds on the property. My grandfather lived in that house for 20 years, and not only did he keep every bolt, every screw, every odd piece of metal that he
"might be able to use" during those two decades, it soon became apparent that many of the items in that shed had been moved from his previous shed. Need a left-side gimaflaggelator for a 1965 Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine? It's probably in that shed. Well, it's at the dump now, but it was in the shed, or at least something similar that my grandfather could use to make that engine work again.

And then there are the chemicals. My grandfather did not exactly come of age in the era of organic gardening. In his world, the 1950s, 60s and 70s, there was a noxious chemical to meet every gardening need, and he had six cases of each one of them. The EPA would have a fit if they knew what was in there. I saved all that for another day--preferably a day after I acquire a biohazard suit.

After our last trip to the dump and a reprimand from the presiding attendant about not putting metal in the "brown goods" bin...I got my shovel and dug up as many Spring Snowflakes and daylilies as I could fit in my car, then headed back to North Carolina.

February Garden Tour

2008-02-23T17:53:00.017-05:00

In the NC Piedmont, spring begins in February. It's still cold more often than not, and snow is not uncommon, even into March, but the worst of winter seems to be gone when the calendar turns to the second month. Afternoons are longer now; it is still light when I arrive home from work, and the pleasant temperatures invite a walk around the garden before supper.

In the front bed, the hellebores are heavy with white, pink, and purple blooms, and the daffodils, like golden butterflies in their cocoons, are counting the days until they receive the word to spread their yellow wings. At their feet, the Stella d'Oro are just emerging, like the green lances of tiny soldiers digging their way out of an underground cell.

Beside the front steps, they hyacinths are up. I moved them last fall from the other side of the walk, and was certain that there were only three, but now I count five. Perhaps I missed two when I dug them up, but I suspect that the garden gnomes have been at work.

Beneath the cherry tree is a Winter Daphne that my mother, the Hellebore Queen, bought for me last fall. She warned me that Daphnes are quite particular about their soil; they do not like the red Carolina clay, and are prone to die suddenly for no reason. Their fragrance in February is so lovely, however, that I felt it worth the risk. My neighbor, Amanda, has one that is thriving, and so perhaps there is just a bit of competition involved as well.

In the backyard, the first yellow blooms of Forsythia appear on brown stalks. I debate whether or not to cut one and take it inside to open in the warm house or leave it alone and enjoy it from the kitchen window. I decide to leave it alone for now.

The backyard garden is a project-in-progress. Numerous plants in black plastic pots sit around the yard waiting to be planted: three Jane Magnolias to go around the swing, a Japanese Maple for the Winter Garden, three Endless Summer hydrangeas for the Birdbath Garden, two Summer Snowflake Viburnums to attract birds to the Back Border, and a white Camellia that does not yet have a home.

Looking at these new plants, I remember a vow I made last summer not to acquire anything else that needs water until and unless our drought situation improves. I don't normally think of myself as having an addictive personality; I dislike both alcohol and tobacco, and I have better things to do than play computer games, but there is always a justification for one more plant. I would say that at least this particular addiction keeps me off the streets, but that is not literally true, seeing as how I frequently prowl the streets of my neighborhood in search of bags of leaves and grass clippings to use as mulch.

In the middle of the yard, a garden hose is stretched out in roughly the shape of a Y, outlining the borders of a future flowerbed, where Teresa's fountain will go. The hose has lain there for months, and every so often I notice that the shape does not seem quite optimal, and so I go out and move the hose into a slightly different configuration. At some point I will need to decide on a shape and start digging; I am going to need that hose in the very near future.

My eye traces the outlines of my new curvy beds that I made last fall, and I imagine what they will look like in May when everything is green and blooming. These beds are the first large-scale gardening project I have undertaken, and I am exceedingly pleased with the design. The green ocean of grass has been reduced to a stream, snaking around the S-curves of the beds, drawing the eye on a meandering path toward the back of the garden where the Jane Magnolias will one day form a stunning mass of pink blossoms.

"The works of a person that builds, begin immediately to decay; while those of him who plants begin directly to improve."

---William Shenstone
"Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening (1764)

Daffodils in Snow

2008-02-14T08:55:00.003-05:00

Last night's snowfall brought two inches , the most we've seen in four years.

Snowy Surprise

2008-02-13T21:48:00.004-05:00

The best snowfalls are the unexpected ones. When I got in my car to drive home tonight, it was raining. By the time I turned into my neighborhood, the raindrops had become snowflakes.

The snow has been falling for over an hour now, and my garden is cloaked in white.

Hellebores

2008-02-09T21:41:00.000-05:00

Hellebores are one of the mainstays of my shade garden; in addition to being extremely easy to grow and tolerant of neglect, they bloom in January and February when not much else is going on in the garden. The white hellebores are usually the first to open in January...

Followed closely by the rose-pink varieties.

The purple ones open in early February

And I'm still waiting for the "almost-black" hellebore, which always seems to be the last to bloom.

Super Bulb Sunday

2008-02-03T21:16:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went to SC to visit my grandparents. They have moved to a retirement center, and will be selling their house as soon as it is "ready" (that's a post for another day). My grandfather loves plants too, so he has millions of flowers in his yard, and so every time I go, I always dig up a few plants to bring home.

Okay, more than a few. This time I came home with about 100-150 daffodils. It almost feels like cheating, digging up daffodils in spring, just a few weeks before they bloom, and moving them to my yard.

I also got some daylilies, and several large clumps of liriope. Teresa wanted me to put the liriope around the front bed, and dig up the variegated liriope that is already there. She doesn't like the variegated kind in that spot because it gets sunburned. So now I have a cartload of variegated liriope that I don't know what to do with.

Press Coverage

2008-01-31T22:58:00.000-05:00

If you live in NC, see if you can get your hands on a copy of the February issue of Carolina Country magazine, 'cause my blog is in it!

Carla, who blogs at My Back Yard, writes a garden column for the magazine, and she contacted me recently to ask about garden blogging for her column. I was quite flattered, of course, and she was kind enough to send me several copies of the magazine. I'm sure I'll be hounded by autograph seekers all weekend!

Check out Carla's recent post about her great-aunt "Aunt Dodo," who used to garden in the red clay of Greensboro.

Winter

2008-01-25T22:10:00.000-05:00

Back during the summer, when temperatures were running 20 degrees above normal for, like 6 months, I began looking ahead to a warm winter. I checked the average temperatures for January and calculated that while there might be an occasional evening when I'd want a light jacket to ward off the chill, I'd pretty much spend the winter in shirtsleeves, planting bananas, mangoes, and palms in my garden.

This has not happened. I think we've had about 7 nights below 20, including last Monday when it was 14. I walked outside the other day and the ground was frozen! I felt like I was living in Siberia or Indiana or somewhere like that. It snowed twice last week--only an inch both times--but the snow was pretty on the nandina berries.

I spent the snowy and frigid weekend painting our bedroom and replacing all the electrical outlets. That's the one home repair that I actually know how to do, and it sounds impressive, at least to the three people in the world who know less about fixing stuff than me. All you have to do is turn off the power before you start, and remember that the black wire is the hot wire...or is it the white one?

Hey Teresa, would you plug something into that outlet for me and see if it works?

The Master Negotiator

2008-01-24T20:02:00.000-05:00

Here's a conversation I had with Barbara, the owner of Wild Birds Unlimited where I "work" once a week.

"Hey Barbara, did you know you have a genius working for you?"

"Well, I knew Diane and Sandra were pretty smart, but which one are you talking about?"

"Very funny. I need to tell you about my most recent idea."

"I'm not buying a carbon offset from you, if that's what you want."

"No, no. you don't need to buy anything." Barbara looked dubious. "See, I've been wanting to make a new flowerbed in my backyard, but I have to get permission from Teresa first. She has this thing about not wanting to come home and find the entire yard dug up."

"Imagine that."

"I know, she's weird that way. Anyway, I was outside this afternoon moving the hose around, trying to figure out just the right configuration for my flowerbed, and..."

"Is that why you were late for work?"

"As I was saying before you interrupted, I finally got it right, but there was a problem. It was too big."

"You mean you haven't found enough suckers to buy plants for you?"

"Well, that too, but what I meant was, the bed takes up half the yard. There was no way Teresa was going to approve that. So guess what I did."

"Do I want to know?"

"Yes, because it involves you."

"Oh, Good Lord."

"Please, just call me David. Now I need to give you some background here. Teresa has been wanting a fountain in the garden for a long time, but we haven't really had the money, so she has kind of given up on it for now. So what I did was to walk out in the middle of the bed and say, 'I think we need a centerpiece of some kind here...but I don't know what.' After pausing for dramatic effect, I snapped my fingers. 'I've got it! That fountain Barbara has at the store!"

"What did she say?"

"Well, let's just say that I'm getting a BIG new flowerbed, and you're going to be selling a fountain soon."

"I'm speechless. I'm so accustomed to your schemes costing me money that I don't know what to say."

"How about, 'You've worked so hard lately, you deserve a raise'?"

"I didn't realize you wrote comedy too."

A Not-Completely Crappy Day

2008-01-12T20:14:00.000-05:00

I was having a really crappy day today. I spent the morning crawling around under the house trying to find the source of a water leak...and found a second leak. I hate it when things break on the house, because I can't fix a damn thing. Even if by some miracle I can fix it, the job ends up taking me three times as long as it should because I don't know what I'm doing.

Well, in the middle of all this, my phone rang.

Remember my post back in November, the 8 Random Things About Me? Remember that photo of me and another guy at the Carolina game with our faces painted blue and white? Well, the other guy, whose name is also David, was one of my best friends in college, but as often happens, we lost touch after graduation and hadn't seen or heard from each other in almost twenty years. Until today. He made a New Year's Resolution to get back in touch with all of our old friends from college. Now how cool is that?

Then, while I was at the hardware store, the Hellebore Queen called me to say that a nursery near Raleigh had their Japanese Maples marked down from $100-$150 to only $50, and that she would get me one if I wanted it. (I hope they still have them, now that I've gotten my hopes up.)

