The bees just love the Seven Sons shrubs... especially the bumble bees... I've never seen so many in one place, as there are surrounding these large shrubs which are trained as trees. Speaking of abundance, this may well be the year of the toad... it's next to impossible to mow the lawn... jaywalking toads in every direction... hundreds of them. Goodbye slugs... you don't stand a chance!
The fruit on all the flowering crabs is ripening as seen on Mary Potter below. I love the fruit set of the small berry like crabs that occurs every fall. Speaking of flowering crabs... I've committed to change on that front and am collecting estimates to have three of my 30 year old flowering crabs removed... by rights I should be taking out at least two additional ones, but I'm going to try pruning heavily on them to get more air movement in hopes that they can be saved. The culprit is apple scab and as I've said previously, I simply can't bear the leaf drop every year on these cultivars that were originally resistant to the disease. Normally I would remove them myself but my back arthritis has really flared up in the past month... there comes a time when one simply has to call in the professionals. It would be a different matter if the crabs weren't surrounded by a variety of valuable specimen trees that I'd probably wreck (it wouldn't be the first time!)...
We are very slim on annuals this year, partially by design and partially because earwigs destroyed hundreds of plants. One looks to the internet only to be told that earwigs are a good thing in the garden... these authors obviously have never experienced the earwig plague as we have experienced it this year...
Still no dahlia photos to share... in a last ditch effort to control what farmers around here call corn bugs, I've applied Sevin powder to blooms just prior to their opening... I'll give it a week and then goodbye dahlias. At least these insects are leaving the roses alone...
So far, nothing appears to bother the Calliope 'Dark Red' geraniums... lesson learned... there may be a lot of them here abouts next season...
Of course, sweet alyssum is always a 'good doer', pleasant to look at and fragrant as well...
I'm not impressed with many of the later hydrangeas this year... 'Limelight' is ok although the blooms could be larger... the very obvious problem here is drought... a wet spring and June was great, but it just didn't last and these plants are beyond the reach of most of the watering that we do.
My mind is presently wrapped around changes that I've considered for years... I've always known that our gardening style would need to change at some point. As I look down the road, I realize that to achieve what I want, I have to make those changes now. It all involves conifers... lots of them but with an emphasis on miniatures and dwarfs. I've spent hours researching my purchases for next spring and have come up with a list of sixty new additions and a plan for how I want to use them. To me gardening is change... I have a deep set desire for order and design in our gardens and when they stray from that, it really bothers me. Of course, early September isn't inherently the perfection time of the gardening year... many hostas have been chewed on, hemerocallis foliage is browning, variegated foliage on trees is sunburned... despite knowing these things are part of the normal cycle, it still greatly bothers me and I really feel conifers are the ideal solution... especially ones that don't get overgrown. Too late on that count for a great many present conifers in our gardens, but I do own a very nice chain saw, and I know how to use it. Hopefully at this point I have gained enough experience to make better choices as well. I must admit that it will at some point be very difficult to thin out collections such as the daylilies and I'm not quite there yet, but the day is coming.
It's a good week when I learn something new about gardening. Wisconsin has a lot of problems with oak wilt which can easily kill even a venerable 200 year old red oak tree in a season. I've been aware that pruning on oaks should be done in the dead of winter as a preventative, because generally insects carry the fungus. I learned this week that oaks with blunt end leaves (white oaks) are much less susceptible to wilt versus cultivars with sharp pointed leaves such as the red oaks. I have several oaks in need of canopy raising... among them are a bur oak and a scarlet oak... I'll wait for winter to be safe. I've already pruned some of the english oaks this summer, knowing it was a risk. Chances are that they'll be ok. The important thing is that no matter what the season, a pruner cut should be followed instantaneously with a heavy pruning sealer to keep the oak wilt fungus via insects from invading the cuts. I hadn't considered that since pruning sealer is no longer recommended in most situations. Wilt can also invade a heathy tree via naturally occurring root grafts from an afflicted tree.
One last thought... I've noticed that about half of the folks on my garden blog list are no longer posting. I guess that is a risk with covering a garden space that for the most part recycles itself each season. I hope that this site doesn't become too boring over time although it would be impossible not repeat oneself somewhat from year to year. I'd be interested in knowing what types of things related to garden blogging help keep your interest, or how do you personally approach this sort of thing with your gardening blog? What is it that you like to see or read on the posts you follow?
Until next time, Larry
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