Garden journal

I've been watching the decomposition of this peony with more than a little fascination. This picture was taken on Thursday -- today, Sunday, it's definitely time to throw it away so I think I will take one more picture this afternoon and then do exactly that.

We were going to do a dawn raid on Longwood Gardens, but when we got up it was raining, so we cancelled the car rental. Since then it's been alternately sunny, cloudy, and showery. I got a whole mess of small stuff done out back, viz.:

1. Pulled out a heap of corydalis from the planter it has colonized joyously. I needed to give my surviving moonflower vine seedling some space. (I planted three seeds -- one never came up, one came up but wilted, and the third clearly needs the space.) Gave the planter a quarter turn so that the moonflower vine is at the front and thus gets a clear shot at the light.
   
2. Staked up the oversized miniature rose planted in the same planter as the corydalis and the moonflower vine.
   
3. Took some of the corydalis I dug up and planted it here and there so that it can continue to colonize.
   
4. Potted up the rosemary that is sort of training itself as a standard -- but on a slant -- so that the stem is now straight up. It needed the space and some more soil, too -- it got dry way too fast in a 6" azalea pot.
   
5. Re-potted one of the two little boxwoods I'd been given as a plant dividend at the Hort Soc members day the year before last. When I potted them the first time I didn't have pots of equal size, but I've since located one to match the larger of the two pots.
   
6. Brought the peony back into the sun and the rain now that it has finished blooming; also cut off the spent blooms.
   
7. Took two potted-up cuttings of 'looking glass' begonia and potted them in one container so they look nice and lush.
   
8. Brought up all the remaining plants that had been under Grow Lights, some of which appear to have barely survived after growing up against the lights. Two coleus broke apart in my hands so I am back to rooting cuttings. A spider plant and a mess of wandering jew (Tradescantia zebrina) got potted up and set in sconces on the fence.
   
9. Found a place where the blighted hippeastrum will get the necessary sunlight but I won't have to look at them because they're hidden by an exuberant mass of Virginia creeper.
   

In between, I did boring things -- two loads of wash, e.g.