When I got home, I actually accomplished something by successfully replacing our old shower heads with water-saving models (1.8 gallons a minute, the box says) so I can help save a little of our dwindling water supply. (The leaks, by the way, seem to be oversplash from the tub and overflow from the washer drain, so at least it's not water being wasted...it's rotting the wood and growing mold, but not wasting water.)

And finally, my Tar Heels beat NC State. Turned out to not be a completely crappy day.

Become a Day Sponsor at LMAID

2008-01-07T19:00:00.001-05:00

So I've been thinking about my scheme to get free plants for my garden...I mean, my program for reducing greenhouse gases. Pretty soon, tons of money will be pouring into my coffers. Mind you, nothing has poured in yet...except for a dime I found on the floor and Teresa said I could have it...but surely it is just a matter of time.

Being the proactive, forward-thinking person that I am, I have identified one possible flaw in my plan: I might not have time to plant all my new shrubs.

But I am nothing if not a problem-solver, and so, incredible as it may seem to people less gifted, I have already crafted a solution before the problem has even reared its head.

I will figure out how much money I earn per day at work and sell a special credit for that amount. You can be a "day sponsor" like they have on NPR. And what do you get for sponsoring a day? Here's the good part:

If you will send me the equivalent of a day's pay, I promise not to go to work that day but instead stay home and plant things in my garden...dang it, I mean in the "LMAID Climate Change Initiative Project Site." Not only will your sponsorship make it possible for me to get those plants in the ground, it will also keep me from burning gasoline to go to work, thereby further reducing both oil consumption and pollution. And I'll put your name on a sticker and wear it on my hat so when I'm doing interviews, the world will know that you are the one making it possible for me to skip work and play in my gar...Project Site.

Teresa said she wouldn't be holding her breath waiting for contributions. (I don't know what that has to do with anything. The mail doesn't come until noon--I didn't expect her to hold her breath for 17 hours. She says very strange things sometimes.)

Save the Planet and Improve My Garden

2008-01-03T21:47:00.000-05:00

I heard a story on the radio today about these things called "carbon offsets." The way it works is, you figure out how much carbon dioxide you are responsible for spewing into the atmosphere and buy an "offset" from a carbon broker who assures you that your money goes toward some project that will reduce greenhouse gases by that amount.

One of the projects is planting trees.

Why didn't I think of this before? Like an idiot, I've been working three jobs to earn money for plants (plus incidentals like food and mortgage payments) when I could be charging money for the privilege of buying shrubs for my garden...er...the "project site.". (I don't really need any more trees, but I'm pretty sure that Viburnums and Beautyberries absorb carbon dioxide too.)

Now, how do I set up a Paypal account?

House and Garden History

2007-12-31T22:23:00.000-05:00

I learned a little about my house's history tonight. We attended a New Year's party hosted by the people who lived in our house from 1976-1978. I had met them before, but this was my first opportunity to talk with them at length about the house.

Martha, the hostess, is the person who planted these two dogwoods near the front door. They came from her mother's house in one of Greensboro's older neighborhoods. Martha was sure she had planted one of them too close to the house, but now, thirty years later, it forms a nice canopy over the walkway and the two trees create a perfect spot for my shade garden.
Martha and her husband Charlie were also able to solve the puzzle of this seam to the left of the back door. Obviously some changes were made to the door frame--it turns out that originally there was a pair of windows here. They replaced the windows with a sliding glass door when they lived here...and in 2005, we replaced that door with these French doors.

Martha enjoys wallpapering (she seemed very normal otherwise) and took responsibility for the green 1970s wallpaper in several of the closets. "It has to be mine," she said, "Nobody else wallpapers closets."

She did an excellent job putting it up, as I discovered when I stripped it from two of the closets. I might leave this closet alone. And I prefer the term "Historic Preservation" to "Laziness."

Rainy Sunday

2007-12-30T22:09:00.000-05:00

It rained all day today, a good soaking rain. The last two weeks have been kind to us, for we have seen about 3.5" of rain over that period, usually coming about a half inch at a time. Today we received about 1.25".

I'm really glad to see it because I said last summer that I wasn't planting a single new plant this fall, as I had my hands full watering what I already had. As it happened, I did plant just a few new things: (In my defense, several of these were given to me and it would have been bad manners not to accept them.)

3 Wax Myrtles
4 Barberries
15 Coneflowers
6 Viburnums
3 Chokecherries
3 Wiegela
2 Foamflowers
1 Daphne
2 Fothergilla
4 Roses
1 Holly
1 Hydrangea
2 Butterfly Bushes
9 Sweet Autumn Clematis
3 Balloon Flowers
2 Pincushion Flowers
1 Crape Myrtle

Christine suggested in a recent comment that perhaps buying more plants might subdue the urge to dig things up and move them around. I'm afraid not. After buying all of the above, I moved:

2 Forsythia
2 Hydrangeas
1 Koreanspice Viburnum
1 Arborvitae
1 Camellia
1 David Viburnum
1 Quince
2 Japanese Hollies
2 Tea Olives
1 Gardenia
2 Lantana
6-8 Spirea
1 Mock Orange
1 Wax Myrtle (yes, one of the new ones)
Hundreds of Daylilies
Dozens of Irises, Asters, and Coreopsis
Several Salvias and Liriope
1 Agastache

And mind you, this is just since September.
And it doesn't include Teresa's Charleston Garden, which is her responsibility.
And I've probably forgotten something.

You know, I didn't realize until I typed this exactly how much digging I did this year. You would think I didn't have a life...(That's my wife you hear in the background, mumbling something about shoes fitting.)

Anyway, I hope it rains all winter and spring so all these plants can establish good, healthy roots!

Can't Leave Well Enough Alone

2007-12-29T17:24:00.000-05:00

...the more a man loves his garden, the more he delights in constantly changing the arrangements...though I have many trees, shrubs, and other plants that have been in their present places for many years, there is not a single path or flower-bed that is the same now as it was thirty or even twenty years ago...

Canon Henry Ellacombe
In a Gloucestershire Garden (1896)

Twenty or thirty years? I've lived here for not quite three years and only a handful of my plants are still where I initially planted them. Doubtless this is a symptom of yet one more personality disorder under which I suffer, but it seems against my nature to plant something and leave it there.

I'm not talking about moving a sun-loving plant because a tree has grown so tall that the plant in question is now in full shade. I will buy a plant, set the pot in the space where I think it should go, and then leave it there for a few days to be sure I like the location before I actually dig the hole.

Then, two weeks later, it becomes clear that the placement of the plant is most unsatisfactory, and it must be moved without delay.

This fall, I started a Winter Garden, consisting of numerous evergreens, including three Wax Myrtles planted near the back of the bed. A month later, I bought a Nellie Stevens holly and found to my dismay that one of the Wax Myrtles was growing precisely where the holly needed to be, so there was nothing to do but dig it up and move it.

Some of my plants are living in their fourth location in three years. I just know they hate to see me carrying a shovel in their direction.

I resolve not to move another thing this year. This year being 2007, of course.

Candlelight Vigils Commemorate Blog Anniversary

2007-12-24T22:53:00.000-05:00

Garden blog fans in Greensboro light candles to celebrate the first anniversary of Leave Me Alone, I'm Digging.

Ok. Not really. But I wanted to use this photo of Christmas Eve at my church, and today is the first anniversary of my blog.

The blog began as a simple solution to a problem. I like to jam lots of plants into my flower beds, and I do a lot of planting in fall and winter when many of my perennials are dormant, and so I was always digging them up accidentally. I figured that a blog would be a handy way to keep my garden photos, along with notes to myself like, "Don't plant anything in the left corner, you idiot, 'cause that's where the hostas are."

Having a designated place to write about my garden motivated me to start noticing things, and to keep an eye out for things to write about. I found that my garden was much more than a simple suburban backyard; it was the scene of a vicious (and still unsolved) murder, and the habitat of gnomes. The blog became a combination tabloid, scientific journal, and a place to confess my own crimes and misdeeds. I complained about the drought a lot, documented the childhood and adolescence of a baby bluebird (if I could raise a child and get him out of the house in three weeks, maybe I'd be more keen on having one), and wrote a poem. I diagnosed my mental illness (one of them anyway), and gleaned some wisdom about plants from my redneck alter-ego, Bobby Earl.

What's really been fun, though, is "meeting" so many people who are warped in the same way I am. People who steal leaves from their neighbors' curbs, who plant stuff in freezing rain, who collect hoes, who camp out by the window waiting for that bird to come around from the other side of the tree, who know the words to all the good cry-in-your beer songs, who can't sleep if they accidentally kill a rabbit, who have plant tags stashed everywhere, who dream of replacing their entire lawn with flowerbeds (and the people who actually do it), who think there's something sick about the "Grow to the size of your fishtank" ethos that defines American culture, and people who buy the last scrawny plant on the sale table because they worry that no one else will take it home if they don't. People like you.

Thank you for reading my blog. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Now, if I could just remember where I planted those hostas...

Hawk

2007-12-22T18:59:00.000-05:00

This hawk was perched in a tree watching me work in the garden this afternoon. He was huge! Of course, I didn't have my camera, so I yanked off my muddy boots, ran in the house, crept back out so as not to disturb him, and just as I was putting the long lens on my camera, he glided off across the street into the neighbor's yard.

I don't like to just walk in peoples' backyards without permission, but my neighbors are nice, and I figured this was a special case, so I tracked the hawk over to where he was perched on a wire. He tolerated having his picture taken for a few moments...

Then soared away.

I'm not good at identifying raptors. I'm guessing this might be a juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk, based on his size and the dark wing tips. If you know a lot about hawks, please let me know what this beautiful creature is.

How Plant Tags Get Made

2007-12-21T20:22:00.000-05:00

Before I started this job, I assumed that printing plant tags was like printing wedding invitations: the bride...I mean...the grower...writes what he wants the tag to say, encloses a photo, selects the style of tag, and it goes to the printer. The printer arranges stuff on the printing press, pushes a button, and it makes a lot of noise, and the finished tags come out the other side.

It's a bit more complicated than that.

I've only been there for a week, so I haven't gotten the entire process down yet, but here is how it seems to me. Let's stick with the wedding invitation analogy. You are getting married and need invitations. I'm the printer. You tell me that you need an invitation for a wedding, so I help you select the paper and the color, etc. Once those decisions are made, I need to know what to print, but, strange as it may seem, you don't have that information.

