New York Renovator

My gardens always come into beautiful bloom about this time of year. Here are my pride and joy– the gorgeous Stargazer Lily. The scent is knock-off-your-socks heavenly.

The Asian lilies are beautiful, too.

Here is my beloved Secret Garden on full bloom, finally!

Mandeville plant with Black-Eyed Susans.

My first year with grapes are doing well.

Unfortunately, the bugs are loving our grapes as much as we are. I have been beating back the Japanese beetles (HATE those things, wish they’d stayed in Japan), and now Irecently found out there’s a bug that loves grapes so much, it’s called the GRAPEVINE Beetle! Gah!!

I got a measly pepper from my plant. Peppers just don’t do well here. This is my second pepper from three plants over three years. OK, I quit now. I’ll stick to the turnips and potatoes!

And I’m thrilled to see my young apple tree loaded with small fruits! The bugs, of course, are getting there before us. :S

And we’re still working on expanding our Secret Garden. More on that later! It will look so beautiful!!!

Because I have perennial gardens, everything is still green. My gardens really don’t come into blooming fruition until mid- to late-July. It doesn’t help that I have a lot of blue and purple plants, too: Butterfly Bush, Blue Hydrangea, Veronica, Blue Rose of Sharon, Russian Sage, Purple Coneflower, etc etc, which tend to be late-bloomers. I have some lilies, however, and they add some really nice color in June/early July before the blues start to bloom. I just love lilies.

The Stella d’Oro lily is everywhere right now.

My Stargazer lilies are still buds. Oh wait until you see those! And they smell INCREDIBLE! They are my favorite lily. I can’t wait for them.

And here’s an old Scotch Rose. It was a diseased, fungus-laden bush here when I bought the house. I’d hacked it down to three inches high, expecting to remove it. But it stubbornly refused to die. Actually, I think my hacking invigorated it. So it grows, and blooms.

And here you see the peas and turnips growing right along. Along the weeds, that is. :S

It’s been such a crazy spring and summer– soaking wet and COLD! I had to start my garden in JUNE, for pete’s sake, because we had frost and it was too rainy to plant. Even now, it’s very cold for July. Going to drop down to 50 tonight!

So we’re starting June with ANOTHER frost advisory tonight. :-p and double :-p. We’ve had frost advsiories this late before, but it is very rare. I had the boys cover the tomatoes, eggplant, and pepper plants with buckets. The rest of the plants will have to fend for themselves, as they are too small and too spread out for me to do much.

It’s been a soggy, cold spring. In a way, it’s been a lot like late winter. I think it was warmer in January than it has been now (we had a flukey warm spell in January). Weird!

Anyway, we’re still picking the sawfly larva and cleaning up the flower gardens. I was really hoping that the local bird population would pick up on the sawfly, finding them a tasty alternative to our New York bugs; but the birds avoid them like some avoid colon cleanser… no such luck. *sigh* So we go out almost every day, to pluck pluck pluck the little devils off our pines.

My lilac flowers have expired. I love lilac season, I wish it was longer! But it is good while it lasts. And even when they spill their spent blooms all over my garden paths like lavendar tears on stones.

Lilies are next. I love lilies, and have a vast assortment in my gardens: day lilies, Stella D’Oro, Asian, Stargazer Oriental, Tiger, and more.

I picked up a pot of wilting, blackened Calladiums at Lowe’s a week ago. They were on sale for a dollar because they had been left uncovered at the Garden Center during the last frost we suffered. I put them in the ground and they are doing marvelously. I hope they survive tonight.

And here’s another pretty sight: my Livvy. She can’t go outside, and watches our gardening activities from the window. And she watches most pitifully, too, with meows of protest over her unfair confinement.

So spring is almost over. Here’s hoping we have a warmer summer!

There’s no need for a piece of sculpture in a home (or garden) that has a cat.

I saw my cat, Fuzzy (who is completely recovered!), sitting in the cool garden bed today. Just thought I’d snap a few photos.

I assume he was aware of my presence, but he never turned around to see.

Is he hunting birds? A mouse? (He’s a terrible hunter, btw). Provoking our other cat, Milo? Or just taking a late afternoon siesta?

