Underdone bluefish / garden journal

[lblanchard]

Underdone Bluefish gave me the day off yesterday -- I was feeling pretty good, biked on two separate errands. But it's making a repeat appearance, with low fever and TMI effects. Not as bad as the other day, though, and I've just taken drugs so I may feel fine pretty soon.

I looked around our little back yard and saw some progress I will want to chart.

• The oenothera are just about done. There are two sad flowers on one plant. I deadheaded the rest but I don't think this plant repeats.
  
  
• The rose campion are still going strong, although I will want to deadhead at some point over the weekend. I also want them to set a little seed to keep them going. They're biennials or short-lived perennials (it varies) in our climate.
  
  
• Pansies are losing their pizzazz but coleus and begonias are coming on. I pulled one pansy to make room for one of my overwintered variegated basil.
  
  
• I stuck an assortment of cuttings in an old window box planter in our alley -- Ipomoea batata, the chartreuse one; Tradescantia pallida; a few begonias; a few coleus -- all cuttings from cuttings overwintered indoors. Most of them are looking very nice. They should be well rooted and ready to set out in the front window boxes next weekend.
  
  
• The Happy Anniversary House Leek (aka Sempervivum or hen and chicks) has something like 12 little leeklets coming on.
  
  
• The green hostas have put out abundant flower stalks and the buds are about to open. I am hoping for pollination. I grew hostas from seed once; the seeds are papery like Hippeastrum seeds.
  
  
• I cut the icky bits of certain leaves from three of my Hippeastrum last week. No signs of ick on any of the remaining leaves.
  
  
• There's a mystery daylily thinking about blooming. Judging from the slenderness of the most mature bud, my money is on Martian Invader (Hemerocallis fulva 'flore plena' dug up from Grovers Mill NJ where, if you'll recall, Orson Wells' Martians landed in 1938). I was afraid I had lost it all in the daylily relocation of 2005-06.
  
  
• I only had four successful seed starts from the expensive bicolor impatiens I got from Thompson & Morgan, but they're now in the ground and looking as though they plan to do some serious growing. If they're as nice as advertised I will overwinter some.
  
  
• Moonflower vine is marching up the wisteria trunk exactly as I had envisioned.
  
  
• The prostrate rosemary fragment that fell off the mother plant has rooted. Bonus plant!
  
  
• The little oak tree is putting out its second leaf whorl. What the heck am I going to do with it?
  
  
• The iris thinnings look like they'd benefit from more sun but are otherwise okay, no sign of disease or bugs, so by July they'll be ready to give away
  
  
• We saw some male fireflies looking for girlfriends and possibly confused by our solar lights, but there are still no females. Kidnapping may be called for yet.
  

And now I'm all sweaty, which I think means the drugs are kicking in and the fever is breaking, so perhaps I'll feel more like working.