Campanula & day lilies, hosta & lilyturf & irises
Mitch & Joan dug up some campanula for me today. I planted it right in front of the white bleeding heart, on the left curve of the perennial cutting garden. The cutting garden looks nice right now, with tickseed and spiderwort being all yellow and purple in one area, and forget-me-nots and the lantana being various colors elsewhere. There's also some evening primrose growing to the right of the spiderwort on the right side that surprised me. I never remember what I planted in that garden.
Today was mostly about daylilies. I went out to the daylily patch and divided the ones that had grown a lot and filled in empty spots in the hillside with the divisions. I want to have enough to bring to Maine with me next week-end but they honestly aren't that filled out yet. I think I might go buy some for Maine to intersperse with the orange tiger lilies. Something that will go nicely with them, something I can plant in a few patches in the middle.
Mitch gave me some hostas and I worked on the hosta patch under the camper-down elm. The ones Matt gave me have all taken but I should have divided a few of those clumps before I set them in. I did this today and interspersed them with the ones Mitch gave me, so now I have four or five varieties all nicely arrayed. When I was done arranging them I had two clumps left over and I'm bringing those to Maine with me.
The goutweed garden wasn't something I was going to tackle this year, but Mitch gave me a whole lot of irises and lilyturf that will do nicely there. I plan to put bulbs in this fall, anyway. May as well tackle that bed while I'm there for two weeks. I bought some garden soil to haul up for this project.
The other thing Mitch has for me are some old-fashioned hydrangeas. They aren't the fancy modern snowballs, these have sort of flat flowers that are very white in Mitch's yard, but very prunable and fragrant. I think they'd go well on that middle tier. He's going to dig some out for me to bring to Maine, too.
B. finished setting stones for my stone walkway today and I set in the creeping phlox I got from my mother and some thyme that Mitch and Joan were happy to have me edge off their walkway for them.
I repaid them with some daylily divisions. They're so funny, the way they love to swap plants. It works for me, I far prefer to get plants from neighbors as I know they are proven to do well in my garden's conditions. They have a bit of a hoarding disorder going on, collecting spare ANYTHING. I gave them an astilbe a few years ago that I got to visit in two places in their lawn today. They have a problem with nearly everything that spreads - they are constantly dividing things to make room for new plants. Suits me. But, boy, they must water a TON.
Small Boy helped me with watering today as I had to water a ton myself. It was 95 degrees and sunny and this was my gardening day so I sucked it up and did it, but, wow. Lots of water was needed for all involved. Small Boy also helped me pick raspberries and he weeded the strawberry patch with me. He's not usually called upon to weed - that's my job. But since I'm allergic to strawberries and that patch is entirely for him he gets to do that one. I helped, mostly just as a teaching thing. My children should all know how to weed a garden. Fact is, though, I kind of like weeding. They don't get a lot of experience with it.
Speaking of my children having experience, C. is really rocking the summer vegetables. She was delighted to find a kohlrabi in the CSA share. She showed up at our house on Saturday and creamed the kale and swiss chard for her brothers. She made garlic scape pesto with her new food processor. She brought a bucket of compost from her apartment to throw in my compost bin. I suspect she doesn't know how weird she is.
Her boyfriend is flying in for two weeks and they're going to join us for the week-end in Maine. She says that he's never had lobster. Well. If there's one thing we do well on an island in Maine, it's a lobster dinner. I have all the gear there, including a steamer for the mussels we'll collect from the rocks at low tide. We'll buy the lobsters from Covey when he comes in with fresh ones around noon. I'm so glad we can give him the REAL experience.