In order to get the text for your wedding invitation, I email a spreadsheet to the minister, who fills in the location and the time of the ceremony and sends it back to me.

I do the same for the caterer in order to get the information about the reception. The caterer gives me the name of a banquet facility on West Market Street, and while that name does not exactly match any of the banquet facilities on that street, it is similar to two different facilities. Neither the caterer nor the bride know the exact name of the place, so we at the office put our heads together and figure out where, in fact, you are having your reception.

You would like a photo of you and your fiance to appear on the invitation. (I know people don't do this, but stay with me.) You want a photo. But you don't have one to give me. So I search Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, your garden blog, the websites of your church, your college sorority, your employer, and the terrorist watch list in hopes of finding a photograph of you and your sweetie. If I can't find one, I get in my car, go to the restaurant where the two of you are having dinner, and take one.

Once I have collected all the information and photos, I send you a sample invitation to check and make corrections. I don't hear from you for many weeks. Maybe you are in Cancun, maybe you are in Intensive Care, maybe you have looked at the invitation and maybe you haven't, but one thing you have not done is email me to say "yes" or "no."

Until six weeks before the wedding.

I receive an electronic missive from you, filled with cryptic notations like, "Reception location incorrect. Shld say Emp. Ballroom." What is "Emp."? Empire Ballroom? Emperor Ballroom? Empty Ballroom? Who knows? I call you to find out.

You are in Cancun.

Oh, and the wedding has been moved up a week, so you need those invitations by Monday.

I Thought You Earned Money at Work

2007-12-19T21:53:00.000-05:00

I have a feeling that this new job at the plant label company is going to end up costing me money. Today I was typing in the plant descriptions for a batch of tags and kept finding plants that I needed. I did not know I needed them until that moment, but suddenly these plants are indispensable.

Take Pieris japonica 'Cavatine.' I always think of Pieris as a shade plant, so when I read on the tag that it can take part shade to full sun, my first thought is, "Is this a typo?" So I check two or three trusted resources, and sure enough, they all say that 'Cavatine' will do fine in sun.

Well. My yard is full of sun, so even though I love Pieris, I haven't given it a moment's thought in years. Now I find one that likes sun, and I'll just have to have it, and you know how that goes.

The only question now is, will I earn enough at this job to offset the new plant purchases that it will instigate?

I've only been there two days and I've already started a tab. The owner sent me over to a garden center to investigate a couple of plants, and there was a Nellie Stevens Holly on the half-price table, and, well, one thing led to another and now I have one more plant to put in the ground. Sheesh!

My Fun New Job

2007-12-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I interviewed for a job with a company that makes plant tags--you know, like the 5,000 or so that you probably have stashed in a kitchen drawer or on a shelf somewhere, because "you might need them" for something. The ones that your significant other keeps threatening to throw away if they don't find a home. The ones that, one day, you are going to organize into a loose leaf notebook with all sorts of other useful information about that particular plant.

The job itself sounded interesting, but it involved quite a bit of overtime in the fall, which is their busy season, and for various reasons (like needing to expand my flower beds this fall) I didn't want to take a job that required such a huge time commitment right now, so I took my name out of consideration. I asked the owner of the company to keep me in mind if he needed some temporary help from time to time, and a couple of weeks ago, I got an email from him asking if I could do a little work for the next month or so.

To make a long story short, I am getting paid to look at photos of plants.

I'm serious.

There is actual work involved, of course, a lot of data entry and renaming computer files and such, but all day I get to look at plant pictures and read about plants. Today, we were looking for photos of a Cryptomeria "Black Dragon," and I mentioned that I had seen one just the other day.

"Would you mind going and getting a picture of it?" the boss asked.

Gee, leave work early to go take pictures of plants. If I tried that at most jobs, I'd be in trouble.

(Some employers who shall remain nameless might remark that they would hardly notice I was gone, but I'll let that slide since she and her husband treated all of the Wild Birds Unlimited employees to a delicious dinner tonight...)

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

2007-12-14T20:53:00.000-05:00

Verbena, Creeping Phlox, Pincushion Flowers, and Gerbera Daisies aren't what you expect to see blooming in mid-December, but here they are.
Temps this week have been near 80, but tomorrow it will be about 40 degrees cooler.

We have a saying in North Carolina..."If you don't like the weather, stick around for a few minutes. It'll change."

To see what is blooming in gardens (outdoor and indoor) around the world this month, visit May Dreams Gardens.

Time Zone Trivia

2007-12-13T20:10:00.000-05:00

I almost forgot that today is a very important holiday, until Lake Chicago Shores reminded me. In Greensboro, today marks the end of "Darkness Creep," that winter phenomenon in which it gets darker earlier and earlier every day. Yesterday's sunset occurred at 5:05; today's at 5:06.
It's a small difference, and you wouldn't notice it, but I like to know things like this.

I remember when I lived in Edenton, about 200 miles east of here, I noticed that it seemed to get dark really early that December. At first I thought it was my imagination until I checked an almanac and saw that, indeed, the earliest sunset there is at 4:52 pm. Now that's just wrong.

On the flip side, when I was in college, I worked at Camp Celo, in the NC mountains, where in late June, it didn't get completely dark until after 10 pm.

Time zones are cool. Just for fun, I looked up the sunset times for West Quoddy Head in Maine, and it looks like the earliest one there is at 3:47 pm. If you took an afternoon nap and woke up at 4:30, how would you know if it was morning or night?

Harsh Winter Weather

2007-12-11T19:49:00.000-05:00

I can just see Gina now, living it up in Chicago. She's probably curled up under a blanket, sipping cocoa and reading a garden book, pausing only occasionally to gaze out the window at the enchanting winter scene outside. The trees on her street are glazed with ice, reminiscent of a Currier and Ives Christmas Card, and everyone is in a jolly mood. And what adventure there is to be had, when she hears a loud crack, then a crash, and then the house is plunged into darkness! I assume this hasn't happened yet, since she is still posting to her blog, but I know she is waiting with anticipation to spend a few nights by candlelight in a cold house...

Meanwhile, back here in boring old North Carolina, it's another (yawn) day of balmy 80 degree sunshine. Do I get to hang out in the house eating bonbons and reading garden blogs? No! I have to do that at work, because when I get home, I have tasks waiting for me. There are leaves at the curb to be stolen, and I must be quick about it as the trees are nearly bare, and I hear the rumble of the leaf truck in the distance. I contemplate the expansion of yet a third border, and puzzle over the best placement of the five new roses I acquired from Judy the Rose Tamer. (There aren't many people who will send perfectly good roses to someone they don't know without expecting a credit card number, so that tells you what a quality human being she is.)

I have been remiss in participating in Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, and so I'm anxious to get some photos of the pincushion flowers and verbena that are still blooming, and the new pink blossoms on the creeping phlox (I am not making this up!). So, I pour a tall glass of lemonade to slake my thirst and bravely venture back out into the elements again. How in the world do people ever garden in a climate such as this!

Creating Borders the Lazy Way

2007-12-08T19:14:00.000-05:00

With my new border as finished as it is going to be until spring, I turned a critical eye today to the back border. Like the others, I created it a couple of years ago when I had no idea what I wanted to do there, and like the others, it turned out to be way too narrow.

I had mentioned this problem to the household management on numerous occasions before, and had secured permission to expand it to a width of about ten feet, and so I thought it best to get to work sooner rather than later. (This is sound advice anytime you have permission to do something that you want to do. Waiting is never to your advantage.)

I got the idea that, since I won't be planting anything there for at least a year, why not make the entire border into a giant compost pile, 60 feet long by 10 feet wide, and keep adding stuff to it over the next year? By the time I'm ready to plant, that soil ought to be so rich that I can just throw plants on top of it.

I put down some newspaper first, then covered it with sod dug up from the other border, and finally covered the whole thing with the leaves that I appropriated from my neighbors' curbs. Andy supervised the process.

See, if I were smart and patient, this is what I would have done from the beginning: mark out my beds and borders, pile compost on top of them, and let them sit for a year while I sat on the deck drinking tea and leafing through gardening books deciding what I wanted to plant and where.

In other news, remember those weigela that I rooted? I planted them today. Check out these roots! (This photo says more about the plant's adaptability than it does my skill at propagating.)

I saw a Baltimore Oriole at the feeder today. I was so surprised that for several minutes I couldn't think of the bird's name--all I could think was, "orange bird, orange bird." Orioles are uncommon in Greensboro, although I did have one visit the feeder last winter. Here's a photo from last year; it's not very good, but it just seems wrong to write about an oriole without posting a picture. Maybe I'll get a better one if he comes back!

New Fence, New Border

2007-12-01T21:59:00.000-05:00

No one really knows how old the fence was. One neighbor speculated that it might predate the previous owner, who bought the house in 1987. Whatever its history, the fence's best days were long behind it. For nearly two years I watched one section carefully, awaiting the day that it would crash down on my hydrangea, a day that came this past April. At that point we knew that something must be done. I inspected the rest of the fence, about 300 linear feet, and determined that about half of it was likely to fall down in the next big wind, while the other half was probably good for another several years.

I'm tight with a dollar (I steal dead leaves, for crying out loud) so the thought of replacing 150 feet of fence that was not in danger of imminent collapse seemed wasteful. On the other hand, how much longer would it be before the rest of it needed replacing? Plus, our old fence had only one gate, which was conveniently placed as far as possible from the crawl space/toolshed, which meant that if I wanted to work in the front yard, I had to either drag my implements all the way around, or toss them over the fence and hope no one was standing on the other side. (The neighbors have small children and I have a pitchfork, so there was the potential for an awkward situation...)

Aesthetics and convenience won out over money, and now we have a brand new fence that cost slightly less than an organ transplant, but does look fine.

For the last month or so, I've been expanding my border along the fence line. Just for fun, I dug out my photos from July 2005, before I planted anything, to compare with how it looks today. Check it out below.

Breaking Rules

2007-11-26T10:30:00.000-05:00

The problem with gardening books is that they tell me things I don't want to know. Things like "False Indigo (baptisia australis) doesn't like to be moved." Well, the problem is that I planted some last year, and as often happens, I don't like the location now.