We like to think perhaps he is enjoying the flowers. He’s a quirky cat. He sometimes pads his way to a portion of our lawn dense with violets, and plunks down in the soft grass. As if intoxicated, he breathes in the flowery perfume with deep cat sniffs. He’s such a corker!

As much as I hate to call gardens a “trend” (I think they should be more a “lifestyle”), the Victory Garden of the 1940s is having a comeback. The nice thing about dirt is that it’s everywhere. And where’s dirt, there can be a garden!

Some call them “recession gardens.”

Others label them revivals of the Victory Gardens, an early 1940s campaign that helped people put more food on the table during hard economic times.

Whatever the label, one fact is known _ people are growing more of their own vegetables this year.

Seed specialists like Burpee report vegetable seed sales are up 25 to 30 percent, and local garden centers support that claim.

Seeds can be an economic way to begin a garden but National Gardening Association experts advise gardeners to be realistic about their expectations. A $70 investment in a garden yields about $600 in produce for the year _ not thousands like some seed companies claim.

Gardening is a lot of work, don’t be fooled. But it is WORTH it. And it has many more benefits than eating fresh veggies. It teaches science and botany to the kids, it gets everyone out and exercising, it saves money, there are fewer chemicals and toxins placed in the ground, and eating veggies is much more slimming than ingesting those weight loss pills.

I have my “seed stash” all set this year. I bought extra seeds, too, for emergency planting if necessary. I just don’t trust the government or the food supply (those nasty CAFOs) anymore. I’m a long way off having a bomb shelter, but I really believe we need to prepare for the worst (at any time, really), and it’s high time to get off relying on the government and their Big Business Buddies for our food and basic needs.

Another thing to think of is that gardens and local food supplies can benefit the entire community– you can always trade your freshly-grown cantaloupe with your neighbor, for his eggs from his chickens, or your other neighbor’s apples from their fruit trees.

I can’t see anything but good that can come with independent gardening: good for the gardeners, good for the community, good for the nation!

“April Showers” is right. After a phenomenally warm start to the month, the past several days have been soggy and cold. We saw snow Saturday, and more is forecast for Wednesday this week. And in between, it rains. I had hopes of getting some of the spring yard work done this week, but forget it now. It’s no fun raking old leaves through the mud! Some of my bloggy friends in Texas are reporting an END to their spring and are now entering the SUMMER season. That just blows my mind! My tulips are slowly, slowly crawling out of the mud, upward.

The only thing with any buds right now is the lilac. I wanted to get a photo, but it turned out poorly.

I do like shade gardens, so the non-stop rain isn’t too disappointing. I like the way wet rocks look when they are nestled in ivy and moss.

The animals are restless, too. My cats pace at the door, longing to go out, but I won’t let them out in the rain and mud. The dog loves the mud and it is impossible to keep her out of it, so she needs constant bathing. Outdoors, the robins and bluejays are here. We have a feeder and they have been very happy dipping into the birdseed while we all wait for the sun to come back and dry things up.

I bought my vegetable seeds and am waiting until the ground warms (and dries up) to plug them into the soil. Everything is in a “wait” mode. It’s too cold and damp to actually DO anything; yet it’s too warm now to be patient while we wait. Such is spring in the Northeast!

Snow. And rain. Yesterday we had ice and rain. Then about dinnertime, the air was filled with little icy round pellets, very fine but crusty. They made a hissing noise as they plopped from the sky onto the crusty snow on the ground.

This morning I looked out my window and saw that the little pellets had changed to this:

That poor, lonely swingset. It won’t see any company for quite a few months yet, at this rate!

Even the birds are hiding. That’s my new birdfeeder set, by the way (I posted about it here). The bluejays love it. :-p But I hate bluejays. lol.

The snow was very wet and heavy. I shouldn’t be carrying my camera out in it– big flakes the size of cornflakes were peppering down on me. My camera didn’t do a good job of photographing the flakes, but I was quickly getting covered as I stood out there. I had to get a photo of my poor, suffering yews. They look very sad, don’t they? Good thing they are so stringy they won’t snap from the weight.

So once again, it’s a day for simmering foods, warm blankets, and fresh bread baking! I intend on making Baked Ziti for dinner this evening, with a select wine of the month beverage, or maybe just milk, lol. The nice thing about winter is the coziness. I do miss the sunshine and green plants and the freedom of going out without 15 layers of clothing… but winter has its beauty, too.

