Although there’s no threat of frost in this week’s hot and muggy forecast, this is our traditional time to start bringing Container Bed plants back into the greenhouse. Because we have so many tender plants it’s better for us to have to do a little extra watering once they’re inside than be caught in a frost warning gotta-get-them-in-right-now!-panic. As anyone who’s ever moved knows, it’s good (cathartic even?) to throw unwanted, useless things away first to make the load feel a little lighter. So we’re culling the herd. It’s tougher to throw out living breathing plants than pants you haven’t worn since 1983 though. There’s always the temptation to save them - maybe this year it’ll be beautiful!… Maybe this year it won’t be infested with mealybug!… Maybe this year pinstriped pegged jeans will be back in style…

Our first casualties were the Agapanthus. They were gorgeous once upon a time and we’ve been holding on to them as they’ve gotten more and more pot bound and more and more infested. It’s time to let go. So we asked Nick to do it. Nick The Willing (I think that’s his Viking name), one of the Deadheads, says “Sure! I can do that!” every time we ask him to do some hideous thing. In order to not throw the baby out with the bath water (ie. save the pots), he carved away the poor old roots and took a saw to the pot sides. Now what will we get to fill the empty pots?

Fred spotted somebody else making a move this week. Never-ever, not ever have I ever seen a slug this big outside of a Pacific Northwest rainforest! I’m not sure where he’s been this dry summer or where he was headed but Gail couldn’t help herself and took him home so that her 8 year old could impress the heck out of his classmates. I wonder if they’ve named him yet … He looked like a Jerome to me…

And froggy went a courtin’. The Rockettes found this one in the Rock Garden. The pond has dried up again but looks like a Nepeta nest makes a next best second home.

Anyone else making a move?

Rather than entertain the pants off/bore you to tears with stories about how I spent my summer vacation, I think it would be better to show you how Blithewold spent my summer vacation! It feels like I’ve been gone an age. The greenhouse computer couldn’t quite remember how to turn on at first, the space bar on the keyboard has settled under the weight of neglect and the garden looks like it didn’t miss me a bit. Two weeks ago it was still toddling along and now it’s grown as tall as me, started dating and learned to drive. The first thing I noticed was our Stapelia which, all of a sudden in the middle of the ocean had a bud the size of my fist. (click on pictures for larger images)

The Helenium ‘Butterpat’ and Rudbeckia triloba are vying for biggest yellow with Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’. I think it’s a draw.

The Sanguisorba are also suddenly over my head.

Not only all that but the dog days seem to be over. This weekend the heat broke and I put a sweater on for the first time since … May? Signs of fall are all over the place - nurseries are selling Chrysanthemums, I have an urge to purchase new shoes and a pencil box and some trees look like they are starting to think about getting ready to turn. I spotted a red flare on the Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica) down by the Rock Garden. Thank goodness other trees are still blooming (I’m not ready yet for summer to be totally over). The Moongate Sophora reminds me of fireworks.

Bits of rain here and there (some during the Display Garden Soiree — I heard that that night there was a little thunder and lightning - percussion and a lightshow for the Thomas Family Celtic Bluegrass Celebration!) did not fill the frog pond. There are all sorts of critter tracks through the mud - deer, racoon, human child - I hope the frogs are well buried and waiting out the dry spell with a good book.

I’m sure there’s much much more to report - Gail will fill me in tomorrow on what else I missed. And I’ll show her this:

It’s good to be back!

I was crouching on the pond bank at 8:00 this morning trying to get a frog shot (cute little guy, isn’t he? A pre-teen, I would guess, in that awkward phase between polliwog and voting age) when I became aware of a hum over my head. The Button bush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) was already full of bees!

Bees have been in the news a lot lately because of Colony Collapse Disorder and everyone has a different theory for the cause. Beekeepers in a couple dozen states and a few other countries have reported huge losses in their bee populations. Bees are susceptible to various mites and occasionally go through periods of die-off but the weird thing about the current problem is that bees have been disappearing. (Normally during a die-off, bees are found dead around the hive). Some say it’s caused by cell phones, some say pesticides, some say mites and so far no one has definitively hit the nail on the head.

I don’t know much about bees aside from what I’ve read in Robbing the Bees by Holley Bishop and what I’ve found online (click here for a to-the-point article). But I have been paying attention to one very active wild hive near the greenhouse and to me (and I freely admit to knowing absolutely nothing) - the bees look healthy! The only thing I’ve wondered about is why we haven’t seen them swarm. Normally when the hive gets too big for its britches, a new queen is crowned and the hive splits and they relocate to another castle. So far these bees are staying put.

