Tuesday, 14 May 2024
at home
I spent the day arranging and labelling sale plants and planting the ones I still had to go in the ground here. The latter task involved some, but not much, weeding. For someone who supposedly loves to weed, I am sure putting off the big weeding for garden open days. Now, subtracting two half days of work at Diane’s and the Red Barn and a check up on the volunteer gardens, I have six days to weed all the beds here. They have already had a good once over. I also might have company for a few hours later this week, and she might have to weed with me.
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Allan helped Patty by patching the leak in her catio roof…he hopes. It was a little complicated to figure out where the water is coming from. They were visited by a neighbouring cat, JoJo.
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He watered the Norwood garden today, getting the hoses working and weeding. Their white lilac is blooming.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc07523.jpeg?w=481)
Then he weeded the greenhouse entry area, where we are going to put a plant table that will block the greenhouse on the sale days.
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The first photo that I took today was when Tony H. and Scott stopped by to pick up a couple of empty hanging baskets that I had for him, and I made my first sale: a lavender and two agaves.
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Allan went on to finish weeding the cat memorial garden and along the back behind the pond and garden boat, a very difficult area overhung with Paul’s Himalayan Musk rose.
Before (yesterday):
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04423.jpeg?w=640)
during:
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02723.jpg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc07525.jpeg?w=640)
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after:
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04430.jpeg?w=640)
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc04428.jpeg?w=640)
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He finished it off with the mulch he had made by chipping branches. He has now weeded three of the most difficult, or kind of boring, areas….two patios and the overhung and rocky cat memorial area. (Mary the mom cat is buried there. I have not been able to put her sons, Smoky and Frosty’s, ashes there, or Calvin’s.)
Two cats watching like bookends:
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02732.jpg?w=640)
I planted a pink daylily, a mystery plant (maybe a rudbeckia cultivar), a tiny sword fern, and moved my new Silphium to a place where it has room to get 8 feet tall. And I got a photograph of my mystery plant and asked about it on the Plant Idents group on Facebook. We shall see if I get an expert answer by the time I finish typing this post.
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[The response is that it is probably enchanter’s nightshade, Circaea canadensis, said to be easy to pull, which is good to hear, and another source says its seeds will stick to your clothes or your pet’s fur in summer, not so good to hear. If that ID is correct, it is definitely not available from the nurseries from which I order, so it appeared all on its own!]
Just before watering, in a moment of garden appreciation I saw a dead branch on one of the big volunteer red elderberries and went to cut it.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02724.jpg?w=640)
This worries me. I hope it is not verticillium wilt. I think I lost my beloved cutleaf elderberry to something bad like that, starting with one branch dying back.
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My pink camassia is still blooming.
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Danger Tree bed with Impatiens omeaina being too, too wonderful. To think I tried for so long to find a place where it would thrive!
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While hand watering my precious new blue potato vine (Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin’) outside the table gate, I looked up and saw that my olearia (traversii?) is covered with flower buds. Every year before I have missed the flowers because it flowers on Alicia’s side. I will watch it more closely this year.
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Allan pulled and tied a fully budded rose cane that was shading the potato vine.
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The round table top is why we call this west facing gate the table gate.
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I couldn’t get in there because it required scrambling past a pile of river rocks that I long for the time to place in the garden.
Paul’s Himalayan Musk rose is covered with buds but will likely not be blooming by open garden days.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02736.jpg?w=640)
Underneath the olearia on the inside of the fence is the golden Cistus ‘Mickie’.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02737.jpg?w=640)
In the front garden, I remembered to admire the Ribes speciosum that has been flowering for months.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02738.jpg?w=640)
Its red flowers are reminiscent of fuchsias and beloved of hummingbirds.
![](https://tanglycottage.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dsc02739.jpg?w=640)
I did some weeding at the end of the day and hope to be able to focus on it from now on, after tomorrow’s work day.
You are flat tack now getting ready for your garden open and plant sale. Wishing you perfect weather and enthusiastic visitors and shoppers!
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I hope that isn’t wilt too. It is very disappointing when wilt breaks out.
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