Power Tool Envy

Say your mower won't start. Face it. Unless it's just out of gas or you need my phone to call a mechanic, I'm not going to be much help.

Any device requiring a mix of gas and oil completely baffles me. I could never get my gas-powered string trimmer to start. I'd push buttons, pump rubber seals and yank the cord until my shoulders ached without success. It was embarrassing.

Seeing my struggle, a kindly neighbor would start it for me on the first try. I'd thank him, and after using it for a few minutes would have three feet of line painfully whipping my ankles or a useless stub. It was easier to get down on my hands and knees and trim with a pair of scissors. For years that is exactly what I did.

My electric blower sucks, too. I have to drag out miles of extension cord to blow off the street, driveway, porches and walks. The noise is deafening, and wrestling with the extension cord frustrates me to no end. Throw in blistering heat and believe it or not I start to get a little pissy.

Rolling up all that extension cord for storage doesn't help. No matter how careful I am, the cord always gets twisted. Then it starts knotting up and doubling back on itself and refusing to coil like it has a mind of its own. My mood advances from merely pissy to profoundly perturbed.

Here in Bermuda grass country, you need an electric edger to keep the runners from taking over driveways and walks. Again, I have to drag out miles of extension cord. The flying dust coats my sweat-soaked skin and clothes. Then I have to blow the trimmings off the driveway, and deal with all those damn cords. Perturbed advances to an ugly stay-the-hell-out-of-my-way kind of pissed.

The job only gets done once or twice a year because of all the hassle. Of course procrastinating just makes it that much harder to do. Throw in yanking the stuff out of flower beds and you begin to understand why I am no fan of Bermuda grass.

Last summer my electric edger broke. I hated it anyway and was glad to see it go. There had to be a better way.

Two months ago I bought a Black & Decker String Trimmer/Edger with a rechargeable battery. My yard has never been so beautifully edged and trimmed! Grab a battery from the charger (it came with a spare), snap it in to the edger, and off you go. Parts of my yard have been edged or trimmed for the first time in a dozen years.

A month later I bought a matching blower. The blower doesn't quite have the woosh of the the big electric one it replaced, but it gets the job done. It's light as a feather and makes much less noise, too.

A couple of weekends ago I was enjoying myself edging along the street and blasting all the weeds out of the cracks. Not one, not two, but THREE old men in big pick-up trucks stopped to admire my new power tools. It was a first for me.

I was so proud! At last I have arrived. I finally have something to talk about with...

The Crotchety Old Men

Chasing Butterflies

In seventh grade biology we had to collect bugs for a class project. The luckless victims were trapped in insecticide-filled jars, crucified with straight pins and mounted on styrofoam. Hopefully the advent of digital cameras has ended what now seems to be a rather gruesome practice.

My bug collection would have been a lot more impressive had I lived in Athens. Everybody knows bugs are a defining characteristic of life in the Deep South. Even here about the gnat line we have an impressive assortment of insects.

Aside from fire ants, the first thing I noticed was the amazing variety of butterflies. Since my last post I've been chasing butterflies through the garden with my antique digital camera. The results turned out better than I expected.

I have no idea what kind they are.  My Audubon Field Guide to North American Butterflies helps, but only so much. So no guesses from me.

These are just the varieties that have cooperated. There are more illusive types that fly off before I can snap a picture. Some fly off before I get anywhere near them. Guess they don't know they have nothing to fear from...

The Crotchety Old Man

Back to the Garden

Starting in June and continuing through August, the heat and humidity here in Athens make it impossible for me to enjoy working in the garden. If I wanted to sweat like that I'd go to the gym or something. I mean really...have you met me?

For the hot summer months my garden goes on auto-pilot. I might pull a weed or two or drag out the hose to water a bit. Anything requiring more care than that doesn't survive for long in my garden.

Last weekend the weather was absolutely perfect. The humidity dropped with highs ten degrees cooler than we've seen for months. I thoroughly enjoyed the hours I spent outside pulling weeds and otherwise sprucing things up.

The butterfly bushes are spectacular! I have six different varieties planted side-by-side toward the back of a long border. This afternoon I counted more than 15 different varieties of butterflies on them. Unfortunately, between the bright sunlight, the blue and purple flowers and my low quality camera I can't get a good picture so you'll just have to take my word.

I was thrilled to find a couple of river oats in the yard. They were exotic to me 12 years ago when I moved here. Now they've taken over and I'm ready to get rid of them. Still, the seed heads are beautiful, especially in a light breeze. (Click on the picture for a more see-able version!)

