A Strong Wind's Gonna Blow

Egad. It's been awhile. Three weeks feels like an eternity in the Zickiverse of sharing. Sharing beauty and all the good stuff makes me happy. Conversely, when I don't have time to sit down and edit (or even upload) my photos; when I don't have time to think about what it all means, because it's going by too fast, I get kind of unhappy, restless, blocked. So. Here I am. Had a really hideous derecho (the second this week) hit yesterday afternoon and we'll be out of power for a long time. For those unfamiliar with the word, a derecho is a powerful, fast-moving storm front that moves like an express train for hundreds of miles. It's organized. It means business, and its business is destruction. The same storm, which apparently originated here in central Ohio, made it all the way to Connecticut and south through New Jersey, wreaking havoc all the way.  Generally with a storm like this I figure on 3-5 days of outage, but who knows. Maybe we'll get lucky this time. But I'm settled in for a long haul. The rain cooled things off, thank goodness, so I'm not missing the AC.

 

photo from Washington Electric Cooperative

Broken pole on the line feeding the Rinard Mills substation, which is ours. It's gonna be awhile. Snapped like a matchstick, it was. The winds were in excess of 60 mph and possibly as high as 80. They were straight-line, not tornadic, but there are trees down everywhere; there is a layer of shredded leaves on everything, plastered all over the north side of the house and carpeting the grass. The roads from town are covered with a sticky, twiggy salad of macerated leaves, punctuated by limbs and trunks of trees, now being removed by township trustees. My bonsais blew off their bench; some pots broke; my giant 7' geranium toppled and got the drastic pruning it had been needing. I'll spare youa photo; it's too sad to see the rubble of a magnificent plant. But it's strong; it'll be fine in no time.

My planties are bruised and tattered but they're OK and so am I. My friends the Warren boys lost a new shed they'd built. Not nice. Amazingly, Bill was at the house around dinnertime when it blew in, trying to fix my unfixably busted rider mower deck, and he was able to move a lot of plants under an awning so there wasn't much damage. Not only that, but by the time I got back from errands in town (where it sprinkled a little), he had chainsawed a large dead tree that came down across the driveway and already had the generator up and running and a spaghetti tangle of extension cords running to key appliances. I would have been totally screwed without him. I wouldn't have even been able to get up the driveway to unload the groceries, into the fridge that had no power. Trainwreck. I can do a lot of things, but chainsawing isn't one of them (yet), and my conversance with balky gasoline engines is low. Sorry DOD, I should be better at all this by now.

 I was so thankful for Bill, and the way he threw himself into solving the problems the storm wrought. After we'd done all the stuff that has to be done to get power to two houses, we all had a cookout at 10 pm, with Zicklettuce picked before it was pulverized. It was nice. But country life ain't for sissies. You have to be ready to take care of stuff, and to be without power for days on end. And you have to be cool about it. You can't feel sorry for yourself. All you can do is deal with it. I finally broke down and bought a generator after a nine-day summer outage when temperatures were in the 90's. I remember emptying all the coin jars around the house, scraping up the $650 to buy it, used. And I've never felt helpless and cheated during a power outage since. Here I am, typing away on a powered laptop, with Internet, and the fridge is humming away and my food isn't rotting and needing to be cooked NOW or thrown out. Ugggh summer outages!! Nor did my greenhouse blow away this time. It's held together with two-year-old rotten Gorilla Tape, and I didn't lose a single pane. Go figure. I'm a little rattled, but hugely grateful, for it was a derecho in 2012 that took my Garden Pod away.

There are so many miracles here. I was already feeling particularly grateful yesterday afternoon (May 15) before I headed for town, because I'd seen a little place where dirt had been kicked out of a rotty place on our old garage. I mused that an animal of some size and strength had done that, because it was gravel, and there was a lot of it, and gravel is heavy. So I'd been thinking about that, and keeping an eye on this spot. And lo and behold as I was headed to my car, I spied a long thin blackish tail disappearing into the crevice. It could only have been a lizard, because it headed up into the rotted wood! (Snakes head down).  Lizards are scarce as hen's teeth around here; I feel lucky if I see one a summer.

 

As it happened, I was planning to put the cargo carrier on the back of Liam's old Subaru so I could grab some straw bales on my trip into town. I went into that corner of the garage (the one that's rotting out) to get the cargo carrier and in the doorway of his most excellent rotty home, where he'd kicked out all the gravel, I spied this little gent looking back at me:

 Easily eight inches of magnificent (probably broad-headed) skink!! (Though I'm not ruling out a mature five-lined skink). Only the third skink sp. I've seen, and always in our garage! I had an adult female two summers ago, and before the kids were born I saw a huge mature male with a girth like a kielbasa, and a brilliant orange head, just inside the west door. Last summer I had a tame northern fence lizard taking water and mealworms out of tiny dishes in my garden supplies area. Swoon! It pays to have a rotten garage. Fabulous tenants like skinks, snakes, bats and Carolina wrens can make their way in and out with ease. You can't see it here, but his head and jaws were bright orange, and he had the brightest little eye, looking right into mine. How lucky can you get??

