First, the easy part (paid B. to do it). Finally have post holes for Tornado Honeysuckle’s trellis, and the big bird feeder. I’m pretty sure he almost broke through to China, but frost won’t be heaving them anywhere! I’ll get the posts this week, probably, and we’ll do the concrete next weekend.

Next, the bit I didn’t even do; the Mortgage Lifter tomato plant did.

Now for news from the What The Hell Was I Thinking department…

I bought six rose mallow/swamp mallow hibiscus. I needed to sink the round tub I’ve had for ages into the ground to make it a “mini swamp”. I’d been thinking about it one morning last week, and decided I didn’t like all the “plant clutter” that was accumulating around the water garden. I thought I’d join everything into one big bed, remove the grass, add a few more perennials, and mulch the rest. After B. left, I started digging the hole.

Drilled a few small drainage holes about 8″ from the top.

Set it in the ground.

I’d painted a border where I intended to remove grass.

After about 4h of cutting and pulling roots in 86 very humid degrees, I was sweat-soaked and hadn’t got very far. There’s a fuckton of crap-grass, and that shit does not let go easily. I don’t know if I’ll work on it today or not; it’s certainly not going to be cooler, and I need to do laundry and switch out the rest of my clothes. Dunno. I did get a start, though!

Funny little peeping-croaks coming from the water garden.

One.

Two.

Charlie also discovered toads…and how bad they taste. I took one from him, but then he went after another, and when I heard his pathetic howls, I knew he’d tried to bite it. I think the toad lived, but I’ll bet Charlie wished he hadn’t bitten it!

It rained hard last night, but that was nothing compared to the windy deluge we got at 1530h today. When someone said it was hailing, I thought, “My garden is fucked,” and expected to come home to flat, torn up plants. Nope. Just the purple tansy Onje flattens when he sleeps in them (I hate that). Not only that, but the beans broke ground–yay!

I decided to move the itsy-bitsy hardy fuchsia outside; they’re leaning toward the window, and not growing much. Plus, with the air on, they dry out too fast. I had five cups with seedlings;  I put three in one bigger pot, and one each in two smaller pots.

Since they may want more light, but are still much too delicate for IL sun in June (one more day), I put them in the weird little corner patio flowerbed,  in the shade of a big daylily (only thing a goddamned daylily is good for).

While I was getting pots, I found some snails. Pretty big ones, and you know I’m a bug nerd because I took pictures with my phone, and even on a small screen, I could still tell that the tiny red blob was a bug nymph. I took better pictures of him with my Canon, but I recognised him with a cellphone picture of his butt. I thought he must be an assassin because of the foldy-downy antennae, but closer inspection of macro photos and a trip to BG reveals they’re slightly clubbed, not tapered, so he’s probably a coreid.

I bought some swamp mallow (can’t remember how to spell the “mosch…” bit ATM) on eBay this morning, so I guess I’ll be digging holes and contemplating the fun it won’t be, digging up the grass to make that area one big specimen shrub/flower bed. It’ll be much easier to mow if I do, though.

I keep forgetting to post this; it’s a Cabbage White egg, laid of the cabbage I grew for them to do just that.

I thought I’d ordered six, but I was sweating so profusely when I was planting that it didn’t occur to me tgat I’d actually ordered two lots of six until I looked in my eBay history. Only a couple have even signs of leaves, but I’m hopeful. I was going to plant them over by the woods, but after the poor performance of the one I did plant there, and the miraculous survival of the ones under the sweetgum tree, I opted to plant all of them there. I even planted the one that’s probably dead, just in case. I ripped out grass and weeds, then used existing soil, whatever Miracle Grow garden soil was left in the bag, a tiny bit of leftover seed starting soil, and a few shovelfuls of rich soil (and worms) where I dug up honeysuckle menace. If I have trouble keeping the soil from being eroded downhill, I’ll make a rock and clay border. Anyway,  they’re in the ground, and although I watered them, they’re currently getting a good rain-soaking. With as many seedlings as I have, I’ll take some rain, thanks!

