Triumphs and Tragedies

It seems fitting that my first post about my garden on returning home should be a Triumphs and Tragedies.  As I looked out the window that first morning back I quickly noticed so many good and bad things at once.

The first thing I noticed was a tragedy.  I was having a hard time seeing past the weeds into my flower bed.

That's 65% weeds to 35% flowers

I could see flashes of pink and bright yellow but what was all that greenery?  The answer was thistles, dandelions, plantain and purslane.  Not to mention the compost I had spread before leaving town had sprouted!  Tomatoes, squash and lettuce were all working on a takeover.

The good news was after a couple days of clearing I saw many wonderful surprises hiding in this bed.

The pink that caught my eye were two clumps of Echinacea 'Magnus' and 'Ruby Star'.  In their second year they are filling out and gaining ground.  The bright yellow was Rudbeckia hirta, seed gifted to me from Sharon at The Willow Garden.  I started that seed in the house in the spring and thought they would be a smaller flower.  I was astounded by the huge, colourful blooms.  Some were clear yellow, others had a rosy ring and one plant is even a gorgeous burnt orange.

I was in plant love.  But it got better.  The flower garden has not failed me this year, putting out all sorts of treats to feast my eyes on.  Many plants were putting on a second show of flowers so there was anemone, hardy geraniums and astrantia to see.  As well, agastache and red valerian, which are new this year, were blooming.  My favourite find though was this gorgeous little number.

Miss Jekyll your blooms knocked my socks off.  I've seen Nigella before in other gardens but have never grown it for myself.  I thought it would be a good filler while the perennials took their time growing but I planted the seed late and nothing seemed to happen.  I thought my dreams of blue were over for the year so when I found these hiding next to the rudbeckia I was beyond excited.  They open a soft white with a tiny smidge of blue on the petals and deepen to full blue and then almost a purple before fading.  I'll be collecting the seed in the coming month so hopefully I can spread it around a bit more next spring.

Another tragedy awaited me though.  This fella looks pretty cute hiding behind the flowers

but as some of you may recall, he wasn't feeling too good when I left.  The antibiotics were obviously helping as he wasn't limping anymore but a good deal more of his fur was gone.  In fact, his whole back end is looking mighty bare (no wonder he was hiding behind the geraniums).  So another trip to the vet was required, howling in his cage all the way into town, and no answers were revealed.  The vet suspects he is over grooming due to stress.  We are hoping the stress was due to being sick and that hopefully his hair will now start to grow back in as the infection appears to be gone.

A trip to the vegetable garden brought numerous triumphs and tragedies.  I was pleased to see so many vegetables ready for the picking.  We've been eating a lot of fresh food recently.

However, how could the two of us possibly eat 7 cucumbers and 4 zucchini?  Not to mention the beans and tomatoes.  Thankfully I have some compliant coworkers who helped me out.

Another problem was the water.  Or rather lack of it.  It's been a dry dry dry summer.  Tomatoes were cracked, cilantro and dill dried out, flowers dead.

Cilantro dried out and gone to seed

I've been trying to get away without watering very much this year and it showed.  My dahlia flowers in the crescent garden should have been putting on a show around this time but hardly a bloom was to be seen.  The plants I think sacrificed blooms to save themselves.

But for every plant that showed signs of stress there were those that didn't seem to care.

From the kitchen I could see a burst of yellow down by the garage.  Closer inspection revealed the Golden Glow was blooming out of control.  It seems to have topped out around 8 feet but keeping it upright is a challenge.  The stakes I had bought to keep it upright toppled under the weight of the flowers.  Next year we need a fence to rein it in.