The beauty of time spent gardening

Last weekend was nearly perfect. Yes, it was hot and humid, because it's Missouri. But I found reasons to be outside nearly the whole time. On top of that, I got to visit and work in a very beautiful garden in Leawood, KS, another suburb of Kansas City, but this one is south of the city. I live on the eastern edge of KC.

This is the front of the home surrounded by the garden that I visited. You get a sense even here that it is lush and full, spilling out of it's borders.

A walk around one side of the home takes you past large terraced dogwoods and an immense oakleaf hydrangea bearing it's beautiful blooms that are just now fading to pink. You can see in this photo how much this gardener loves hostas. This is a tiny sampling of the never-ending variety that thrive here. The gardens behind the home are edged in this lovely red brick forming a neat edge that a mower's wheels can ride along easily.

Through this arch there is a shade garden filled, not only with hostas, but also with many varieties of Japanese maples and other shade-tolerant shrubs. A small patio in this space is surrounded by a large and obviously thriving variety of shade-loving perennials. The space was cool and inviting.

I came to this garden to help a long-time gardener/owner who felt she'd gotten a little behind in her planting and weeding. As you can see, the garden still looks lovely, there being very little that seems untended. I think  that's because this gardener is truly a lover of beautiful plants and over many years has amassed a collection of them that gives a visitor like me an eyeful of beauty everywhere she looks. With so many plants a weed has little chance of being noticed - and to be honest, there just weren't a lot of weeds.

We spent most of our time working around this area, exposing the brick edging. Behind these large, established plants is a terrace with two archways covered with climbing roses and other vines. One of these arches led to steps made of railroad ties. Standing beneath the arch I could hear birds playing in the vines entwined above me, very comfortable that this was their space. It was near midday when I was there and in the shade of the vines the air was cool. I succeeded in spending a lot of time making sure those steps in the shade were as clean as possible. It was nice under there and now there should be very few weeds obscuring the path.

In this photo the tall arching hydrangeas and the flowing grasses create a beautiful contrast to the lawn. And look at the canvas cart sitting in the grass. This belongs to this garden's owner. I love this gardener's tool cart. She has everything in there - even a skinny retractable rake. I'd never seen one of those.

This, I think, is my favorite spot. Behind the Ming house is a circular pond. The pond was constructed many years before by sinking a stock tank into the ground. There is a waterfall, but it isn't running. You can see on the left a threadleaf Japanese maple and a young ginkgo biloba that edge the pond. I remember what looked like a miniature juniper and other pretty ground covers helping to create an oriental feel. It's a very pretty space.

I enjoyed my visit to this garden. It was inspiring. I'm impressed by this gardener's love of plants which is obvious in the variety she has collected. I'm hoping to return and explore more soon. Maybe I can help get the waterfall going again?? I'd like that.

The definition of friendship

I think I've figured it out. A friend is someone who will spend two afternoons (basically, his whole weekend) in the hot sun pulling weeds with you in your garden and...  make you think he's enjoyed himself.

Here is the vegetable garden after we finished work on Sunday. So it really didn't take two more weeks of frustration to get my grabgrass-overrun vegetable garden back into some semblance of neatness at all. It just took one very nice friend with time to share with me. 

The weather even liked me last weekend. It rained a bunch on Friday night, so the soil was soft but not soaked. Ah, to pull a weed and get the roots, too, on the first try - that makes me happy.

I think pulling weeds is very, very good for me (and friends are even better). 

Gardening therapy

My life has been pretty much a mess lately. A lot is changing, people going and coming, plans that fall through, things that break, and there never seems to be enough time to adjust. Even in the best of times life can be crazy. Right now I've got a bunch of both the best and the worst.

And, of course, my garden - especially the vegetable garden - is suffering from my lack of time and attention. In this photo you can see that the crab grass has officially overtaken the space. 

Yep, it's basically mostly grass.