I looked at some other books. Maybe this was just one writer's opinion. Nope.

"Baptisia puts down a long tap root and should not be moved."

"Baptisia is notoriously sensitive to being moved."

Ok. define "should" and "notoriously sensitive." Is it going to die if I move it, or what? I need to know the consequences to make an informed decision.

Maybe all these writers just have finicky plants. Maybe my baptisia are adventurous and would actually like a change of scenery.

We'll see. I gave the matter serious consideration for about 30 seconds, then dug them up and moved them to their new home. Call me a rebel.

As I was leafing through the gardening books looking for a baptisia loophole, I came upon this gem concerning irises:

"Late autumn planting is not advisable because the plants won't have a chance to send down anchor roots." Great. Irises were the next thing I wanted to move. (I moved some last January and they did fine, so I went ahead with these.)

Check back in the spring and I'll let you know what happened.

Crybaby Plants

2007-11-24T19:07:00.000-05:00

At first, all I was going to do this week was dig up the turf for my new flowerbeds.

"But we've been in these pots our whole lives," the Wax Myrtles cried. "Our roots are all twisted up."

"I know, guys, but I want to wait until the Fence Men finish so they don't step on you."

"You're not going to plant us right up at the fence, are you? You know we get to be 10 feet wide. Plant us far enough out so we won't be in the way."

"I don't know, they aren't going to be careful around you."

"Look, we're four feet tall. We aren't scared of any Fence Men. Besides, what if there's some delay? It's supposed to rain Monday. We're liable to still be in these pots come Christmas, wasting all this time while the soil is warm and we could be developing roots. " (Wax Myrtles, you'll notice, have a tendency toward melodrama.)

"You'll be delayed two days, max."

"You're assuming you'll have a free weekend between now and Christmas. That soil is still nice and toasty now. If we get an early winter," they said, (playing the freak-weather card), "you'll wish you had planted us in November."

So I relented. Like we're even going to have winter, what with global warming and all.

Then the Tea Olives and Quince started lobbying for early transplanting, making the case that they would actually be safer in the new Winter Garden than in their current home, which was right next to the fence.

By that point, the Japanese Hollies, the Gardenia, and the Forsythia were watching the proceedings and clamoring to be moved, and the barberries, who were perfectly fine in their pots, not the least bit potbound, demanded to know why everyone else was getting planted and not them.

Once the barberries were in the ground, the gold-leaved Spirea pointed out, politely but firmly, that their leaves would make a nice contrast at the front of the bed, and besides, they wouldn't be at all in the way of the Fence Men there.

And the hydrangeas! One of them was near the fence, so she definitely needed to be moved, but you know how hydrangeas are. One gets a new bed, the other two have to be right there beside her. Then the Koreanspice viburnum started whining about how he wasn't going to be the only plant left over there with those heavy-booted Fence Men tromping around, so I hauled him up to the newly created grove around the Japanese Magnolia, just so he would shut up.

Am I running a garden here, or what?

The Fred Sanford of Leaves

2007-11-20T18:36:00.000-05:00

Here's my question: Does it count as mental illness if you are aware that your behavior is aberrant? I mean, shouldn't you get some points for at least knowing what normal behavior is?

I wasn't going to write about this at all until I read Colleen's post about using leaves in her garden. She writes, "I have yet to swipe some for myself, but the temptation is always there."

Well, Colleen, the temptation has been too much for me.

It all started innocently enough last spring, when I noticed that my compost pile could use a little more green, and so I snatched a bag of grass clippings from my neighbor's trash pile. It worked so well and was so convenient, I went back the next week, under cover of darkness, and made off with another bag.

This fall, as I was expanding my beds, it occurred to me that I would need some mulch. A lot of mulch. Acres and acres of mulch. I did some calculating and determined that I needed between $879 and $50,000 worth of mulch. ( I was an English major and only took "Math for Idiots" in college, thus the rather broad range of numbers.)

About this time, the leaves began falling from the trees. This did me no good, since my trees are very small and my garden is now very large, but other people in my neighborhood have very big trees. Many of them also have mulching mowers that conveniently deposit the shredded leaves and grass clippings into a plastic bag, which is then placed at the curb for the trash truck which comes on Monday morning.

Or for me.

Do you know how many bags of leaves will fit into a Honda Civic? Three large bags in the trunk, three in the back seat, and if you drive slowly, you can pile at least three on top of the trunk and back windshield. (Inexplicably, Teresa has taken to hiding her car keys on Sunday nights ...)

If I lived next door to someone whose backyard looked like this, I'd call the city.

We are getting our new fence next week (those diagonal boards are what's keeping it from falling over now) so I don't want to plant anything until the Fence Men finish, and so my mulching is on hold until next weekend. And I don't know how many bags I need. I mean, this looks like a lot, but you never know.

Now if I could just find Lamont to help me spread them.

8 Things

2007-11-18T22:59:00.000-05:00

Gina tagged me for the 8 Random Things About Myself thingy, so here's more than you ever wanted to know about the guy behind the blog. I never know who has been tagged and who hasn't, so if you haven't...and "if you feel led," then consider yourself "It."

I teach English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) at a community college. My students actually appreciate me and they want to learn. I will never teach Americans, or at least not any younger than 40. (So by that criteria, I'm ineligible to teach myself. Hmmmm.)

I am a UNC grad and a huge Tar Heels fan. This is me (circa 1988) in my usual football Saturday attire. (I'm the lunatic on the right.)

I never want to live in a house younger than I am.

I read all the time.

I'm 5' 6", weigh 135 pounds, and played defensive end for my high school football team. (Don't be too impressed--it was a really small school.)

I never kill spiders or crickets in the house. I catch them and put them outside.

Whenever I put gas in my car, I reset the trip odometer and mentally calculate my gas mileage. I have no idea why I do this.

People say that I have the same personality as my cat, Andy. (I don't think they mean it as a compliment!)

More Expansions in My Garden

2007-11-14T21:21:00.001-05:00

I started work last weekend on another flowerbed expansion. This is the border along the south side fence, known as the Bottomlands because the ground slopes down here on its descent to a small creek at the end of our street. It faces north-northeast, but gets full sun through the summer months, except right at the base of the fence.

When I first began creating my borders in the backyard, I simply made one long rectangular border parallel to the fence. I've never been satisfied with it because it does nothing to offset the harsh rectangular shape of the backyard, and my plants ended up all in a row, like NC State's offensive line (the difference being that my plants have higher IQs.)

I didn't really know what I was doing. I had never created a bed or a border from scratch before, because at our old house, the planting areas were already established. It took me several months of looking at the area to get a sense of how the bed should curve in and out, and realized that it needed to be much wider than the 6 feet I had given it. The backyard is a big rectangle, about 60 X 100 feet, and a little six foot border looks like a tiny ribbon around a packing crate.

My new border has several long, graceful curves and its width ranges from 8 to about 15 feet. I have several Emerald Green Arborvitae at the back near the fence for year-round green and a vertical shape. Those are staying, as is a large viburnum and a native deciduous azalea, but everything else is getting moved around. For two years, the Bottomlands has served as a holding pen for plants I didn't know what to do with--well now I'm going to find them all a home.

In the biggest curve, I'm going make a Winter Garden. That curve is in a direct line from the kitchen window, so it will give us something pretty to look at during our frigid winters (ok Northerners and Midwesterners, we Southerners are wimps--I admit it!) I already have a Quince and a Red-Twig Dogwood, and I want a Witch Hazel. After that, I'm open to suggestions. What are your favorite winter-interest plants that can take full sun and are drought tolerant?

I've also got some Wax Myrtles and Arrowwood Viburnums--I'm trying to use a lot of native plants that produce berries for birds, and I want this border to be thick and shrubby, with heights as high as 15-20 feet in the back, to provide good bird habitat. Finally, my Fothergilla and Snowball Bushes will go here somewhere, toward the back corner.

I find that I really enjoy digging up sod. It's like being a sculptor, chiseling out the curves of the border, totally reshaping the landscape and imagining what it will look like when everything is planted. It does get hard on the legs, though. I am usually down on my right knee, pushing the shovel with my left, then turning up the clump of soil and pounding the dirt out of it. (I don't want to hear one word from the guys at the gym about why I haven't been there this week.)

We are replacing our fence the week after Thanksgiving, so I want to have everything dug up by then so they don't get trampled by the fence builders. After that, I'll be busy planting, so I'm hoping for a warm November and December!

Why I Pray About Rain

2007-11-13T19:34:00.000-05:00

I have a lot of opinions, especially about religion and politics, but I don't write about them here. I think my garden blog ought to be about plants and birds and dirt and compost. God does make it into my blog from time to time, because, despite all evidence to the contrary, I think that God does exist and is, at this moment, working in the world. (I have numerous suggestions for how God might run things more effectively, but for some reason, he has not yet asked my opinion. )

I am going to break my rule today and write about an event down in Atlanta, where the governor convened an interfaith public prayer for rain to alleviate the drought. I don't know a thing about the governor, don't know whether he's a statesman or a demagogue or something in between, I don't even know if he's a Republican or a Democrat. (I'm neither, and wish a pox on both their houses, but, like I said, I don't write about politics here.)

I do know about the drought, however, and I do a lot of praying, so I think I'm qualified to write on this subject. (Granted, my prayers often involve screaming at God, or praying that I can get through the day without choking the life out of some jackass who richly deserves it, but anyway...) As soon as I saw this story, I predicted three responses.

Militant atheists would criticize the governor for using a public forum to promote religion.
Militant Christians would make him a hero for the home team (at least until they realized that he invited Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu clergy to participate as well).
A lot of people would say, "Whatever," and go back to watching television.

I'd like to offer what I hope is a thoughtful Christian perspective on the whole subject of praying for rain. Thoughtful comments, whether you agree or dissent, are welcome. If you're not interested, check back tomorrow. I promise my next post will be about gardening.