One of the good things that has come out with the doom ‘n’ gloom news is that people are learning to be solicitious of bees and a lot of our visitors, rather than looking frightened when they hear a plant humming and see all the bee activity, look really reverent instead. There’s also been more press about planting for the bees and creating healthy habitats for them which involves a non-manicured approach to gardening. The recommendations are to plant a riot of flowers, avoid using heavy mulch, just say No to pesticides (avoid non-organic chemistry altogether), and let your garden “go” a bit. I’ve noticed too in terms of habitat, they also appreciate having a place to drink. We leave a little water in pot saucers for them but they also dip into the pond on a dry day. If you build a bee garden, they will come! And with a wild bee friendly garden, you’re likely to get other wildlife too - like hummingbirds and dragonflies… (and wasps… Sometimes, you’ve got to take the good with bad. And carry a sting kit.) Check out this video about planting a bee garden (it’s in Berkeley, CA - but full of good advice and info no matter where you garden).

It’s important sometimes to go someplace else when unpleasant things are happening. Yesterday I was in the dentist’s chair and while my dentist leaned on my lower lip and reached fists and sharp things into my mouth parts, I did my darnedest to go back to work. (How lucky am I that one of my happy places is where I work?) I thought of the bees and swirled around the arbor in the Display Garden and tried really hard to remember, minute by minute, how we spent the morning.

The first thing I saw yesterday morning was this very large bucket truck being carefully driven into a too tight place for a morning of tricky treetop trimming.

The Deadheads shouted to eachother over the sound of the chipper and snipped and tugged the sweetpeas off the Cutting Garden fence. We might have been able to get another year out of the netting if only Mary Scissorhands (in the picture wearing red gloves) had been more careful! (You’re a gracious scapegoat, Mary!) There are a few summer vines getting going with room to grow now and the Clematis ‘Roguchi’ is still blooming away.

And do happy places usually have slugs? This one is ginormous by dry summer in RI standards but pretty tiny compared to its west coast banana cousins!

It’s raining today and that makes me happy (without having to go anyplace else) and I’ll bet GusGus is pleased too.

The guys have just about finished with “phase 1″ of the Display Garden redesign. Gail and I really didn’t know how they were going to deal with a tricky grading issue in the last bed (the last new bed for this season - more later!) and only got half a clue of what they were up to when they started delivering stones. They worked out a way to terrace the slope with sizable stones dug out the deep elsewhere on the property, gave us perfectly spaced steps for working within the bed and created a mini megalithic structure just for the fun of it. Gail and I have been hoarding plants for the day we can finally plant the bed and even though we thought we were exhausted and creatively drained — we’re not! It’s like getting a blank canvas and new paints and finding that the muse was just waiting at the easel. Our new baby bed should start to take shape with volunteers’ help by the end of the week. It’ll just need a name…

Gail started the greenhouse exodus on Tuesday - the container bed is starting to take shape. Every year is new and different even with the same plants. One of my favorite things is finding transformation in repotting a world-weary specimen and finding new companions for it in the container garden.

The roses are coming! — the roses are coming! Here are a couple of new ones — it’s too early to tell if they’re going to be all around winners but they’re ahead right now! Rosa ‘Fourth of July’ is a climber and particularly perfect for Bristol, RI (home of the oldest 4th of July parade in the country). And Rosa ‘Champlain’ is a gorgeous red-red.

And a not quite new favorite: Rosa mutabilis is a delicate color shifter. It’s marginally hardy here but our 3 roses have taken moves and cold winters in stride.

A couple more photo worthies today: The Allium bulgaricum and Amsonia hubrectii in the North Garden horseshoe and a pair of frogs chilling out by the big pond this morning. (It was chilly!)

I couldn’t resist a couple of pictures today — Here’s Augustus Van Wribbit kicking back on the lotus. Earlier this week, I falsely accused Gus-Gus of dining on one of the new fish but Milo, Edwin and Gracie are all present and accounted for.

Gail pointed out the Halesia to me this morning (I had my blinders on) - what a beauty!

and I was reminded by one of you to turn my gaze to Father Hugo’s Rose - the buds are like candles and it’s just about to burst into bloom!