The garden paths were well manicured. I think we had put out all new wood chips on most of the paths. Many had wood chips 3-4 inches deep. They were almost spongy in places.
The crotons put on a show, as did all the new hard scape.
And even the daylilies that were overlooked by the deer showed well, as you will see in some of the pictures below.
And I got to talk garden for all that time. Sometimes I just do not get to do that.
Out of the discussions about deer damage, came reports of a great particular deer control. After everyone had left we went and got some. I sprayed/splashed this product around, feeling a little biblical. (It is made from let us just say 'animal products'.)
And I think it is working. I did not find any particular damage this week. I do think there had been some damage every night the week before the garden walk. Even Saturday night some of the nicer pink lilium were munched away.
For now I do not dread going out to the garden in the morning.
200 people over ten hours did give me a chance to visit with almost everyone who came.
There were other ideas. Someone suggested what to do with shepherd's crooks, to address the problem of heavy rains. If they have too much weight on them from plants, they can tip over. So the idea is to anchor them with tent pegs. Who knew?
On Wednesday we had the first real rain in about 2 weeks. The gauge said 1.5 inches. It was amazing how so many plants just seemed taller the day after that rain.
And we also had the heat wave for a few days. Friday afternoon was the worst. The bank temperature at 5 o'clock was 102. The car said 101.
But by late Saturday afternoon the front had started coming through, and the temperature had dropped 10 degrees. I understand that at the Cubs game in Chicago there was actually a moment when the wind shifted as cooler weather arrived. The fans cheered.
There is a 58 in the forecast for Monday evening.
The windows can open again.
Here are pictures from this week.
These black daylilies are really remarkable.
Have I said enough about the smoke bush? It just keeps on smoking.
The primary lilium variety last weekend was a tall yellow one.
This is Pizzazz. It opened this week.
Part of gardening is anticipation.
If you look closely, just about in the middle of the picture, you will see a bud.
This should pop this next week. There are about 4 of these buds, about this size, in three different plants around the garden. They should bloom for the next month.
(But just for one night each.)
Speaking of buds, this cactus should also bloom in the next two weeks. I noticed that the buds had grown this last week.
Primal Scream does stand out.
This is Volcanic Explosion.
If you thought the earlier picture of that daylily was black, how about this one. You almost want to brush off the yellow pollen so it does not spoil the canvas.
You have seen several pictures of buds that promise gems to come. Here is another. This is the hoya, the rope plant. Its full name is hoya carnosa compacta. I have had the plant for 5-6 years. It does start to bloom about now. I have had 3-4 clusters total before, spread over several months. This year there are about 3 times that.
Here are two clusters that will open also in the next few weeks.
The late daylilies are going to start soon. They mostly have been left alone by the deer.
I will apply another dose of the smelly stuff maybe tomorrow when the rain has left the area. One of the advantages of this product, is that after it drys in 24 hours, it will keep working for several months, even if on the surface it has washed off.
Julia's recipe
Maw-Maw's Slaw
Two things about this recipe: 1) I do not know who Maw-Maw is or whose Maw-Maw she is. We came by the recipe a long time ago at a fundraiser for a local charity (the Agape Cafe) at which Cajun food (including this coleslaw) was served. 2) I have said that I do not approve of mayonnaise on coleslaw, and this recipe is the exception. There is mayonnaise, to be sure, but the result is not mushy or sweet.
Here are the ingredients. For the slaw: 3+ cups of spinach washed and sliced up; 2 cups sliced green cabbage; 2 cups sliced red cabbage; 3/4 cup thinly sliced red onion; 1 cup sliced scallion tops (the green part); 1 cup chopped up fresh parsley. For the dressing: 2/3 cup mayonnaise; 1/3 cup grainy mustard; 1/2 teaspoon regular (not kosher) salt; 1/4 teaspoon black pepper; 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1 teaspoon white sugar.
I started, of course, by prepping the vegetables. I used grocery store pre-washed spinach and washed it anyway. Then I dried it in the salad spinner and sliced it up - I took it by handfuls and put it on a cutting board and made slices across the leaves. Maybe this would be called a rough chop - about 3 to 3-1/2 cups.
Next I took the outer leaf or two off both heads of cabbage; sliced off a slab and cut across to get shreds or slices, 2 cups of each. No grating!
I added the cabbage to the bowl and turned my attention to the onion products. The scallion tops needed to be picked over (for wilted stems). Then I cut to very tip-tops off, washed the stems and sliced them across to make little (1/4") tubes - about 1 cup. I had a big red onion, so I peeled it and cut off a slab. I sliced across thinly (like 1/8") to get sort of half-moon shapes, then cut the half-moons across to get to quarter moons.
Lastly, I took a handful of the parsley washed it, spun it dry and chopped it up yielding about 1 cup, leaving the stems behind, mostly.
This is a picture of most but not all of the vegetables in the big bowl.
Next, I mixed the mayo, mustard, sugar, salt, and peppers (black and cayenne) in a bowl with a whisk and then used a spatula to glop it onto the salad. I used the spatula (a tongs) to mix the dressing in - mostly a matter of tossing the salad around to make sure the dressing got distributed.
Then I covered the slaw and set it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. Or maybe it was an hour.
Here is the salad on the table. It had softened up and wilted slightly in the refrigerator and so it went into a smaller bowl.
We had it with gazpacho and bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwiches - a satisfying mid-summer meal.
We did have some leftover slaw, which Philip ate the next day. He reports that it was great one day later.
Odds and Ends
When daylily season is over there is a tendency to think it will be winter soon. For that reason it is time to start shutting the garden down.
The challenge is to overcome that thinking.
If the first frost is not until November 1, which is about average, there are really over three months of great gardening to come.
It is not that hard to have a great garden from April to July. The challenging months are ahead.
One place to start is with new acquisitions.
Some can be from orders for plants to come in the fall, to bloom next year.
In that respect gardening really is about turning the present into the future.
Then there is shopping for the sales at the garden stores.
But there can be so much more.
Yesterday I started giving all the potted plants extra attention. They almost all can use some fertilizer and some fresh dirt on top.
Actually many of the orchid cactus need to be weeded. There are maple trees in some of them But they do come out rather easily.
Many plants make seeds.
This is one of the crotons blooming.
We noticed yesterday that there seem to be seeds.
This was what seemed to be the buds. I will see if these little dots open up at all.
I have seen that in the other plants.
That is it for this strange week. It was hot. There was a nice rain.
And was strangely anticlimactic.
Mostly I did not worry about the deer.
Find the breeze.
Philip
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