The first question, of course, is whether or not God exists. That can't be proven one way or the other; there's a lot of evidence against God's existence, but there is a fair amount of evidence in favor as well. I would refer the reader to Mere Christianity by CS Lewis, Simply Christian by NT Wright, and Why Religion Matters by Huston Smith. (The first two are limited to Christianity, while Smith discusses all of the major religions.) All three writers are intelligent, well-educated, and open minded--none of this "The Bible says it, so that settles it" certainty that passes for religious discourse these days.

So assuming there is a God, why pray for rain? Is God unaware of the drought? Is God going to alter the track of a low pressure system at the behest of a Georgia governor or a Greensboro gardener?

The real problem here is a view of prayer that sees God as a cosmic butler (albeit much more capricious than any actual butler who values his job). It's not quite as simple as asking for something and, if you've been good enough or you've asked in the right way or if you follow the right religion, you get it. Prayer is not manipulating supernatural powers to do your bidding--that's magic.

I think the reason for praying is to allow God to begin the work of transforming the person doing the praying. We all need to be transformed from our self-centered, fearful, angry, arrogant, greedy selves into something different and beautiful. Prayer should begin the work of putting a person in a right relationship with both God and the world.

That's a big topic, being in a right relationship with the world, and whole books have been written on that subject. This is a blog post, not a book, and it's about rain, so let me go right to that subject.

The right way, in my view, to pray about rain, is not just asking for rain when we are in the middle of a drought, but saying a quiet "Thank you" for the rain whenever it comes and treating water (and for that matter, the whole earth) as a gift, and handling it as such. The amazing thing that happens is that you start to be more careful with water, to tread more lightly on the earth as a whole, to consider how your actions affect other people, the animals, and the plants. (Of course, one does not need to be religious to live this way. Christians have been notoriously unconcerned about environmental issues and have been put to shame on this front by people who do not profess any faith but live, as well as they can, in a right relationship with the earth. There are encouraging signs that this may be changing.)

When you are living in such a relationship with God and the created order, then of course, when a drought comes, you ask for rain and trust in God to send it as he sees fit. You pray as though everything depends on God, and you conserve as though everything depends on you.

If God does send rain in a timely manner, enough even to fill the lakes to overflowing, what do we do then? Go back to wasting water like we own the clouds? Or make permanent changes in the way we live, the way we relate to the water and the air and the land. That is the acid test of any person's religious faith: does it have the power to change that person for the better?

Who Says Men Can't Shop?

2007-11-11T22:10:00.000-05:00

All I wanted was a couple of bags of pine bark. I had lots to do and not a lot of time to goof around. Still, it wouldn't hurt to check in the garden center and see if anything else had been marked down since I got the coneflowers last week.

Boy, am I glad I didn't pay $19.99 for those snowball bushes (viburnum opulus) last week. They're marked down to $3. I could use a couple of those. Better go get a cart.

What's this? Crimson Pygmy barberries marked down from $16.99 to $3. I can use those too. Okay, gotta go. Work to do.

Wait? Are these fothergilla, with nice red leaves? Carol was just writing about those, and I was thinking that they'd look good next to my deciduous azalea. I really only need one, but I hate to leave the other one all alone here. What if no one else buys it?

Here are those Sweet Autumn clematis. Blackswamp Girl warned me about them, but our former neighbor, Carolyn, had one and the scent was magical. What's this yellow sticker? Fifty cents? Are you kidding?

I need another cart.

Downy Woodpeckers

2007-11-10T19:31:00.001-05:00

I caught this female Downy Woodpecker just as she was about to take off. I had no idea that the underside of their wings looked like that.

And here's the male, peeking out from behind the pole.

Goldfinches Ready for Winter

2007-11-08T22:28:00.001-05:00

The leaves aren't the only things changing colors this time of year. Clockwise from top:
Goldfinch-Summer (Breeding) plumage
Goldfinch-October, beginning fall molt
Goldfinch-November (Winter) plumage

I Accidentally Feng Shuied My Butterfly Garden

2007-11-04T18:58:00.001-05:00

(Thanks to Gina for the post title!)

I've been working on my butterfly garden this weekend. This is the first time that I've created a bed the right way: marking out the contours of the bed first, digging up the sod, amending the soil, and then...and only then...planting my shrubs. Usually what happens is that my car will be full of plants and I'm wandering around with a shovel thinking "Where can I put these things before I have to go to work Monday morning?" I end up digging holes wherever there is space just to get them in the ground, and invariably a month later, I decide that they would look much better over there.

That system was the chief problem with the butterfly garden. Things were jammed too close together, colors clashed, the bench was in the wrong place, the feng shui was all screwed up, and it just wasn't working.

I dug up two lantana, three spirea, a butterfly bush, and a hummingbird mint. To these I added two more butterfly bushes which have been sitting in pots on the deck all summer, some coneflowers from the bargain table, and started positioning and repositioning everything. It felt rather like trying a large ring of keys to find the one to open a door. At last, the tumblers fell into place, and the garden seemed to say to me, "Yes. This will be beautiful." Then I started digging.

I plunged my pitchfork deep into the bottom of the compost pile and came up with a trove of crumbly brown compost that I mixed in with topsoil and the native red clay, set my plants down into this mixture, and gave them a drink of our precious water. (From the watering can.)

The last element to place was the garden bench. I tried it in several spots until I found one that felt right.

You know, I used to snicker at people who did all that feng shui stuff, worrying about whether the energy was escaping from their garden or getting blocked in a corner or whatever it's not supposed to do. But I'll tell you this. The old butterfly garden never was a very inviting or relaxing place to sit. The bench was there, but I never settled in for any length of time. It was almost like "something" in the garden was nervous. In the last two days, though, even with all we have to do, Teresa and I have spent more time there than we ever have before. Maybe there is something to those ancient Chinese principles. After all, the Chinese had already developed an advanced civilization while my Celtic ancestors were bashing each other over the head with clubs, so I'm not going to scoff at something just because I don't understand it.

Coneflowers for a Dollar

2007-11-02T22:37:00.000-04:00

I had been eyeing those Magnus Coneflowers at Lowes for months. The big purple blooms, the ones with the $8.99 price tag. I knew that as soon as Halloween was over, the minds of big box retailers would turn toward Christmas and how much merchandise they could move in celebration of the Prince of Peace...and those coneflowers would be in the way. And they would be marked down. Way down.

Today they are sitting on my deck. Eight of them. Total cost: $8.

No way the stock market could be this much fun!

First Junco

2007-11-02T22:20:00.000-04:00

Winter is coming. The first junco arrived in my garden today as I was setting out some butterfly bushes in my newly expanded butterfly garden. I didn't get a picture of him, but if you want to see what he looks like, check out Greensboro Birds. (Just once, I want to see a bird before Iris does!)

The Grass Wars

2007-10-28T09:39:00.000-04:00

For decades Grass ruled the Yard. Its domain extended from the very foundation of the house all the way to the Back Fence, brooking no dissent from tree, shrub, or perennial. Nothing but grass, a rigid quadrilateral of uniform green, lacking only chalk yard markers, a set of goalposts, and well-heeled alumni tailgating in the driveway.

Two years ago, the New People took possession of the house. They saw the Grass and saw that it was not good. It required weekly mowing with a loud mower that ran on gasoline purchased from terrorists and greedy American oil barons. It required much water to look presentable, water that came from shallow lakes and became scarcer every year. It required annual aerating, fertilizing, and reseeding, endeavors which cost enough to buy a thicket of shrubs from the half-price table. The New People began to speak openly of rebellion.

The Grass scoffed. It was large and tough rooted; the New People were small and armed only with shovels and mulch. At the first incursion, carried out by a ragtag band of Gardenias and Tea Olives, the Grass laughed openly. "Bring 'em on," it said.

The New People were not deterred. They captured more territory and patrolled it with trowels, rooting out the sprigs sent in by the enemy to retake the land. The Grass was persistent, but the New People more so.

Still the Grass remained complacent. The New People had taken some territory at the fringes of its empire but the heartland, the center of the Yard, remained under the hegemony of Grass and all that it stood for. But one day, all that changed. On a single October Saturday, a blow was struck against the Grass that would forever alter the balance of power in the Yard.

One of the New People marched boldly into the heart of the Empire of Grass, laid out a garden hose in an oblong shape and connected this shape to a base established earlier, an outpost known as the Butterfly Garden. Then he took his shovel and commenced to dig.

He scooped up great chunks of sod, piled them into his cart, and wheeled them to his compost pile. When the pile grew too high, and there was yet more sod to deal with, he hit upon a strikingly brilliant yet simple idea. A way to use the enemy to his advantage. Surveying a section of the Yard that he had marked for later conquest, he began laying the sod face down upon the grass--killing grass with grass.

The Green Emperor watched sullenly. The meaning of this was clear. No longer would he rule the Yard unchecked. From now on, his role would be to grow in small spaces between and around the flowerbeds, nothing more than a backdrop to the shrubs and flowers that even now were cheering and tossing their leaves in celebration.

The Results Are In

2007-10-27T19:43:00.001-04:00

Rainfall totals at LMAID World Headquarters came to about 4.25 inches! (Counting last Friday's rain, we got 5 inches exactly for the week.) Contrast that with 5.5 inches in the last four-plus months, and you see why we are all so excited.

The rains didn't solve the drought problem by any means. The lakes are still very low, and the winter is forecast to be dry, so it's too soon to be "dancing in the end zone." It would take 2 or 3 more storms like this one to get us where we need to be, so if you're in Greensboro and reading this, take quick showers and don't be playing in the hose! (And quit worrying about your grass!)

Speaking of grass, guess what I did today. (Hint: the ground was soft and easy to dig in.) Stay tuned for Sunday's post.

Finally!!!

2007-10-25T19:02:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend, word leaked out from the various weather services that a great deal of rain may be heading our way. The forecast called for rain to start Wednesday, which it did...in Burlington, where I work. All day Wednesday it rained, and I daydreamed of my plants getting a good drenching, only to come home and find about one good spit's worth of water in my gauge.

I try not to get mad at God. It doesn't do any good, and I usually look foolish. But I couldn't help it. I kicked the deck rail in disgust, sending splinters flying into the yard (it's rotten, so it splinters easily) and stomped back inside, slamming the door behind me.

