New Hosta Bed

One thing I managed to get done between rains was to plant the west berm of  the living  room foundation.
This has been an eyesore that worried me for a long  time.    It finally occurred to me that it would be a good spot for a hosta bed.
I kept my fingers crossed it would not be filled with rocks and roots.  I should have known better.  This was a fill of lush black Ozark soil with nary a rock nor root  to be  found.  The previous owner was a gardener, bless her heart.

I have three more  to put in and then I will mulch it heavily.

These were very nice plants and  some are giant  varieties that will take 5 years to mature.  How is that for optimism!  I  bought them from Gilbert Wild and Son in Sarcoxie, Mo.  I have bought lots of daylilies and iris from  them before.

There are 18 in all. I have two varieties of vinca here and  there that may fight  with them.  I will have to be watchful.

I also bought another rose, Neptune, a lavender hybrid tea that was at the peach orchard.  I couldn't resist the fragrance.  It is a huge potted thing and I want to find  it a spot that  I walk by often.  I am thinking on the east side of the smoke house by clematis Nelly Moser.  This would be on my way to to the garden gate.

I am slowly weeding,  feeding and mulching around some plants:  I have done rugosa rose Blanc double de Coubert, two clematis, and the new Red Haven Peach tree.  I still have lots of bags of mulch left so will be working along as  the weather  moderates.

I promised myself I  wouldn't expand the gardening but what I am doing is trying to consolidate things so that there will be fewer beds more intensely planted and less to mow around....wish me luck. 

Four days have slipped by me.....without posting.  I do jot a brief  entry in my written journal to try to keep track.

The most important news is the vet came Thursday and de-horned Willow's two heifers.  He also preg checked Willow and she is due for mid-August.  I thought I wrote on the calendar when we thought she was bred but I am not finding it.  I will take the vet's word and will dry her up  around July 15.

We sold some calves and were very pleased with the prices.

Mostly we have been just keeping up....mowing, some weeding, tilling and other mundane gardening chores.

We are both looking forward to next weeks promise of cooler weather.  Surely I can get the rest of the garden in.  DH will be setting cattle panels in the new orchard garden for the tomatoes.

We had the first humming birds yesterday evening so I put out a feeder this morning and already have seen two different birds.  They are late this year and I have seen no Baltimore Orioles yet.

In my daily tour of the yard this morning, I found more self-seeded foxgloves.   I hope I can keep these going for a long time.  I love the tall spiky look in the flower bed.



and more at the end of the porch,



I think the clematis are  more lush than last year.

This is the one behind the Buff Beauty Rose that I showed last week.
It is in full glory now,


This is a closeup of the nigella bloom.  I have a huge spread of these by the porch, all self-seeded.



Garden Pests:

I thought I had escaped potato beetles this year....not so.  Several plants were stripped so out came the Sevin.

Also the dreaded baby slugs have devastated the hostas and this was after putting out egg shells and  grapefruit halves.  I have now spread wood ashes around them.....I should have spread a light coating of sharp sand over the entire bed before they broke ground.  They are only 1/4 to 1/2 inch long and it is easy to miss them. 

Garden Disease:

Several of the annual poppies are curling over and dying....looks just like fire blight that I am having on some of the fruit trees.  My feeling is I should just cut down those trees affected and make my gardening life easier!