Two of My Favorite Things!

During the heavy rains we had a couple of weeks ago my prize Clematis became so heavy with water that the wire holding the trellis to the house broke. I looked out the window to see the whole thing leaning way over, and my heart to leaped into my throat! Something had to be done immediately, so out I went to fix it in the rain.

It proved to be a two-man job, so Ross graciously helped rewire the trellis to the house while I held the huge, soggy plant. Then I tied it up as best I could, hoping I wasn't ruining it in the process.

Clematis Jackmanii...tied up with string!



As you can see by this next picture, its now blooming beautifully which makes me very happy :)



In the window box next to it are Pink Morn petunias, ivy geraniums and alyssum. I like the bright pink of the petunias with the deep purple clematis.

You can also see another clematis, called Carnaby, in the corner. It's a spring bloomer. I posted a picture of the flower in a previous post, here



I've planted Pink Morn in a few containers too. I love its bright face!



The blooms have multipied since I took this photo, but a light rain is falling this morning, so I can't take an updated picture until it stops. Hopefully we'll see the sun later today.



The Jacmanii is now completely covered with blooms. It's an amazingly vigorous and showy plant. Is it any wonder that I love it so much?



I bought 2 new clematis this year. Yesterday I planted this lovely one, called Sprinkles, in the new garden Ross made for me. The other is called Regency and is a beautiful shade of pinkish red. You can see the tag in the background.

Clematis should have its "Head in the sun, feet in the shade", so plant something around the roots, or put down a 4-inch layer of mulch to keep them cool and moist. It prefers slightly alkaline soil, so you may need to add just a little lime if your soil is on the acid side. Keep it well watered (but don't drown it!). Like most plants, they need good drainage. My Jackmanii and Carnaby have thrived with all the rain we've had. I prune the plants to within a foot of the ground in early spring. Train the new vines onto your trellis, spacing them apart so the flowers will show better. To encourage the Carnaby to climb this year, I added some nylon fishing line to the trellis. That helped a lot.

Don't prune in the fall...this encourages the plant to emerge from dormancy at the first sign of warm weather, which is often much too early, and the new growth can't take the return to winter that is inevitable in our Northeastern climate.

I read a great article last year about clematis in Garden Gate magazine, and this information is from that. It was a free sample so there's no date to tell you how to find it. There's so much great information in the article that I'd love to print the entire thing, but I can't of course, for obvious reasons.

One interesting thing I learned is that there are 3 groups of clematis, and they are pruned differently, but all in the spring. If you have any questions, you could e-mail me, and maybe I could find the answer in the article for you.

I now subscribe to Garden Gate magazine and really like it! They certainly chose their articles well for that free sample...good marketing strategy there :)

Zoey is a Mother!

Early in April, I was lying on my stomach, trying to take this photo of the snowdrops and crocus, when Zoey came zooming towards me, leaped over my shoulder, and grabbed onto the clematis, which hadn't yet had its spring pruning.



She hung there just long enough for me to focus the camera on her...



and snap a couple of shots....



before falling to the ground. Always the clown, Zoey is the cuddliest cat we've ever had, and one of the funniest with her crazy antics.



In early June Zoey the clown became Zoey the mother. She doesn't have much time to play anymore, but she still loves to cuddle.



There are 2 tiny calicos (always females) and a black and white male (someone has to take after Mom).



They are now about a month old. Yesterday Ross found me struggling to keep them still enough to take a photo, and volunteered to help. He could see I wasn't getting anywhere. Taking a picture of a butterfly compares with this! In fact, it just might be easier! (if you've ever chased a butterfly with a camera, you know how hard it is to catch them sitting still. Sandy and Tuffenuf you know what I mean! :)

They weren't very cooperative....



Sitting still was not on their agenda, but I finally managed to get a shot of at least one and a half faces.



Zoey brought this little one to the house this afternoon. We call her Tink, after a beloved look-a-like cat we had years ago named Tinkerbelle. Tink the first was a wonderful cat. I wonder if this little sweety will be able to fill her shoes...er, paws, that is. And yes, we're looking for good homes for ALL the kittens!