"Is this your idea of a sick joke?" I demanded, in a loud and angry voice that sent my cat scurrying under the sofa. "Well it's not funny. What are you doing, putting some kind of dome over Greensboro? You said ask for what you need. Well, we need rain. Not 'want.' 'Need.' And I've asked. Nicely. Several times. And so have a lot of my garden blogging friends, if for no other reason than they are tired reading my complaints about the drought. What do you want? Tell me what you want and I'll do it, JUST SEND US SOME RAIN!!!"

I was reminded of a story about the 16th century Christian mystic, Saint Teresa of Avila, who, after nearly drowning in some sort of accident, looked up at the heavens and said to God, "If this is how you treat your friends it's no wonder you have so few of them." (I think I would have liked Teresa.)

Anyway, the rains finally came last night, and have continued all day. As of 6pm, we had almost 1.5" and the forecast is for more rain tonight and tomorrow! Thanks to all of you who have sent good thoughts and prayers for rain to NC. We all appreciate it very much.

Oh, yeah, God...thank you too. Sorry about the deck rail incident.

Running Out of Water

2007-10-23T18:56:00.001-04:00

This is...or was...Lake Townsend, which supplies Greensboro's drinking water. The city estimates that we have about 3 months of water left before we run out.
Normally, the water extends to the trees.
The car wash offers a suggestion...
This church appeals directly to the Source...What else can we do? I mean, besides prohibit country clubs from watering their golf courses, or tell people, "You get x number of gallons per month. Once you use it up, we turn off your meter until next month." But that would take leadership.

Saturday Projects

2007-10-21T19:12:00.001-04:00

We got about 3/4" of rain Friday, which softened up the ground enough that I could do a little digging. The first item on my agenda was to improve the soil in Teresa's Charleston Garden, which is still under construction. The Charleston Garden is a one-foot strip of dirt between our driveway and the property line, where we put up a little iron fence. The soil there was red clay, packed down hard from forty years of not being worked, and littered with rocks and bits of concrete and gravel from when the driveway was built.

I hauled a couple of cartloads of compost from my pile and worked it into the red clay, then added several bags of black topsoil and turned it again, until I had a rich crumbly mixture, the likes of which I haven't seen since I moved from South Carolina twenty-one years ago. I didn't know how to dig without throwing all my weight down onto the shovel. The first plant to go in was a Camelot Foxglove. We are holding off on the rest to see if any more rain falls.

Feeling more energetic about gardening than I have in months, I then decided to tackle the front bed, which has been a complete and total disaster this summer. Normally we plant impatiens there, but we didn't have the money to buy a bunch of annuals, which was just as well because they would have all burned to death in the heat, but their absence left big gaping holes of nothing but baked red clay and it looked terrible.

I got some more topsoil and worked it into one section, divided my coreopsis and spread it all around the back of the sunny part in a curving band, then divided the several clumps of Stella D'Oro daylilies that have been growing all over the yard until I decided what I wanted to do with them. These went in front of the coreopsis. The idea is that the Stellas will bloom early, then when their blooms are gone, the coreopsis will be in bloom. I then divided and spread out some asters and planted two big spaces with them for fall color, and set out three balloon flowers nearby for more late summer color.

I had so many plants from my divisions that I ran out of space for the coreopsis and asters, and had to put them in the back. I do need some more stellas, however, or maybe something else to wrap around the other side of the bed. It's not going to be the most exciting bed in the world, the plant choices are about as imaginative as those made by the Department of Transportation, and having so many stellas isn't the best option because once they quit blooming, their foliage isn't all that striking, but it is better than bare dirt, and as I get some money later, I can intersperse things that bloom at different times for more variety.

Finally, a layer of mulch (you can see in the photo where I ran out) and my bed is half done.

A Visit to Gethsemane

2007-10-19T21:04:00.000-04:00

My mother, the Hellebore Queen, was in Greensboro this week for a conference, so this afternoon we met at her hotel and drove out to Gethsemane Gardens and Nursery, located a few miles north of town. We had both been wanting to go for a long time; I have no excuse, since it is only about 15 minutes from my house, but it's not on my way to anywhere, so I've just never made it out to that part of the county.

If you live near Greensboro, you need to go. Janice, the owner, has created a woodland trail with hellebores growing everywhere, and several whimsical sculptures around every turn. (Click the photo to enlarge it, and you can see my favorite.) She has a nice selection of shade plants, including things that I've been looking for but cannot easily find other places--things like epimedium, foamflower, lungwort, arum, hardy begonias, all kinds of ferns, and many, many hellebores. Of course, I only have about ten square feet of shade, but you can pack a lot of plants in a small space if you do it right.

The Hellebore Queen bought me a Winter Daphne (daphne odora) which I have been wanting ever since I saw one at the Arboretum, then later in my neighbor's yard, and a small gardenia for Teresa. I have been concerned that those varieties of gardenia wouldn't survive our winter (what winter?) here, but Janice assured me that it is hardy to Zone 6, and she has the air of a person who knows her plants, so I trust her. Of course, if this fall is any indication, we may now be in Zone 8 or 9, so I might be growing banana trees before long. No, check that...they need water...

The HQ's friend Judy was kind enough to send me a couple of her Scottish Rose shoots, along with a nice letter telling me their history:

The original two roses were given to me by a friend of my son's whose aunt's (now deceased) nursery in Bolivia, NC had the only license to sell them in the US. They were brought here by the early English settlers and there are some growing at Orton Plantation.

Thank you very much, Judy! I am honored to have these plants, and being a NC history buff, I especially appreciate the story of their origins. I can't wait to see their tiny pink & white blooms next spring. Watch for them here!

Where Have I Been?

2007-10-18T19:27:00.001-04:00

Ever since Gina wrote that poem about obsessively checking her favorite blogs to see if they've been updated, I've always tried to write at least twice a week, lest I get an email from her asking me why I've not supplied her with reading material. Actually, I have a good excuse for the recent...um..."drought" of postings here at LMAID. Two, actually.

First, of course, is the Drought, and my statistics regarding same, which I know you are tired of hearing about (35 consecutive rainless days...1 day of rain in the last 51 days) and the heat (83 degrees today).

Second...it's all Bill's fault. Bill is the co-owner of the Wild Birds Unlimited store where I work one afternoon a week, and a heck of a nice guy. Well, a few weeks ago, he went in for a heart stress test, and was told that he was staying right there until they did quintuple bypass surgery. Since he and his wife, Barbara are the only full-time people at the store, their absence has left just a few holes in the schedule, which the rest of us have been filling. (The fact that everyone has been so willing to pitch in and help tells you what kind of employers Bill and Barbara are...Fezziwiggian is the best adjective I can come up with. Re-read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol for the origin of that word.)

Anyway, between teaching my classes, tutoring, and selling birdseed, the blog has been left to fend for itself of late. I have tried to keep up with my Greensboro Daily Photo blog, but longtime readers of LMAID will notice that I've recycled a few bird photos in order to fulfill my daily quota there. Many of you have visited and commented on one or both blogs; I really appreciate it, and apologize for not responding to comments more quickly...and Gina, for torturing you with the same post for days on end!

Rain is in the forecast, and the Hellebore Queen is in town, and so we plan to visit Gethsemane Gardens nursery tomorrow, which I've never been to, so hopefully I'll have lots of things to write about, as well as lots of photos of rain. If you pray, please pray for lots of rain for us in NC tonight and tomorrow, as well as for Bill as he recovers from his surgery! (And for Barbara, as she has to put up with Bill...)

Fall Colors

2007-10-14T20:02:00.001-04:00

The goldfinches are beginning their fall molt, when they lose the bright yellow feathers they've worn all summer, and get a new coat of muted brown.

My Autumn Blaze maple that I planted two autumns ago, is getting its fall colors too.

As are the dogwoods.

It's nice to see another color besides brown in the yard. Tomorrow will be our 30th consecutive day with no rain, and temperatures will be back in the 80s this week, 10-12 degrees higher than where they should be. I am so tired of spending every spare minute watering; I now understand people who buy condos because they don't want to deal with a yard. If Teresa would let me, I'd move downtown and do all my gardening in containers on the balcony.

Endless Summer

2007-10-09T21:45:00.002-04:00

24 consecutive days without rain.
1 day of rain in the last 40
63 days above 90 degrees

Chatting With Bobby Earl at the Filling Station

2007-10-02T22:09:00.000-04:00

"I'd like to have a garden," Bobby Earl said, "but they're too much work."

"Tell me about it. I've got this one plant that I spend at least an hour taking care of every week."

"An hour? For one plant? That's ridiculous. Must be one of them fancy roses or something. But that's just when you first set it out, right? After that, you leave it alone."

"I wish it were that easy."

"Where'd you get this thing?"

"It was growing in the yard when we bought the house."

"Well, at least you weren't fool enough to pay good money for it. You wouldn't believe what some of them gardeners pay for plants."

"Actually, I do spend quite a bit on money on this plant."

"How much?"

"Maybe $200 bucks."

"On one plant?"

"On one plant. And that's not counting the machine."

"You gotta have a special machine for it?"

"Two actually. One of them I only need once a year, so I pay a guy who has one."

"And this is included in the $200, right?"

"No. Tack another $75 onto the bill."

"This must be some plant."

"You could say that."

"At least you aren't wasting your money on those prissy annuals--pansies and such. People buy 'em, they grow for 6 months, then they dig 'em up and plant something else. Dumbest thing I've ever heard."

"Well, this one's a perennial, but..."

"But what?"

"It starts to look scraggly and uneven after a year or two, so you're better off replacing it each spring."

"And how much does a new one cost?"

"60 dollars."

"You went to college, right?"

"Yes."

"Your parents should have gone to Daytona with that money instead. Didn't you learn nothin' in four years?"

"I was an English major. I read novels."

"Figures. See, if I went and bought some plant like this, people would want to make it illegal because dumb@$$es like me don't know no better than to spend our hard-earned paycheck on mess like that. "

"You've got a point."

"So what's this plant look like? It better be pretty."

"It's green."

"Do I look stupid? I'm talkin' about the flowers!"

"It doesn't have flowers."

"So what's it have? No wait, don't tell me--I read those garden magazines too--lemme see--it's got "a graceful, arching form" or "interesting texture that contrasts nicely with showy blossoms in the cutting garden."

