Happy Father's Day

Happy Fathers Day to all the fathers out there.  Interestingly I've just read that after Mother's Day was established, a young woman wanted to recognize her father who was a single father of six.  She started advocating for celebrating this in June. Took a while to catch on, but she was helped by the tobacco industry who thought it would help them sell tobacco products (Pipes as presents) if there were such a celebration.  Now if we want to keep our fathers for a long time, we advocate they stay away from tobacco.. Times do change.

My brother called today (after seeing nothing new on my blog) so I guess it's been awhile since I updated the blog. He really called to say he's coming to visit with his buddy, Jimmy.  I look forward to seeing them; guess I will have to go upstairs and assess the state of bedrooms earlier than I thought.

Lots of changes in the vegetation since I last posted.

I am very curious after spending a couple hours weeding in one of my peony beds. When we first started to live here, N could not stand that there was no grass in the front yard. So he got some special shade tolerant grass and babied it until we did have some grass there. This year, most of the side yard is dandelions and other green looking weeds. From afar it may look like we have grass there, but there's little to be found. So here I was in the Peony patch sitting on the weeds and pulling out luscious grass from between the peonies - shaded by the plants, not special grass, never babied. Where is the justice in that??
Oh well- the peonies are blooming extra long this year - maybe because I've been here and spent some time dead-heading. Talked to a master gardener this afternoon about a problem with the peonies and she's going to do some research. The master gardeners are at the Wytheville Chautauqua Festival every day and give presentations as well as answer questions. Today a lady gave us a pictorial tour of her incredible perennial garden and then another gentleman showed us how to make bird baths in the shape of leaves.. Pretty interesting.. I may try later in the summer.

Rock garden Roses

Lots of roses in bloom - different kinds and many grow pretty wild. I've sprayed a couple for bugs and rose diseases.. but there are really a lot, so confined this so far to those I've tamed to some degree. It has helped those a lot; they look better then ever.  Still all are pretty.


Another rock garden variety

One of the "tamed" varieties of Roses

 Nelson and Butch recently put a vent in the garden-tool shed. The generator is in the shed and if we lose electricity and it's raining, it will have to run in there and the fumes need a way to escape. The exhaust fan hasn't arrived yet, but that will be on the inside of the shed. Nelson is also hopeful that the shed will be cooler once the fan is there. He spends lots of time out there- doing little projects..

This next picture is bigger to represent the bigness of the problem I have with sweet peas. They are really pretty flowers and if only they would just grow where I'd like them, they'd be most welcome in my yard. However, they think every location is fair game and if not pulled out they hide or suffocate all the other plants.  They are just now beginning to bloom, but I've pulled out miles of them since early spring and will continue to be pulling them all summer.. Hard to get the roots out, so am sure they will be back. One nice thing is that you can cut them and they stay pretty in flower arrangements unlike many of my other flowers that are beautiful in nature but don't do well in vases.

This is the only larkspur so far in the bulb garden on the side. I used this garden last year for tomatoes and peppers but they didn't do great there and since this spring many flowers appeared, there must be a lot more bulbs than I knew.. Anyway this larkspur is in among many weeds since I have done nothing with this garden this year.. It's quite pretty and I see some similar foliage in that garden so perhaps more flowers will appear.  Nature sure has a lot of surprises for me this year.


My first lily and daylilies are now appearing.. Such beautiful flowers. 



And the vegetable garden is growing ever slowly. We had our first radish from our garden tonight along with lettuce from some neighbors. Ours is still a little small but I put it in much later than most folks.

Remember the sad little lima? Well no longer sad. See below; its friends have joined him in the garden and we now have two rows coming up. N will be happy when we start seeing flowers on them. Lots of beans coming up too - several varieties. And tomatoes are blooming. I have one plant that I started in Florida from seed that I saved from last summer after eating a really, really good tomato from one of my neighbors. She couldn't remember the variety. That plant was well along when I arrived.  It now has a few small tomatoes on it, so hopefully in a few more weeks we may have a few..  I wasn't sure how it would transplant but seems to be surviving.  Well lots more, but time for bed; so will defer!