Happy Birthday Kylie!

From babyhood........



Through childhood......



Ballet classes and flexibility.

And on through teenage angst........

Blond Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.......high school Graduate

To a lovely and capable young woman...

Kylie Patricia, you've brought us abundant joy.

As our firstborn child, you were the one we 'practiced' parenting on :)

This isn't always an easy position to be in, but you seem to have turned out well in spite of it!

We love you very much and wish you

a very

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

from Mom and Dad

Kylie and Ko

Kylie and Ko announced their engagement on June 13th, and are planning to be married next May. Happy news!!!!

Red, White and Blue

Happy Birthday to the United States Of America...my home, sweet home.

I'm proud to be an American!

And I'm proud to be an Australian too (although no longer a citizen)...land of my birth.

I hope all my blog friends in the U.S.A. had a happy Fourth Of July!

I thought red, white, and blue flowers might be appropriate to celebrate the birthday of our nation.

Red dinnerplate dahlia...yet to be planted.

We're trying to get a new garden ready for planting, but the continuous rain has foiled our best laid plans..over and over! We made some progress on Saturday, and I just may get the planting done tomorrow if all goes well.



White million bell petunias. I love these dainty flowers. These are planted in a window box with a geranium, regular petunias, and white alyssum (Sweet Alice..to remind me of my dear friend).



And blue larkspur (delphinium ajacis). I call it butterfly delphinium. I had it years ago but haven't had it recently until now. This was part of a mix of seeds I planted last year. It's very tall, and the color is so vibrant...really beautiful.



Plus a touch of calico! From the left are Maddy, Annabelle and Jasmine, having a little rest after a bit of play....trying to chew poor, patient Mom's ear, paws and tail.



Madelaine (Maddy) being as cute as can be :)



Dinner time! Isabelle is a good mother!



May God bless our troops who put themselves in harm's way to keep our country safe and protect our freedoms.

And may God bless America!

A Profusion Of Peonies!

The peonies gave us a wonderful show before the really heavy rains came. I took almost all of these photos from Tuesday to Saturday of last week, between the rain showers.

That's Sweet William in front of this lovely big peony bush.



This is the same bush looking north. I love the way this peony plant stays so upright, unless we get heavy rains, like we did this past week.



Another view of the same garden with our tennant house and the old barn in the background.



This garden is in front of the house. These 2 bushes have huge double blooms.



The dark and light pinks are a lovely contrast to each other.

That's a weigela in the foreground. I moved it from the center of this bed last year and am happy that it has survived.



This photo shows you the position of this garden in relation to the house. The yellow flowers are evening primrose, which will have to be radically thinned out when they're finished blooming. Meanwhile they provide plenty of lovely color. The tall flowers are foxglove and there's also a lily getting ready to bloom.



You can see here how huge the blooms are on both these bushes, especially the light pink.



Looking in the other direction.

I love the peony foliage, and use it in flower arrangements long after the flowers are gone. It makes a pretty filler.



I don't know the names of any of my peonies.

One was growing at Gran's house (my MIL used to live in the tennant house), and I moved some of it over here. The others were given to me by friends.



I took this final photo last Wednesday...the day our road was flooded. The sun came out about 9:30 AM.

What a soggy mess the poor peonies were!

I trimmed all the ruined blooms off in the afternoon and the remaining blooms perked up a bit.

The bushes still have a few blooms but the best of the show is over for another year.

They are really lovely while they last.

Guess what the weather did this afternoon? Yes, it rained! We had a couple of thunderstorms with some strong winds and heavy rains, but they didn't last long, thank heavens.

Until then we had glorious sunshine!

Now that was a Sunday blessing!

Perspective

To give you some perspective on what the river normally looks like, I thought I'd add this picture taken back in April. Notice how dull the landscape was compared to now.

The grass begins to grow in April. If it was a good year our cows were let out to pasture around the third week in April. We miss seeing them out in the meadows since we sold our dairy herd back in 2000.

The poor farmers are having a terrible time trying to get their haying done this year.