The other miracle that happened yesterday is that my dwarf pomegranate, which had been on a ceramic pedestal over a cement sidewalk outdoors, had finally achieved such an apex of magnificence that I decided I had to try to get some decent photos of it. It's a very difficult subject to shoot, because any background interferes with its tiny leaves and brilliant flowers. I have never found a good place to shoot it outside, and inside isn't much better. I see by the clock it's 4 pm...the derecho hit at 6:30.

So I took it off its pedestal and into my bedroom, and I finally found a background befitting its beauty.

 Its leathery waxy calyxes, with their ballerina tutus protruding, are such an impossibly bright dark neon orange as to be unbelievable.

 I got the shots I was after, and without much thought I decided to leave it there in the bedroom, so I could enjoy it for awhile before putting it back out on its pedestal on the sidewalk. I left for town, did all my errands, and came back to find that the derecho had hurled all my bonsais off their bench to the ground. Bill had picked them up and put them under an awning for protection. But this one and its bowl and the little mudmen would certainly have been shattered, falling from a high pedestal onto cement. I would have been so sad.

To me, this was a message, not to tot up your losses, but to be thankful for what you still have. I'm thankful to still have this precious little tree, blooming away, back outside now, but under my ever-watchful eye. You never know when a strong wind is going to blow it all down.

August Rocks: Garden Tour 1

The August cooldown is here. A Canadian air mass is holding sway and the air smells of hay and sweet wine. 

I took a garden tour last night after spending much of the day mowing, raking, weeding, and preening my flower beds. I don't do a lot of preening. There's too much of the other stuff to be done. 

I'm celebrating right now because I am no longer in pain. I returned home from New England to find two weeks' worth of grass growing wild on a saturated lawn. It had rained for most of the time I was away. I mowed it into soggy windrows, the mower gagging on the clumps, and Liam and I raked the whole damn yard the next day, after the sodden green wad of clippings had had a chance to not dry overnight. It was like raking wet cow manure. My lower back went into spasm from overuse and stayed that way for almost three weeks. Oddly enough, getting in and out of my car was the most painful thing I had to do. I'd sit and think about how I was going to complete the maneuver for about 30 seconds, then begin the process. I felt 100 years old. Having a complaining back affects almost everything you want to do. I send this message of hope out to back pain sufferers everywhere. It does heal. I mean, an overuse injury does. I also give you this link to Lawrence Gold's simple floor exercises which Liam and I did together. Not surprisingly, he healed a lot faster than I did. These exercises sped the process for both of us, for sure.

Anyway. Pain is boring. I wanted to take you on a little garden tour because the rain that brought the pain has also brought such beautiful flowers to my gardens.  We'll start at the front door.  I'm happy with this hanging basket. Supertunia "Honey" is finally showing some good color after being a bit bleached out for most of the summer. 

I don't think I bought a single lobelia plant this year. They're all seed volunteers from various planters and pots in the greenhouse, carefully picked out and nurtured in separate pots when they volunteer. That's how I roll--scrounging and saving, getting as much as I can for nothing.  I did buy some seeds of multicolored lobelias and was happy to get this one. I was going for the dark amethyst but the rabbits ate most of them to the ground. There's a theme here. If I want to grow rabbit candy, I have to elevate it.

The Achimenes are FINALLY blooming. They got a very late start thanks to freaking chipmunks (I'm looking at YOU, Tilda Sixbuttons!!) 

who climb my bonsai shelves and dig up the rhizomes to eat. Then they chew up the plants just to make sure everything is completely dead. 

I had this beautiful scheme this year to grow Pink Nighty plants for sale at the Marietta Farmer's Market. I had long planters all planted with my best rhizomes, saved back from being sold at my talks (I sold a passel of 'em this spring!). And chipmunks ate all but about 13 rhizomes. I know now I'll have to start them inside next year. I'm thinking about using the glassed in tower room as a sort of auxiliary greenhouse for such tender n' tasty things, when it's gotten too hot and sunny to have them in the greenhouse proper. 

This is "Pink Nighty," and man, oh man is it pink. Shocking Pink Nighty. The iPhone exaggerates, and takes away some of the nicer coral tones, but it is that bright!

I just love this little gesneriad. Adore it. And am so happy to finally have some abloom on the benches. I don't dare put them on the front porch. Tilda will definitely devour them, if Notch the bunny doesn't get there first. 

A chipmunk-planted black-oil sunflower came up amongst the evening primroses in the front bed. It's too tall for the front but it's so charming I let it stay. 

A first for me: Fuchsia magellanica, native to temperate parts of southern South America, and hardy in Ohio, started blooming in July! It usually waits until September. Don't know why, just grateful. And Hosta "June" is incredibly late to bloom, so I have this probably unrepeatable combo going in the front shade bed. Hummer heaven!

I absolutely love having a hardy fuchsia around. So durable, too. And it roots from cuttings in plain  water. What's not to love?

