June 29 panorama

I am continuing my project of taking panorama shots of the back garden at the turn of the month and at the middle.  Since June is ending on a Monday. I went out and took the pictures today.  I spent yesterday working on the vegetable garden, taking off the bird netting and putting in supports for the plants. Today I did some weeding, so the garden was ready to have it's picture taken.

TaDa:

I was talking to our neighbor, Pat, last night (we had her over for a barbecue) and she said she doesn't remember a summer when the plants got so big.  So these pictures may not be typical, but they do document the stages of growth and change through the summer. At the end of the summer I am going to put together a couple collages showing the development of the garden and print them off on photo paper and put them into my garden notebook.  So I'll have a record of the garden (as it is this year) and what blooms when and where in the garden. 

As I mentioned, yesterday we took the bird netting off the vegetable garden.  The tomatoes and cucumbers were growing through it, so we figured it would be more a hindrance to us being able to harvest anything than effective protection from the birds.  (We've already started getting zucchini, and cucumbers, and the lettuce is done for the season.  Tomatoes are very close.)

So, I was saying (twice now) we took down the bird netting.  What I didn't realize was how much the plants were using the netting for support.  Once I had the netting free, everything fell over.

That's a big pile of tomato and cucumber plants that's too heavy to support itself.

A trip to Lowes and a couple hours later we have this:

It wasn't quite the plans I had for the afternoon, but now the tomatoes and cucumbers are supported and have more room to grow.  We can also see and reach the tomato plants on the inside of the box. We found another ripe zucchini and Gloria made zucchini tots to go with the grilled chicken and pasta salad for dinner.

Now I'm just hoping that the raised bed is high enough to be out of reach of the bunnies.

Bloom Day

Last month I came across an interesting blog post.  The May Dreams Garden blog invites people to take pictures of what is blooming on the 15th of the month and write a post and share a link to show what's going on in the garden.  This month's post is at Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - June 2014.  So, I've taken some pictures (what a surprise.)  It also fits well with my project this summer to take panorama pictures of the back hill at the beginning and middle of each month to keep a video diary of what blooms and when.

So I'll start with a panorama of the back garden from pictures taken yesterday afternoon.

The flowers in bloom right now are Yellow Primrose, Rose Campion, and Cucumbers, Zucchini, and Tomatoes. 

I'll let the Primrose go first since they are the flashiest.

They are all over the hill, but they're so pretty that I'm happy to see them.  They are also accompanied by Rose Campions.

It's taken a couple years, and some help, to identify what the Rose Campions are, but now I know what they are so that I can call them by name.

Over on the far right of the yard (in the big square planter) is the vegetable garden. This is our first year planting vegetables so we're excited to see all the blossoms and nascent vegetables on the vines.  I didn't get pictures of the zucchini blossoms or the tomato flowers, but here is a picture of some cucumber flowers.

We've put bird netting over the vegetable garden to try and protect the veggies until we can harvest them.

And it wouldn't be a celebration around here (Father's Day this weekend) without food.  I butterflied a chicken and rubbed some garlic herb butter under the skin before I grilled it. We also had corn on the cob, roasted veggies, grilled pineapple and (not shown) cowboy beans, bread and brie, and a bottle of Far Eastern Shore wine - Lotus.

And some no sugar added blueberry pie for dessert.   It was a good day to enjoy the flowering garden and family gathered for dinner.

Primroses and Rose Campions

The heat of summer is coming on in Bowie. It's not in the 90's yet, but we're going to be in the mid to upper 80's all week. Amidst the heat and afternoon thunderstorms, the garden is flourishing.  Early June is the bloom time for the primroses and the rose campions.

I finally (after trying to track it down for two years) know what the silver plants with the dark red flowers are.

They are rose campions.  Due to some detective work done by a friend (thanks Karen) I know that these are rose campion.  And a few more details (they are short lived perennials [2-3 years] that reseed easily and can be planted with yellow flowers for a "hot" garden.)

Speaking of yellow flowers:

the primroses are taking over the garden in cahoots with the rose campions.

Looking down the path from near the holly trees on the left in the panorama

The two compliment each other well in color and in bloom time.

Across the back fence we have 4 butterfly bushes coming along nicely that will start adding a wildlife dimension to the blooms very soon.

Butterfly pictures should start showing up soon. We've seen one or two butterflies already, but they'll be more as soon as the butterfly bushes start to bloom.

Field Trip to Montpelier Mansion

To celebrate a few days off leading into a long weekend, we went on a field trip today.  We visited Marietta Mansion, Montpelier Mansion, and Belair Mansion. It's a beautiful afternoon with temperatures in the low 70's, sunshine, and a slight breeze.  We couldn't ask for a better day to go out and walk around some well manicured grounds and gardens.

