Friday, July 6, 2018

The hole-in-a-tree builders have been busy on the rather tall stumps I purposely have left for them to nest in. There are several species of woodpeckers and also the chickadees and their allies that regularly use my "worthless" tree stumps. Clicking on photos will enlarge them.

The white Swiss Alpine strawberries have reached their peak just in time for the Fourth. They will continue to produce berries all summer and into the fall even but their big crop comes just about this time every year. Birds ignore the white berries. The plants are runnerless although they can be divided, but why bother when they are super easy to grow from seed. I squash over-ripe berries into the ground leave them alone for a few weeks and, voila, many new baby plants..

Over the years I have often thought these short (about two feet tall) ground covering plants in my north forest have flowers that look like honeysuckles but I've never keyed them out. I like them because they cover the rough clayey soil keeping it relatively cool and somewhat moist. Because they are not unattractive, people have often asked me what they are and I've been unresponsive - because I didn't really know. Until now. I believe they are northern bush honeysuckles. While not exactly what I would call a bush, they are woody.

The mock oranges have flowered and they do indeed have a faint, very faint orange blossom smell. Lovely but delicate.

Peas are virtually a one-crop veggie; planted early in the spring, they all seem to come in at the same time. Are they worth doing? Absolutely. Nothing beats the taste of fresh garden peas in the late spring or early summer. Mine were late this year perhaps because of lousy spring weather this year. Climate change? I know you can grow the edible pod pea types but they don't really compare taste wise, do they. They're good, just not as good as and they lack that "pea flavor" in my opinion.

I found this growing in a nice lady's back yard and adopted a division for myself. I know it as Inula others call it elecampane. It looks shaggy almost like it needs a nice trim, eh? This is its second year and it looks like it's about three or four feet tall. Nice.

The pale pink color of marsh mallows reminds me of the Canada mints we used to eat when I was a kid. It's, not surprisingly, a relative of other mallows like hollyhocks, zebra striped mallows, hibiscus, rose of sharon, etc. They don't seem reliably perennial but do at least seed themselves if you watch at their base for the cotyledons and early leaves of young plants.

A double heliopsis

Sweet Peas

I did not realize I had so many kinds of campanula.  I like them all but one has to be careful because they can be invasive.

My reliable, hardy, self-seeding, perennial foxglove (Digitalis ambigua - ambigua because maybe it's not a "real" foxglove? Who knows. Regardless, it's the only one I like because it is so trustworthy therefore unlike the more common foxgloves.  They, the common foxgloves, come in many colors but are temperamental. In my garden plants have to be tough enough to withstand dogs, weeds, drought, neglect, and still thrive. Ambigua is always cream colored. Look at that amazing plant.

I've been watering the grass seed scattered on the bare earth left by the Gentners. It's been about three weeks without any rain here. That's not good for the tender seedlings that are trying so hard to survive the sun, heat, and dry soil. Right now the "weed" seedlings seem to have the edge over the grass seedlings. I don't care as long as the soil might have some protection from the gully-washing rains - when they come.