My boss gave me a small clump of garlic chives more than ten years ago. Most chives bloom in the spring. These are blooming now beneath a red curly willow. I'll have twice as many next year from all the seeds.

Boltonia is one of my all-time favorite plants. The wild stuff hasn't started blooming yet. This is a cultivar known as Snowbank. It's a great plant to mix in a border as it tends to flop or grow taller to fill available spaces.

I've saved the best for last. This week's Best in Show winner could have appeared before now, but I wanted to wait for the helianthus to bloom. The award goes to a mass planting of ornamental grass (Miscanthus sinenses) and lantana (Miss Huff) with helianthus (yellow daisy-like flowers) It's stunning as the sun sets behind it in the late afternoon.

It's great to be back in the garden. I need the exercise. Spending time making my world a more beautiful place makes me feel like something other than...

The Crotchety Old Man

Best in Bloom...This Week

The last post featured groups of plants. Today I want to highlight the individual blossoms of several varieties currently blooming in the garden. As always, click on the picture for a larger view.

The amaryllis bulbs available for sale in December are conditioned to bloom around Christmas. Around here some folks plant the bulbs directly in the ground. Mine stay in pots so I can move them inside if it gets cold. Without forcing they bloom around this time of year here in Athens.

I thought roses were hard to grow. Some are, but others do surprisingly well with little or no care. A few, like Georgia's state flower the Cherokee Rose, are downright thugs in the garden. This pink rose (Town & Country, Monticello) is a well-behaved, no-maintenance variety that just gets prettier every year.

Certain Hydrangea blooms vary with the pH of the soil. In limey soil they bloom pink. In our acid soil they bloom blue. This one is a lace-cap called 'All Summer Beauty'. By summer's end the blooms will fade to tan.

Peonies are hard to beat. I got this double-pink for $4 at Walmart more than ten years ago. Even with a grow-through plant support the stems fall over from the weight of the blooms--a problem made worse by wind or rain. They make great cut flowers though I find the scent cloying after a while.

Until next time...

The Crotchety Old Man

Best Combos in the Garden...This Week

I love browsing through garden centers and seed catalogs. Plants I like end up in my shopping cart with little or no thought to where they will go in the garden. I buy a particular plant because I like it and hence, must have it.

New arrivals get stuck in the ground where I believe they are most likely to survive. Color or texture or other design elements never enter the picture. Beautiful combinations are entirely accidental. Here are some of my favorite combos from this weekend.

In the picture above, Small's Penstemon 'Violet Dusk' and Valerian 'Anthos' rise above day lilies, mums, begonias and dianthus. The grass in the background is Miscanthus 'Strictus'.

Yellow and orange California Poppies bloom with Painted Daisies, purple spikes of Larkspur, and in the background, pink Catchfly (Silene). The bronze fennel is hard to beat as a foliage plant. You can barely see the butterfly weeds about to bloom behind the larkspur. Most of the tall foliage comes from several varieties of butterfly bush.

The Catchfly and bronze fennel turn up again in this photo. The peony ('Karl Rosenfield') just gets more beautiful every year even when wind and rain take their toll. The daisies and day lilies in the foreground take over later in the summer.

Finally, Valerian (aka Centranthus ruber) blooms with Miscanthus in the background. I grew the grasses from seed (easily done) and use them as a hedge along the street. The Valerian was planted last year and appears to have settled in nicely.

More to come. Thanks for following along!

More April Flowers

The middle of April is beautiful in Athens. Most days it's sunny, and warm enough for shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops but not so hot you need to close the windows and turn on the A/C. The flowering trees and shrubs--especially the azaleas--are spectacular.

Many locals consider planting the lowly azalea to be a waste of valuable garden space. Not me. I think azaleas are the most gorgeous shrub on the planet and add a few more every year. In this picture are four different varieties in bloom with candytuft--a shrubby, white-flowering groundcover. As always, click on any picture for a larger version.

If azaleas are the most beautiful shrub in town, then clematis is the queen of the climbing vines. I started out with six named varieties years ago, and was amazed when they produced seedlings all over the garden. Here several different varieties climb a dogwood trunk behind a large grouping of bright pink Rutherford azaleas.

Another favorite shrub, Kolkwitzia amabilis (Beauty Bush) is covered with fragrant pink bell-shaped flowers. The Knock-out roses next to it are just starting to bloom. I added some red verbena a few weeks ago. You can see the Rutherford azaleas in the distant background.