"That's good...you want to be a guest blogger sometime?"

"Seriously, what's so great about this plant? Must be one of them "exotic ornamentals" from China or somewhere."

"I wouldn't call it 'exotic.' Or 'ornamental."

"You know what I'd call it? Gone. I'd yank that thing out of the ground, throw it in the truck, and haul it out to the woods. Then I'd plant something normal in it's place."

Something in Bobby Earl's words struck a nerve. Something so rare that I had forgotten what it sounded like. But there was no mistaking. It was Common Sense.

"You know something, Bobby Earl? You're right. It's stupid to spend that much time and money on one plant. Especially when you need to take out a second mortgage to keep it watered in droughts. Which I didn't do."

"So yours is dead."

"Dead. Brown, ugly, dead."

Bobby Earl shook his head and directed a stream of tobacco juice across the hood of his Monte Carlo. "So you gon' dig it up?"

"You're damn right. I don't have time to be messing with it, what with everything else I have to do in my garden. Wanna help?"

"I might show up about the time you finish, just to see what's left of this King MacDaddy plant. It must have been something's all I can say. What did you say it was called?

"Grass."

If It's Still Summer, I'll Keep Rooting Stuff

2007-10-02T20:37:00.001-04:00

The weather has turned cooler..."cooler" being a relative term. Temperatures have been in the 80s, which is normal for August but not October, but at least you can go outside and do some work without "the monkey" getting you. (Do people outside the South say that, or is it just one of our colloquialisms?)

A while back, I tried to root some cuttings from my white hydrangea, something I've never been successful with before. Two of them did develop roots, so I transplanted them into some potting soil today.

Since winter shows no signs of arriving anytime soon, I took some cuttings of a Silver King Euonymus, which is easy to root, dusted them with the magic rooting powder, and set them in pots. Just for fun, I also took a piece of my Koreanspice Viburnum, another plant that has survived the drought admirably, to see if I could root it. At least with these, if water restrictions get too severe, I can fill up a coffee cup at the sink and keep them hydrated!

Remember the weigela I rooted over the summer? Check it out!

I also put up Teresa's iron fence for her "Charleston Garden." She named it that because it will be very narrow, like the gardens between the houses along the Battery in Charleston (where, as the natives say, "the Ashley and Cooper Rivers merge to form the Atlantic...")

The fence came from Lowe's, and was relatively easy to put up. The hardest part was pounding the base stakes into the clay. I loosened up the soil with a mattock before I started, but that only took care of the top layer. Yes, it is a little crooked, but you know what? Once we have some clematis growing up it, and flowering perennials stuffed in that 12 inch strip of dirt, you'll never be able to tell. Besides, all those houses in Charleston, their fences are crooked too. I call it "character."

My Improved and Upgraded Photoblog

2007-09-30T22:23:00.000-04:00

If you'd like to see more of Greensboro, NC than just my garden, jump on over to my Daily Photo Blog by clicking here or on the link to your left. In Good Light was the first blog I started, but it has been a neglected stepchild because I never could figure out what to do with it.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a comment from RamblinRound, visited her blo g, and discovered that there are a whole bunch of people all over the world who post one photo of their city every day. There was my answer! Not only did it sound like a cool idea for a blog, it would make me carry my camera around with me, which everyone knows is rule # 1 for getting good photos.

I've been working on it for a couple of weeks now, so take a look and let me know what you think. If you want to start a daily photo blog for your city, you'll find a link on the right side of my photoblog. (Note: you don't have to take a photo every day--you might take a week's worth of photos on one day, for example--but it gets you in the habit of looking for photo opportunities every time you leave your house.)

Monster Caterpillar

2007-09-29T21:44:00.001-04:00

I look across the street and see my neighbor standing in her driveway jumping up and down with a rake in her hand. She seems to be using the rake to swat at something in the Japanese Maple. I remembered using a similar strategy to retrieve the little badminton thing whenever my brother and I would knock it into the tree, but somehow I didn't think Shirley was a badminton player.

"I've got to ask what you are doing," I said.

She laughed. "I could tell you it's none of your business, but I've got a huge caterpillar in my tree, and he's eaten all the leaves off that branch."

I looked up and saw the biggest caterpillar I've seen in my life. Or else a small dinosaur. I mean, this thing was huge! Forget about using him for fish bait. If a fish tried to eat him, the caterpillar would take the fish, slap him around a couple of times, and pin him to the hook, then steal the fish's girlfriend.

You know you're a little obsessed with your blog when you catch a creature like this and the first thing you think is, " I know what I'm writing about today!

Frustration

2007-09-23T20:31:00.000-04:00

I know you're tired of weather stats from Greensboro, but indulge me in a little complaining on this first day of autumn, with the temperature a crisp 92 degrees...That is the 59th day this year it has been above 90. The average is 27 days.

I went back and did some checking on rainfall too.

Since June 5:

25 days with measurable rainfall--normal is 40 days
5.5 inches of rain total--normal 15.13 inches
Average amount of rain per shower--.22 inches
Days with more than a quarter inch of rain: 6

That last one is what has really ticked me off this summer. When it does rain, it is barely enough to dampen the ground, let alone soak down to the roots. I am thinking seriously about giving up my garden. Well, not really, but I am giving up anything and everything whose water needs are anything other than minimal. I don't care if my garden looks like it was planted by the Highway Department.

Here are the plants that have done well with minimal or no watering from me this summer. Expect to see a lot more of these in my garden in coming years.

Pyracantha "Mojave"
Lantana "Miss Huff"
Cherry Laurel "Otto Luyken"
Spirea "Little Princess" and "Anthony Waterer"
Forsythia
Gardenia
Butterfly Bush
Nandina
Crape Myrtle

Things I might try more of:
Viburnum
Burning Bush
Emerald Arborvitae

Biggest Disappointment:
Japanese Holly "Soft Touch" These are supposed to be indestructible, but every one of my new plantings has either:

a) died
b) almost died and now is cut back to miniscule proportions
c) got lots of brown stems
d) got burned leaves

They are supposed to like full sun; I planted them in good soil and, as we say in NC "liked to busted my @$$ keeping the &^$# things watered all summer."
Has anybody else had experience with these, for good or ill?

As for perennials, call me Daylily Man. Or Yarrow Man. Or maybe Butterfly Weed Man. Or maybe I'll just let the Virginia Creeper take over and grow wherever it wants.

Can you tell I'm in a bad mood? All I've got to say is this: if the temperature is going to be 15 degrees above normal every freakin' day this summer, I had better not see the first bit of ice or frost all winter. In fact, I'd better be going down the waterslide on Christmas Day and lathering on sunscreen in February...

And if that's not enough, the Tar Heels football team is so abysmal, we're already counting the days until basketball season. Forty-one, in case you're wondering.

Oleander Aphids on Butterfly Weed

2007-09-19T21:54:00.001-04:00

This is what passes for excitement in my garden these days.

I noticed these slender vertical growths on the butterfly weed this week; I assume they are seed pods. One of them had ants crawling all over it, as well as numerous tiny yellow disc-like things. I poked the discs and discovered that they possessed legs!

I learned that they are oleander aphids, and butterfly weed is one of their favorite plants. The aphids secrete a sticky substance that ants find irresistible. As of today, Aphids and ants are still munching away. I might hose them off the plant as some people have suggested, or I may just let them be and see if some other insect predator comes along to eat them.

I tend to learn a lot by just leaving things alone, although my educational strategy is often mistaken for laziness...

Mountain Vacation

2007-09-17T21:45:00.000-04:00

Teresa and I recently celebrated out 11th anniversary by going to the mountains for the weekend. The weather on the way up was perfect--by that, I mean that it rained the entire time. I had forgotten what sheets of rain looked like, forgotten about rivulets on the road. The whole trip we wondered, "How much rain are we getting in Greensboro?"

We stayed at my brother's mountain house, which overlooks the Tuckaseegee River. Through the open windows we could hear the river, running fast after the rain, and the moon shone down from above the hills.

We went into Bryson City to explore downtown...

...and we visited the town of Cherokee. We steered clear of the tacky tourist stuff and visited the Museum of the Cherokee, which I highly recommend. Below, two Cherokee ladies from the Oconaluftee Village demonstrate traditional weaving. When we returned to Greensboro, I found an inch of rain in my gauge.

At Least I'm Not Pulling Transmissions in the Front Yard

2007-09-13T11:09:00.001-04:00

Note: Whenever one writes about a disorder such as autism and tries to be humorous, he is walking very close to a line which, if crossed, may give offense to people affected by it. Please know that is not my intention in this post.

I was reading an article about autism and was surprised to learn that sometimes people with certain high-functioning developmental disorders are not diagnosed until adulthood. I read one passage aloud to Teresa:

"Asperger Syndrome is marked by obsessive interests and impaired social interaction."

She looked at me over her magazine with raised eyebrows.

"What?" I asked.

"Do you know anybody like that?" she said.

"Not really."

Silence.

"How about someone who makes up reasons to avoid dinner parties so that he can stay home and pull weeds in his garden? And writes a blog about it? And titles the blog, "Leave Me Alone, I'm Digging?"

"I'm not antisocial. I went with you to Mike and Rachel's for dinner, didn't I?"

"What do you remember about that evening?"

"Well, Rachel let me take some cuttings of her weigela so I could root them. They're doing well too. Even the one..."

"Exactly my point," Teresa said. You have limited social skills and are at least mildly obsessive when it comes to plants."

"I can interact with people socially. Remember last weekend, when we went to Jean and Frank's?"

"Where you and Frank started an argument with Jean about why a watering can is more effective than a hose."

"I talk to the neighbors."

"Let's see, the last time Shirley came over, you two got into an in-depth discussion of how big hellebore seedlings need to be before you can transplant them. And the only thing you and Amanda talk about is what plants you are going to trade with each other."

"I talked to Jackie the other day about the hawk in our yard."

"The hawk counts as part of the garden."

"I socialize with my parents."

"Yes, and your mother, the Hellebore Queen is just like you. They say these things are genetic , you know."

"Now the Hellebore Queen is peculiar. She won't grow anything red."

"Peculiar is as peculiar does."

