The July feast may be over... but it's a long time before the famine... ~ handmade home

Thứ Ba, 2 tháng 8, 2011

The July feast may be over... but it's a long time before the famine...

Unknown Early August 2011 No comments

The gardens at Oak Lawn Cheese Factory have definitely peaked and yet there is much to see... the hemerocallis are still blooming and some lilies remain as well. August is generally the time when we depend heavily on the annuals and many varieties are doing themselves justice. On the other hand, some have been very much effected by the extreme heat and humidity.

About this time of the year, the garden story gets to be a bit repetitive, but it's still enjoyable to post some fresh pics. I've learned a lesson about brugsmansias and I really don't have a way to remedy my problem. Towards the end of last season I took down a fairly good sized maple tree because it was shading my hoophouse. In removing this tree, I also removed the partial shade that the brugsmansias seem to prefer. At this point it would be next to impossible to move the very heavy tanks that the six plants grow in and I really don't have another spot for them. When the temperature is into the 90's, they can droop pretty badly, but do recover most evenings when their fragrance pervades the gardens. On the positive side, they seem to bloom with less frequent breaks in that blooming, than when they were in some shade...

I have at least a couple hundred or more cultivars of hosta. By virtue of the fact that I really don't know how many I have, you can tell that I really am not a true hosta connoisseur, but I do very much enjoy them. When July bloom is going on, I don't always take the time to appreciate them as I should. In retrospect, I have been surprised by their amazing increase this year, presumably due to to the good earlier rains and a reasonable amount of rain in the past couple weeks, and the remarkable heat and humidity. Might I also add, that's a good part of the reason I haven't been out enjoying them as I should! Following is but one of several hosta areas in the gardens...

True lily season for my gardens is all but passed, however I do have a few photos of what is as yet blooming well. They include two of my very favorite orienpets, Sheherazade and Pizzazz. I think it's a combination of the 7' height and classic form that so appeals to me with these two cultivars. The following pictures were taken in the past day or so, attesting to the later bloom period of these two wonderful lilies. Pizzazz has the hotter colors...

Oriental lilies have a later bloom period in my experience, but I don't grow many because they seem to last about three years here and as I've said before I don't always get around to dividing them as I should.

Following are Dizzy, Muscadet, and Rio Negro in that order...

Some orienpets still going strong include Nymph, Sweetheart, Leslie Woodriff, and Black Beauty (the original orienpet)...

And now to the hemerocallis... I've posted photos of many, but not all, of the following plants previously this season. Many of the plants are in rebloom now. I am always looking for a new take on these plants as they produce fresh blooms... I especially enjoy the times when I find little 'arrangements' of several blooms together at one time. The majority of these plants are unnamed seedlings... none of the ones shown here are my own. I'll probably put together a post at a later date of many of the seedlings from my own crosses as I did in an earlier post. Where I know the cultivar, I have included the name... again, many of these are plants posted earlier, but photos of new blooms from the past couple of days.

unnamed seedling

Mandarin Seas

Watership Down

Forest God

Joe Marinello

Techny Breeze

unnamed seedling (first blooms)

unnamed seedling (as above)

Wild Child (I keep this one only because it is so bizarre!)

Inner Destiny

Red Peacemaker

Flight of the Raven (perhaps my wife's favorite of all)

names misplaced on these

unnamed seedling

Forest God ( one of my favorites for form)

Cosmic Questions

I have a wide palette of taste for hemerocallis, whereas I realize that some of my gardening friends would consider many of these gauche and much prefer more subtle blooms. I have an appreciation for the more subtle as well and that is why I am pleased with many of my own hybrids blooming for the first time. As noted before, the jury is out on rebloom, bud count, etc on the ones I've crossed and I have decided to leave them all for another year at least before determining what ones I'll keep. More on my own crosses and photos another day.

As my wife and I approach the coming of our 40th anniversary in less than two weeks, I've been thinking back regarding what developing this 150 year old cheesefactory and the gardens has entailed. I had taken a photo of the rockery yesterday and that brought to mind all the changes in this area over the years. I thought I would share a photo from when we first bought the place and I must say it was in much worse shape than it appeared. The second photo was a year or so later as we started tearing things apart, and the final shot is this area as it looks now. Many changes and redos occurred in the long interim between these photos.

summer 1971

early to mid 70's

2011

I will close this, my first August post for 2011, with 'some of the rest' from the gardens... have a great week. Our humidity is supposed to lessen considerably with the passing of a cold front tomorrow. I will appreciate that considerably as breathing is difficult at a dew point in the 70's with my heart issues. Were all our summers as hot and humid as this one has been, I'd probably consider major changes in my gardening style! It has been most unusual to say the least, but I know virtually everyone has faced similar weather oddities this season, so I'm sure I won't get much sympathy!

Take care Larry