I planted California Poppies in the garden several years ago. They must like cold winters because this year they came up everywhere. They're just starting to bloom and a tad hard to photograph since the flowers only open on sunny days.

And that's what's happening in my garden this week. Enjoy!

April Flowers

Forgive me for yet another garden post. Right now everything is growing so fast you can see a difference from one day to the next. Things will slow down soon enough and I'll write about something else.

Until then you might get sick of reading about the garden. Especially the first few weeks of the season, each and every variety in bloom is a favorite. Later it takes more to get my attention.

No garden is complete without the "bulb of the week", Ipheion uniflorum, better known as spring starflowers (below). Several clumps drifted over from the neighbor's yard. They do well in dry shade where little else will grow. [Click on any pic to make it bigger.)

Dicentra spectabilis (aka bleeding hearts) is one of my most favorite plants and the "flower of the week". Beautiful heart-shaped flowers dangle from long stems for many weeks this time of year. Mine are just starting to bloom and will likely show up here again when they reach full bloom in a few weeks.

I use a lot of annuals. Since you need new ones every year anyway, they make it easy to change things up. This weekend the front edge of this border welcomed several flats of pink begonias and red dianthus (below). I'm on a red binge this year for some reason.

Now we need some April showers. If not, reckon I'll be watering. A yard full of dead flowers for the Derby Party would turn anyone into...

The Crotchety Old Man

What a Difference a Week Makes

A garden tends to get better with each new year. Trees and shrubs grow larger, perennials mature, bulbs multiply and annuals increase exponentially. This is certainly true in the 12th season of my little garden here in Athens.

In truth, my garden is a random assortment of plants bought on a whim. I see something I like, buy it (a lot of it if I really like it), and figure out where to put it when I get home. Planning never really enters the picture.

Sometimes my random approach to gardening works great. More often, however, it doesn't. So I try something different.

Anyway, along with 12 years of tinkering, the exceedingly wet fall and one of the coldest winters on record the garden has been truly spectacular this spring. Here are my favorite pictures from this weekend.

You can see this same shot on my last garden post. What a difference a week makes! The Pieris japonica 'Temple Bells' (white flowers) and Anemone blanda (blue daisies) are high on my list of favorites.  Might need to rethink the orange pansies next year!

These daffodils are in the last garden post, too, from a different angle. The cherry trees blooming in the background make a huge difference. Eventually grasses and day lilies will take over. The dianthus (red) and begonias (pink) are new additions.

The same daffodils from a bit further down the path. You can see the grape hyacinths (blue spikes) are blooming a lot more than they were a week ago. I bought a bag of 50 bulbs the first year I was hear and now have billions.

And that's what's happening in the garden of...

The Crotchety Old Man

Spring's Beautiful Beginning

Spring has certainly arrived here in Athens, Georgia. After a slow start the garden has practically exploded into bloom. The difference from last weekend to today is just amazing.

Deciding on the winners for best in bloom awards was hard because there is so much from which to choose. I finally selected my favorite four pictures from hundreds taken over the last few days. How did we survive before digital cameras?

The Helleborus orientalis described here nearly a month ago are even more beautiful now. This is old news so no new picture. Sorry. Four pictures is about the maximum for a post.

Nothing says spring like bulbs. Daffodils, wonderfully fragrant hyacinths (pink), and dainty grape hyacinths bloom along a pine straw path through the garden. The red berries in the background are Nandina domestica. You can see white Helleborus flowers on the other side of the concrete table.

A southern garden isn't complete without camellias. I have half a dozen varieties and keep adding more of these beautiful winter-blooming evergreens. Three varieties are blooming right now, the best being Camellia japonica 'Victory White', pictured below.

Because it's usually the first deciduous shrub in my garden to bloom, Magnolia stellata is another favorite. They are also lightly fragrant, depending on the time of day and the wind. The ten-year old specimen pictured below stands a good 8 or 9 feet tall.

Another early bloomer making a late appearance this year is Pieris japonica 'Temple Bells'. The one pictured below is about 12 years old. For some reason it tends to skip blooming in odd-numbered years. Beneath it is Anemone blanda, also known as windflowers and another of my favorite bulbs.

That's the view from the garden this week. Enjoy, and stay tuned. Given all the rain we've had in the last six months and the way things are starting out, it should be a spectacular spring.

Has Spring Sprung?