Have a great day!

We had a freaky, surprise snowstorm this morning (the third consecutive storm on a Wednesday). It was unexpected (well, that just means we didn’t know it was coming until forecasters started chattering about it on Monday). Usually we have a good four to five days before we know a “big one” is on the way. I think this caught everyone by surprise. I remember hearing 1-2 inches on Monday’s forecast, then by Tuesday afternoon it magically became 6-8 inches!

I got up extremely early- 4:30am. Just couldn’t get back to sleep. So as the daylight appeared, I went out to snap a few photos.

I like snowy mornings. Everything is so hushed. The street lights cast a warm, mellow glow on the streets, and even though it’s cold outside, you really don’t notice the chill. I wish my camera could have captured the scene. It was beautiful, with great big wet snowflakes spraying down, and illuminated by the  golden-yellow street lamps. And not a sound in the air except the very faint whirring of falling snow. Very peaceful.

Those are my yews, sagging sadly with the snow. Poor things. I considered, for a fleeting moment, of diving into the deep snow and shaking them free from their icy burdens, but I realized that to do so, the snow would transfer from them to me. Um. The yews are to be sacrificed for the greater good: me. Heehee.

This is the view of my arbor, from the back of the yard. I couldn’t get any closer because I didn’t want to trudge through a foot of snow. I’m so lazy at 6:30am! But all that trudging might give me Plantar Fasciitis or something! lol.

So we’re in the house again, today. It’s pretty cold (10 degrees F), probably too cold to shove the kids outside to play (and shovel). We’ll see. Maybe I can bribe them with the prospect of sparkling hot cider and hot chocolate…

Weird. It’s WEIRD, people. Lake effect is that weird weather pattern that swoops down from the Great Lakes (Erie and Ontario) onto the unsuspecting citizens of Upstate New York.

About 15 minutes after I posted this post with this photo– showing ZERO visibility during heavy snow squalls with vicious winds…

This appeared out my window. Five minutes later. Wild!

Before:

After:

There’s an old saying here in Upstate: If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes. LOL!

I have a narrow plot of land on one side of the house– it’s only about 20 feet wide, and it is the only thing between the house and the parking lot next door. So I’ve been developing this area for the past few years. I call it my Secret Garden because I have planted tall flowering shrubs that will eventually grow up and over the arbor I set there, making a hallway from the front yard to the back yard; it will look like a tunnel of flowering foliage. Right now, everything is still rather low, but it’s made great progress.

Because it is a narrow area, and because the children love to run around the house and chase each other in circles, I’ve been building a concrete walkway through this little garden. Last year I blogged about how the children gave me a Quikrete concrete form and some bags of concrete for my birthday. My husband and I installed about 5′ of the walkway. The children and I finished the walkway course up to the arbor. (We intend to extend the garden, and the walkway, beyond the arbor, in the future). It was the first time that the kids got to work with concrete, and they did a terrific job! I’m also very impressed with the ease and durability of the Quikrete walkway form. Although the walkway has shifted a little from last winter’s frost heave, the walkway remains in place and is still in perfect condition. I think we will continue using the Quikrete form method elsewhere in the yard. I love it!

We bought the regular concrete mix, but I added a third of a bag of mortar mix to the concrete mix, to make the mix more sticky.

The most laborious part of the entire project is making sure your concrete is thoroughly mixed well– no dry spots. We made sure the concrete has the consistency of mud pies. When you chop the wet mix with your hoe, it should leave “hills” that do not blop from too much moisture, or look too crusty and dry.

You set the walkway form on the ground and fill it up. It is best to chop the concrete into the sides and edges of each unit, to make sure there are no gaps or air bubbles.

We smooth it out with a trowel.

And carefully lift up the form.

Here we are, making progress. we used 5 bags of 80 pound concrete mix, with one full bag of mortar mix between them. This got us about 12 feet of walkway.

The crowning moment is signing your handiwork. And we pressed a few flowers into the concrete, too.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we will lay some large field stones from the property along the pathway, to give the walkway added stability. Then I will sprinkle sand mix between the walkway cracks and wet the mix. This will fill the areas between the “stones” and stabilize them. This part of the yard will be completely done! Woooo!