"How about my barber, Mike? We talk about lots of things when I get my hair cut. Why, just last Friday we talked about Carolina football and basketball, not to mention the Appalachian State-Michigan game."

"Yeah, you two are regular Renaissance men. Did the subject of Asiatic lilies come up during the conversation?"

"Well, maybe once."

See, you have some kind of disorder. I would send you to a specialist, but you'd probably come home with a sackful of bulbs along with your diagnosis."

"You know a doctor who is getting rid of some bulbs?"

"And don't think I'm unaware of your stash of magazines."

"What magazines?"

"Don't play dumb. The ones in the paper bag in the back of your closet. Horticulture, Carolina Gardener...ring any bells?"

"I just look at the pictures. I swear I don't read the articles."

"Think about it. How many other people do you know who are so obsessed with plants?"

"Besides the ones we just talked about? Well, there's Carol, Gina, Carolyn Gail, Layanee, Blackswamp Girl, Colleen, Wrenna, Catherine, Lost Roses, Conni e, Dirty Fingernails...and then there's Iris, who's really into birds, and Q--butterflies are her thing." So see, I've got lots of company!

Happy Gardening to all my obsessed blogger-friends!

A New Butterfly

2007-09-10T22:44:00.001-04:00

A new butterfly has appeared in my garden. I think it is a Pearl Crescent, but possibly a Silvery Checkerspot. (Robin, who blogs from central Indiana, posted a similar one today.)

Here he is savoring a coral verbena. Teresa had it in a pot last summer (the verbena, not the butterfly); we planted it and it survived both the 14 degree cold and the summer drought. Not spectacularly, but it survived. For some reason, it looks better now than it has since May. Perhaps it knows something I don't.

The butterfly also approves of the asters!
95 degrees today in Greensboro, in case you're wondering. Will it ever end?

Good Riddance to Summer

2007-09-09T20:10:00.001-04:00

In two weeks, according to the calendar, the Summer of 2007 will be over. I will not be sorry. This has been the hottest, driest summer that anyone can remember. What little rain that has fallen has come in quarter-inch showers, two and three weeks apart, separated by day after day of scorching, oppressive heat that saps the vitality of the land, the plants, the animals, and the people.

Every day, I consult the long-range forecast on Accuweather. For nearly a month now, the false prophets of the weather world have promised cooler temperatures "next week," but "next week" never comes. The "normal" temperatures for any given day are laughable: 87 is the normal August high for Greensboro; almost every day in August was between 97 and 102. The "normal for today, September 9, is 81. I think it was 94 today. This has gone on day after day after day for more than a month.

I feel like I'm living in some suburban version of a Dust Bowl novel. The whole landscape is dry and brown and crackly, dessicated and dead-looking. The few green plants left alive are wilted. I water them, and they perk up, but the next day brings nine hours of merciless sun and heat, and by the time I get home, the life has again been sucked out of them, and of me.

Every decade, it seems, has its own defining weather event. In the 1970s, in South Carolina, it was the Big Snow of 1973 which dropped 18 inches on the state (with absolutely no warning) and flattened a large tobacco warehouse in my hometown. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo cut a huge swath of destruction from Charleston to Boone. In the Blizzard of 93, ACC fans plowed through a foot of snow to get to the ACC Basketball Tournament in Charlotte. Images of all of these are seared in my mind as clearly as in any photo album. The summer of 2007 may be the defining event of this decade, but in a different way. It is not sudden or dramatic like a hurricane or snowstorm; there is no excitement of sledding down hills or walking through knee-deep water in the street, just a slow wilting of hope. This is what I will remember from this summer.

A woefully inadequate weapon.

Our 21 year old air conditioner. If it dies tomorrow, it has earned our gratitude by bravely soldiering on through this most hellish of summers.

That's all I feel like doing too, Andy.

Next Year Resolutions

2007-08-30T07:53:00.000-04:00

Next year will be different.
Next year, we'll get all the rain we need.
Next year, I'll have fresh mulch in all my beds.
Next year, when I plant shrubs, I'll take into account how big they'll get and not end up with crowded beds.
Next year, I'll remember to prune and fertilize at the proper times for each plant.
Next year I'll go to the nursery with a list of what I need, and only buy what's on the list. I'll have a place for each plant before it even gets to the cash register.

Next year I'll resist the temptation to dig anywhere around the underground phone line.
Next year, I'll keep really good notes on when everything sprouts, puts out leaves, and blooms.
Next year I'll learn how to hybridize daylilies. (The year after that, I'll make little tags and keep records of what's what so I'll know what combined to make a particular plant!)
Next year, I'll learn how to pronounce leucothoe.

Next year, I won't have to make a list like this.

God Loves Bugs

2007-08-29T08:05:00.000-04:00

When asked what his studies had taught him about the Creator, the British biologist J.B.S. Haldane quipped, "I'm not sure, but He seems to be inordinately fond of beetles."

More bugs from my garden:

Not a Bloody Hummingbird

2007-08-28T19:32:00.001-04:00

UPDATED 8/30 First I thought it was a young male, just getting his feathers. Then, looking more closely, I thought it was a female who had been in a fight, based on a long streak of red on the belly. Bisbee Border Bird Bloggers (say that five times fast!) however, believes it is a molting male, and that the red streak is the skin showing beneath a featherless area on the belly.
(You can't see it too well in this photo.)

After reading Bisbee's comments, I'm inclined to go back to my initial thought that it is actually a young male, since I have 2 other young males who are just getting their red feathers this week. Not nearly as visceral and dramatic, but cool, nonetheless! Thanks for the info, Tom & Sheri!

Weigela Rootings

2007-08-27T17:08:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I snipped some cuttings of a friend's weigela and set them in pots to root. I've diligently kept them covered in plastic so the soil would stay moist, and all four cuttings have rewarded me with new leaves. This morning while the day was cool, I transplanted them into potting soil. Two had developed excellent roots, one I would call mediocre, and the roots of the fourth were almost nonexistent.

I'll keep them in pots this fall so their roots can develop more; If I need to, I'll transplant them to bigger pots in the spring and wait until next fall to put them in the ground. (I've about decided not to plant anything in spring, because I'll spend the entire summer watering it. If I set out plants in October, however, they have three months of not-very-cold and hopefully wetter weather to establish their roots in the ground.)

Buoyed by my relative success in rooting the weigelas, I took some cuttings of my pretty white hydrangea to see if I could root them. This is another plant that gets 5 suns on my drought-tolerant scale. I've watered it maybe twice all summer and it looks great, even in several hours of direct sunlight.

Hummingbird

2007-08-25T23:29:00.000-04:00

Now that the lantana has finished blooming, the hummingbirds are practically living at the feeder. There are three of them, and every five minutes, one is at the window, slurping sugar water. Often they fight. This despite the fact that the feeder has three flowers from which to drink, and is refilled at least every three days. They cannot get it into their heads that there's plenty to go around.

They also have a well-developed sense of entitlement. On occasion, I have let the feeder go for perhaps four days without refilling it. This is apparently one day beyond the threshold of freshness for sugar water in hundred-degree heat. When this happens, the bird will take a sip, make a face, then rotate in mid-air to glare into the window at me, demanding that I drop what I'm doing and mix up a fresh batch. I comply, of course, if for no other reason than sheer respect for a creature that is so tiny and yet strong enough to fly non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico (about 500 miles in 18-22 hours) losing more than half her body weight on the journey.

Bulk up, little lady!

Asters

2007-08-24T16:14:00.000-04:00

Even in the kindest of summers, my garden starts to look tired by late August. The daylily blooms are long since spent, the coneflowers have gone to seed, the shasta daisies are done, and even the fiery lantana flowers are falling off. When that happens, it's good to have some asters.

Throughout the early summer, asters devote their energy to growing. (And to providing food for rabbits.) When the other blooms are ready to pack it in, though, the asters are just hitting their stride. I bought these two winters ago off the half-price table at the nursery, not realizing how vigorously they grow. They've been divided at least twice since then; once to provide late summer color for a front bed, and a second time because they were again just too freakin' big. I took clumps of asters and a shovel to the back borders and started planting them everywhere I could find room.

The aster is sort of like the girl who grew up in a houseful of brothers; pretty AND tough enough to hold her own in a playground scuffle...or a killer drought. (Sort of like my sisters, Sam and Marie. I wouldn't tangle with either one of them now!) I'm thinking of writing a post evaluating how different plants have held up during the hottest, driest summer on record, and the asters are getting five stars (or maybe five suns).

Plus, the butterflies love them. This afternoon there were millions of little yellow butterflies fluttering around the blooms. (Okay, not "millions," but probably three dozen at least.) There was also this one tiny bee--check out all the pollen on his legs!

They tend to flop; it helps to cut them back in early to mid summer, but I forgot to do that this year.

A Big Bug

2007-08-24T14:37:00.000-04:00

There is no truth to the rumor that I'm changing the name of my blog to Leave Me Alone, I'm Taking Pictures of Bugs. It is simply too hot and dry to do any digging. I encountered this waspish creature sampling hydrangea nectar and profitably spent twenty minutes taking his photo.

Teresa is tired of seeing him on the computer screensaver, so I post him here for you to enjoy!

Northern Flicker

2007-08-20T22:24:00.001-04:00

I've been chasing this Flicker around for days, trying to get a good picture. There are two varieties of Flickers; the ones in the Eastern US are the "Yellow-Shafted" variety. (See the yellow feathers near the tail?)

Flickers are the only woodpeckers that feed primarily on the ground.

This one is a male; the female lacks the black "musta che" near the bill.

Easter in August

2007-08-19T17:16:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday as I was inspecting the toll exacted on my plants by the heat and drought, I came across this Japanese Magnolia. The leaves that hadn't fallen off were brown and dessicated, and after much grumblin g, I resigned myself to the knowledge that it would probably die, and began thinking of what to plant in its place. Unwilling to completely give up on it, I decided that while I was watering the other trees, I may as well give this one a drink as well.

This morning, I noticed something purple in the tree. Several purple things, actually. I looked, and found it full of buds about to blossom.

Normally this tree blooms in March, as new life is emerging all around. To see it rebloom in August, after a summer more brutal than any winter in recent memory, reminds me that rebirth and renewal can come at any time.