After snowing enough on Tuesday for the University of Georgia to close, the weather here has been gradually improving. The high has increased by about five degrees a day. I'm thinking maybe spring has finally arrived in Athens.

The garden is really starting to come to life. Just over two weeks ago I wrote about snow crocus, Lenten rose, and some blooming house plants. I mentioned dwarf iris, but only a few were in bloom at the time. They are really coming in to their own now all over the yard as seen in the photo above.

Lenten rose blooms have increased dramatically. Above is an upward-looking photo of these downward-facing blossoms. They readily self-seed throughout the garden making me wonder why they are so expensive at garden centers. Below you can see the sprouts. If you're local and want some, let me know. I have millions.

The snow crocus continue to bloom and have now been joined by giant crocus. Below are some that managed to escape discovery by squirrels and chipmunks over the winter. This is the first year since I've been in Athens that they've bloomed before the daffodils--a regular occurrence when I gardened in Kentucky.

No wonder everything is so late. According to the newspaper, daytime temperatures are warmer in 19 of every 20 winters than what we've seen this year. I expect we'll see a lot of catching up over the next few weeks given the balmy/rainy forecast. I hope so. Cold weather turns me into...

The Crotchety Old Man

Better Late Than Never

I am always thrilled to discover the first flower of the season. At long last, the early flowering varieties have started to bloom. Because they come so late, the first-to-bloom are especially appreciated this year.

Dwarf crocus (also known as snow crocus), dwarf iris, and Helleborus orientalis (also known as Lenten Rose) are finally starting to bloom in my garden nearly two months behind schedule. The three Lenten Roses I bought years ago now form a large colony of more than 50 plants. Only a couple of flowers on them right now, including this one:

Snow crocus get the award for Best Flower this week. They look dainty, but these tough little guys close up at night to avoid damage from freezing temperatures.

The real show is inside. The dwarf schefflera I drag in and out every fall and spring is covered with blooms. I've neglected and outright abused this plant for years. Never seen one bloom before leading me to think they like it rough.

Amaryllis is another big favorite. Prepared and conditioned for the holidays by professionals, these giant bulbs bloom with reckless abandon the first year. Most people toss them but I like to see if I can get them to bloom again. If successful, they tend to bloom around this time of year and into March rather than at Christmas.

The delayed start to the blooming season, now that is has finally started, is not all bad. By May everything will be back on schedule. That means we'll have four months of flowers crammed into just two months. If not, you know you'll hear from...

The Crotchety Old Man

January Garden Awards: And the Winner is...

Before digital cameras, blogs or social networking sites I used to keep a garden journal. I kept track of various things at different times. But one regular feature was a write-up of the "best in bloom" at that particular moment.

The "best" changed depending on what caught my eye in the garden. Sometimes it was the best plant--with awards sometimes given to the best bulb, annual, perennial, shrub and/or tree in bloom. Instead of or in addition to one or more of these I might also give an award for best combo or for most improved or whatever else strikes me. As the only judge, I make up the rules as I go.

There isn't much competition at the moment. Other than a few pansies and violas planted last fall, only the wild grape hollies are blooming in my garden. They are in the foreground of the picture with Nandina berries in the background. That makes them the "best in bloom" for January by default.

Usually I have daffodils, dwarf iris, hellebores and more in bloom. Not this year. Thanks to an extended period of freezing temperatures earlier, the flowers in my yard are behind schedule. With more than 500 varieties randomly scattered across our one acre lot, there is much more to come.

Daffodils are up everywhere and will likely begin to bloom soon. I noticed crocus, hyacinths, dwarf iris, and other winter bloomers coming up, too. Most bulbs like a cold dormant season. Unless they rot from all the rain or the squirrels and chipmunks ate them, it should be a good year for bulbs.

Perennials are mostly still dormant or reduced to small clumps of foliage for the winter. The hellebores look great but show no sign of blooming. Normally the entire clump is covered with blooms by now. The rosemary has a few buds but isn't blooming yet either.

On walks with the dogs I see a front yard featuring an enormous clump of dark red camellias in bloom that gets my award for most beautiful front yard. This early I give honorable mentions to anything blooming. I've seen pink blooms on trees with bark like cherry trees that I suspect are either plums or almonds, and shrubby clumps of canes covered with yellow flowers that I thought was forsythia when I first moved here.

I'll keep you posted throughout the coming year on the "best of" our garden. Hope you enjoy it. If you plan to be in the area, talk with me about guest judge opportunities. I know someone who could make it happen...

The Crotchety Old Man