The highlight of the afternoon was the formal garden at Montpelier Mansion in Laurel.  I told Gloria that I wanted to get out to take some pictures - and I hit the jackpot for some garden shots.  They have a formal garden with Irises, Peonies, Roses, and herb among other plants. This weekend is a great time to see the peonies and the irises.

The formal garden looking up towards the mansion.

Near the entrance were several groupings of Irises.

The Irises posed for their close-up.

Then we passed through the formal herb garden and got to the peonies,  GORGEOUS!! 

Simple and fancy at the same time, the outer petals create a simple setting for the inner fancies.

Gloria has asked for more peonies in our garden.

I'm not sure what color to call these.

In the center of the peony beds there were several rose bushes.

(speechless)

And near the edge of a cleared area I saw this fellow.

I'll never have the time for such a formal garden, but it was fun to find one nearby that we can go visit together. We'll be watching heir website for activities at the mansion for more chances to go up and enjoy the grounds.

Creating a photo log of the back hill

By far the biggest garden we have is on the hill in the backyard.  There are numerous other bits and pieces around the house, but the back hill is the biggest continuous bed.  I've been taking pictures of sections of it for years, but last summer started stitching together some of the sequences to create panoramic scenes of the whole hill.

This year I'm taking the panoramic scenes a step further and creating a series of pictures over time to show the garden as it grows through the season.  So far I have three pictures and have put them together in a sequences collage.

 The top picture is mid-April right after I had spent a weekend putting down the mulch.  I was not very careful in overlapping the original pictures, so the stitching did not work well.  It's actually two different stitched images placed next to each other.  The center image is late April, and the third one is mid-May (then there is room for several more to be added later.)

Here are the images separately - to see more detail.

<-- 2 pictures Mid April

 Mid April 3 pictures ->

Late April

And today (mid-May)

Since I'm still learning what I'm doing out there, this will give me a chance to see what is blooming when. So next year I'll have a quick reference guide that is very specifically tailored to my garden.

Now I am going to ask for help.  I have several plants that I don't know what they are (so I'm not sure what to do for them.)  Here is a gallery of pictures.  If you know what these are, please leave a comment and tell me. I'll group them by numbers to make it easier to keep track.

Plant 1 - along the garden path in several spots - getting to about 12 -18 inches tall

Plant 2 in the center left of the hill - lots of sun

Plant 3 - at the far right on the hill - plenty of full sun.

Plant 4 - ground cover - mostly behind the crimson barberry in the center behind the arbor. 

If you know what these are - please leave a comment and let me know so that I'll know how to care for them.

It's Mulch Time

It's Mulch Time.

After building (and filling) the raised garden bed last week it was time to get to mulching the garden on the hill.  This is the first year I've tackled the project myself and not paid a landscaper to do the heavy lifting. (But I guess the heavy lifting was last weekend and the dirt for the raised bed,)

So I started by making two trips to Lowe's to get 30 bags of mulch.

It took two trips because I couldn't fit that much into one load in the Rav.  This is when I remember my red pick up for so many years ago...

Once I had it all unloaded I had to get it staged.

Mr Hill, meet Mr Mulch.

Of course once I had it staged, and the fence closed (most importantly "and the fence closed") I had helpers trying to see what was going on.

What's you doing Daddy?

So, to make a long story short - it's DONE.  It took most of the day, but I still had time to run up to the store and get the makings for cheeseburgers on the grill and a bottle of Dragonfly from Far Eastern Shore Winery.  Gloria had spent the afternoon cleaning patio furniture, so she was ready for dinner alfresco and a bottle of wine.

Here's the results of another long (but rewarding) day in the garden.

The red mulch really makes the daffodils pop.

Later this spring we hope to see signs of life on the blueberry bushes and the butterfly bushes (center and top of hill respectively.).

The entrance to the garden path, with two guardians with solar lanterns to light the way.

A dogwood tree near the top center, and a lilac bush to the left and down from the dogwood.

This is a big garden - I was beat by the time I made it to this end.

I'm tired, but it is so rewarding to do something where I can see results immediately.  The new plantings take awhile to see if they've taken hold, but something like building the raised bed, and putting down the mulch has an immediacy like I can find when I'm cooking.  Not the sort of intangible results of leading a software development team (my full time job.) I'm sure that this is a big part of why I'm finding the gardening to be so rewarding. (But being able to play with the electric trimmer and the chainsaw do have their charms as well.)