But here's the great thing. When I get overwhelmed and overwrought - just so frustrated I don't know what to do - pulling weeds is great therapy. There is something very soothing about yanking a huge ugly clump of crabgrass out, roots and all. It helped that we had a nice rain the night before. That way I didn't have the added frustration of leaving roots behind. It all came out relatively easy. On top of that I spent some quiet time listening to birds and bugs. There's nothing more soothing than that.

And, not only did I feel a whole bunch better, but I also rescued some pepper plants. About 2 more weeks of frustration and I might just have the whole thing cleaned up :-)

Surviving in spite of the heat

The heat has been nearly unbearable and lack of rain has caused everything in the garden to wilt. In spite of the sad, droopy leaves and burned up flowers, the garden is still attractive to many.

The American goldfinches have been flocking to the mass of purple coneflowers in the island garden. I'm having fun at my kitchen window these days seeing how many I can count among the flowers.

What surprised me, though, is that I'm also seeing hummingbirds around the coneflowers. I wouldn't have thought those dried up flowers would be attractive to them. The Missouri Department of Conservation puts out a calendar, the Missouri Natural Events calendar, that says hummingbirds are preparing to migrate and to look for increased numbers around feeders. Their increased numbers are very evident at my place.

We finally got a little rain yesterday. I like seeing the plants looking refreshed. Their sad, stressed look over the last two dry weeks was stressful for me. Yes, I worry over them like children. But, keeping true to my goal of establishing a more natural space, I avoided watering. Only the viburnums planted near the street got water. They looked very close to death, but appear to have recovered.

Now I just have to decide how to make the coneflower garden pretty without driving away the goldfinches.

Pond happenings

My pond is a real blessing this time of the year. In my part of Missouri we need rain and it's scorching hot. Everything is shriveled and dry - except the pond.

In the photo above you can see one of the reasons I'm loving my pond. I get an occasional waterlily bloom to brighten the day. Only one of the 3 water lilies in my pond has bloomed regularly this summer. I bought this one 1/2 price from a grower that sets up a stand in the parking lot of my grocery store. Amazingly, it appears much healthier than the pink one that cost 3 times as much from my local garden center. I figure I'm lucky to get blooms at all since all three are new this year.

I've also noticed two bullfrogs inhabiting my pond. Last night this frog (or maybe it was the other one - I can't tell them apart) was sitting outside the water. And today he was out again. I would have thought the rocks would be too hot. But maybe hot is refreshing for frogs.

In the quietest times, it's fun to search the pond to see if I can spy both frogs. I'm usually lucky to see one. They like hiding in wait for unfortunate dragonflies. I actually saw them catch one. I had no idea until that day that they would leap into the air to get their dinner. It made a pretty good splash and surprised the heck out of me.

Here's one in a more normal setting in some grass near the waterfall. Pretty sneaky, I think.

A walk in the woods

Today I walked a trail through a nearby park, Landahl Park, and saw a couple of plants flowering along the path. I'm always on the lookout for flowers that look good in the shade and one in particular seems to love it. It's American bellflower. I've seen the plants listed as Campanulastrum americanum and also as Campanula americana. The Missouri Plants website lists it under the second name.

It's blue flowers are striking and open along straight standing stems. The ones I saw today were growing very near the path. I imaging with a little more light and planted in groups these flowers will make a beautiful show.

The other shade-loving plant was new to me. It had small sweet pea-like flowers on branched stems. I'll have to bring my camera on my next walk to snap a few pictures. My memory might not have captured enough details to identify this one :-)

Fame Flower

Finally, my camera cooperated and I got a photo of this great flower. It's only about 1/2" across, but it's intense magenta color makes a big impact. It's fame flower (Talinum calcynium). I tucked these little succulents into the gaps in the rocks that border my pond and they are thriving. The tiny plants are now filling the spaces in the rocks and every afternoon I'm happy to see many of these pretty little flowers bobbing in the air around the edges of my pond.

We've had a pretty wet summer so it's still hard to say exactly how drought tolerant they are. Looks like there's a dry week coming up. I guess I'll find out.