Moving on out from the front door, Chet pauses to make sure he is in the photo. You can see those big beautiful hibiscus thoroughly enjoying their summer at camp. They just love sleeping under the stars.

Creole Lady says YEAH!!

An awful photo of that gorgeous little dwarf pomegranate bonsai which is exceeding all expectations for flowers and fruit!!

It's got at least four garnet-red pommies about the size of cherry tomatoes and a continuing cascade of neon-orange ballerina tutu flowers in leathery calyxes. What an awesome plant!!

Let's head out along the garage sidewalk toward the vegetable garden. Rudbeckia "Goldsturm" is battling with a hardy hibiscus  for supremacy. I've about had it with the hibiscus. So big and leggy and woody and thuggish, and it makes babies everywhere. But the thought of digging it out makes my back twinge. Maybe I can poison it. :D

I'd really rather grow roses, zinnias, cosmos and Rudbeckia. The foliage to flower ratio is much better on those.

Yes. Dig out those hibiscus. I will help you. Well, I will supervise.

Look how his little paw is just striking the sidewalk. 

The Kindness of Friends

More blessings, showering down. My dear friend Donna from Virginia ordered some fragrant, colorful, sexy plants to be sent to me from Logee's Greenhouse.  One is a South American vine called Angel of the Night, Randia ruziana, described by Logee's as

One of the sweetest, most intoxicatingly fragrant flowers we have ever found, the white 8” long, tubular flowers have a 5-pointed petal that naturally bends but when unfolded reaches 5-6” across. The fragrance is very long-lasting. We picked a flower and dried it on a piece of paper. The next morning, after the flower had been discarded, the fragrance lasted for days on the paper. Another bonus: this winter bloomer will flower for two months or more. To bring Randia into bloom you must allow the flower buds to form in late summer and early fall on the old wood; therefore, only prune once flowering is complete. This South American native has an open branching habit and can be grown under moderate light. 

Hey. That works for me!! Fragrance that lasts for days from the imprint of a single flower? Ho-KAY!! Good plant pickin' Donna!!
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Here is Angel of the Night, newly arrived, with a little brindle Angel of the Morning for scale and cuteness.

The plants came in subfreezing temperatures, packed in Styrofoam with a chemical heat pack inside. 

In the same box was a hibiscus called The Path. It's a stunning yellow and red monster of a hibiscus, perfect in name and form. It's going to be a huge plant. I cannot wait.

Clearly, Chet Baker can wait. He's waiting anyway.

Randia (who lost some leaves to the too-hot heat pack, ironically) and The Path installed in the greenhouse, bringing it back to life...the freeze alert en garde.

Donna, you fill my heart. You're there every day for me and you send these fantastic plants on top of that. Weep. Thank you seems wholly inadequate, but it's what I've got.

But wait, there's more. A dear blog reader named Laura from California up and ordered me a gardenia. She told Jackson and Perkins she wanted one loaded with buds that would stink up the whole greenhouse. They obliged.

"Hi Julie. May this baby perfume the greenhouse hugely. Thanks for all that you give to the world."

Bawwwww!! 

I couldn't wait to open that box.

Got buds? Mmm hmmmm! Oh my gosh!

I assigned Chet to comfort the chilly gardenia, bring it back up to temperature before it went out to the steamy greenhouse. He obliged.

The plant was fairly shouting. HERE TO MAKE YOU HAPPY!!

IS IT WORKING??

 

Yes!!

YES!!

You betcha!! I promise to love, honor and obey every directive of these three plants as long as we both shall live. For they do speak to me and tell me what they need. And it is my great pleasure to try to satisfy them.

Thank you thank you thank you. 

My sweet neighbor Beth grew four dwarf pomegranates from seed, and she saved the prettiest one for me. I'd never heard of such a thing, never seen a pomegranate, much less a dwarf one. And it's in bloom!

I did a little reading and found out that dwarf pomegranates can get 8' tall, but that they also make excellent subjects for bonsai, having tiny leaves and a tendency to make a woody trunk. Not to mention the cool goldfish-shaped waxy flowers



one of which is now exploding with a crinkly tissue-paper fanfare of orange!

Making a tropical bonsai of this plant is a no-brainer for me.
Amazing how losing most of my plants has introduced me to even more kinds to love. And awakened me to the kindness of friends and neighbors, and people I don't even know who care anyway.

Now to finally decide what I want from Logee's with my gift certificate from Charles from Texas. Got a hibiscus! Got an Angel of the Night! Got a gardenia! That leaves...everything else. Weezy from Texas and Tim from Columbus widen the choices.

Delicious choices.

My friends, you make my life rich in so many ways. I'm humbled by your expressions of love.  Crystal wrote from New York to say that these greenhouse posts have made her decide to make her sunroom into a greenhouse. The thought that someone would decide to bring plants into her life and home because it sounds so nice here makes me warm all over.

And Donna. This photo taken the evening of December 18.  Hibiscus "The Path" has two tiny buds that get bigger every day. 

That little green light is the frost alert, on duty.