Also, ants were eating this when I found it, but it’s still pretty on the top side. Caterpillar Hunter, I believe. Finger in dire need of manicure for scale. Edit: Yes, Caterpillar Hunter, but a prettier name is Fiery Searcher, Calosoma scrutator.

Zinnia that we planted on Monday is up!

Along the fence line:

In the stead of stupid, lazy branching sunflowers:

Cardinal climber along the fence line, too!

No news yet from runner bean or phlox,  but I’m hopeful.

First cosmos of 2014 will be a deep pink ‘Sensation’.

Persimmon coming along. The other one still seems dead, though. At least I have one!

I grew…celosia! I’d thought the pretty yellow-leafed thing must be a weed, but couldnt bring myself to pull it. Today, I looked closer.

I found a few more and moved them all because they’re low-growing and would be overshadowed.

Aside from the fact that shepherd’s purse was trying to take over, there are still bare spots and Onje seems determined to kill my…whatever it is…I’m okay with the Honeysuckle Horseshoe so far. One flower so far…whatever it is. Looks like it’ll appeal to butterflies a great deal; that’s the sort of flowers they love. EDIT: It’s purple tansy, so yes, butterflies will love it!

Honeysuckle looking pretty in spite of the aphids’ best efforts to suck it dry. Fuck aphids.

I’m not 100% certain,  but I think one of my poor, abused pawpaw trees might still be alive!

So far, so good for pipevine.

Ninebark is looking good, if somewhat maple-y.

Still small, but more green than when I planted it!

No dirt work today; all I did was plant the three tomatoes, and add some zinnia (leftover ‘Lilliput’ to the spots where wild-type sunflower couldn’t be arsed to grow. That’s my last try with that stuff because it never grows worth a good goddamn. Anyway…

Heirloom tomatoes grown right from seed by C. Three varieties: Mortgage Lifter, Delicious, and Porterhouse. I’ll get them cages this week; I haven’t left the property since Thursday after work. They’ll get 11-12h of sun every day, and if the Lawn Nazi doesn’t like my growing food on the south side of my house, he can suck my big…roots. Hehe.

Had leftovers from the 1/4 pound of zinnia I bought for the fence flowerbed, so I overseeded in what P. has dubbed the Robin’s Roost (because robins love to sit there and watch for worms and bugs).

I can’t think of what these round-ish leafed things are (in the Wildflower Seed Floor Sweepings freebies I got), but they’re really familiar. EDIT: Ah, crap. I think it’s some variety of nasturtium, in which case, they’ll die because nasturtium can’t handle the summer heat here (voice of experience). Sucks, too, since they’re one of my favourite flowers.

Spicebush is looking well; I think I can remove the flags now because P. isn’t likely to mow it.

In sucky news, I think one of my native yellow honeysuckle died. 🙁 In potentially awesome news, I think the Virginia Snakeroot I planted last fall that was dug up by squirrels and frozen to death after being planted in crappy soil to begin with…didn’t! I can’t swear to it, but these heart-shaped leaves look a lot like snakeroot to me!

I broke one, thinking automatically that it was a weed, but I quickly put Miracle Grow soil down so I won’t do it again.

I also put mulch around the butterfly bushes where I’d done all that crap-grass weeding on Friday. First time buying coloured mulch, and my last. I knew it was dyed, but didn’t kniw until today (after I put it down) that it’s made from scrap wood, which could be anything, including woods treated with chemicals potentially harmful to worms and insects. Maybe even plants (but I read that on a “green blog”, so I take it with a grain of salt because rabid greenies have an agenda that makes them overreact sometimes). Anyway, I’ll use the little that’s left, but won’t buy it again.

Otherwise known as, “Holy shit, what a lot of dirt!”

Dirt delivery on Friday morning did not go as planned; the fuel pump went out on Dirt Guy #1’s truck, and P. wasn’t convinced it would be fixed by Saturday, or at least not early enough, so he got Dirt Guy #2 to deliver Friday afternoon. At about 1400h, a whole fucking lot of dirt showed up in front of our house.

I explained to Dirt Guy #2’s daughter/granddaughter/whatever the hell she was (he’s apparently hard of hearing, so she goes with him) that I wanted it along the fence, and that I understood a dump truck is not really a “precise instrument”, and that dirt doesn’t slide out as neatly as gravel. He said he’d try, and he did okay, though he broke the cable when he drove out and I had to get Charter to fix it. They came very quickly, but I shudder to think what it’ll cost me. Anyway…dirt.

A dump truck is about six cubic yards. I knew it was a fuck of a lot of dirt, so I started installing the landscape fabric, and got to shovelling right away.

Four hours on Friday, five and a half on Saturday (had P helping me for about an hour and a half Saturday morning), and then it took both of us all day Sunday to finish. Holy fucking CRAP what a lot of work. My hands hurt from gripping the shovel/rake/garden cart handle, and by 1000h on Sunday, I was sick to death of dirt, but there was still lots left to do.

Dirt farmer.

He finished up hauling excess away to various locations in the yard that needed building up, and I tilled, then raked in the Miracle Grow garden soil, resplendent in ragged cutoffs, a neon pink tank top and Hello Kitty rubber boots. Hair by Crazy Meg of Bedlam. Thankfully, it wasn’t sunny; it had been on both Friday and Saturday, and it was waaaaay too hot to be messing with dirt. I was sweating enough even without the sun.

Finally, it was ready to put in the honeysuckle, which was getting pretty sick of sitting there in tiny pots with roots barely protected. We had to work fast, too, because the goddamned sun decided to come out, and the cups are only translucent. Fine in a greenhouse where roots are shaded, but lying down in direct sun…not so much.

Flower farmer.

Honeysuckle in. This is the only one with a bloom. Cute. 🙂

I was going to wait until today to put in the cardinal climber, scarlet runner bean, zinnia ‘Lilliput’ and garden phlox seeds, but I just wanted to be fucking done, so we pushed it. I went out after a nap and planted the cardinal climber and runner beans, then P. helped me with the zinnia and phlox. I think we have the phlox too deep, but fuck it; if it’s that fussy, it has no place in my garden. By the time we finished, it was so dark that I could only barely see where to step when I was tamping down the seeds. That’s why there are no pictures…it was fucking dark!

Some random not-dirt-related pictures.

I was sad to leave the milkweed behind at 544, but it’ll usually die if its taproots are broken, and we’d have to do that to dig it up. 544 milkweed still made it, though; this one popped up at the base of the Grey Stick that had been closest to the milkweed bed! I was so happy to see it; I’m not going to try to move it for the same reason I didn’t try to bring my milkweed from 544 in the first place.

I was also the victim of a brutal wild animal attack on Friday, after I’d finished 4h of weeding (544 crap-grass) around the butterfly bushes. Here’s the vicious culprit!

When I saw a large wasp-looking critter, poking around the ground, I thought, “Oh, a cicada killer,” and didn’t think more of it. When I looked at the picture, though, I thought, “Hang on…that’s not a cicada killer!” Nope…it’s a yellowjacket, and the reason I didn’t recognise it as such immediately is because it’s: A. a southern yellowjacket (Vespula squamosa), not Eastern (V. maculifrons); and, B. a queen. Big bitch; hope she didn’t decide my yard is a good place to make a home. I don’t mind a yellowjacket or two, but a nest they’re ready to defend…no.

Coralberry looks nice; I cut away the honeysuckle around it, and now I’m considering moving it to a better spot because it’s pretty. Dunno.

They’re back from spring training camp, and although two of them don’t look so well,  the other thirty-two look great! Dirt is being delivered on Friday morning (I’ll be home–long weekend), and bags of Miracle Grow garden soil are stacked on the patio to go on top. Cardinal climber and scarlet runner bean seeds at ready, as are zinnia ‘Lilliput’ and garden phlox (phlox, phlox, phlox!) In the immortal words of my beloved,  “Goodbye,  E.” 🙂

Standing cypress broke ground!

Practically microscopic hardy fuchsia seedlings still alive. Not growing much, but alive.

Got a second Bird of Paradise in the same cup!