Baker's Balloons

Chet Baker loves to accompany me to the mailbox, which is about a quarter-mile from our house. It is a most agreeable walk, being shady and studded with purple coneflowers. Fourteen years ago, we planted these gorgeous things, just raked seed into fresh earth, and it is clear that they are happy in the light shade along our driveway. They are spreading like something nonnative might spread, but whee!! They are native.
I love the wild type coneflower, with the retrose shuttlecock petals. The cosseted plants I bought to put in my garden beds are nowhere near as hardy or lovely as these, grown from Vermont Wildflower seed. Pretty much everything in that seed mix has died out except these, and they look like they mean to go on forever.I just can't stand what the plant breeders are doing to this noble gangly plant, dwarfing it, making it dibbly-double; making it orange and white and yellow and mango colored. OK, I'd take a mango-colored one, but don't show me those darned ucky frilly gnomish monstrosities.Eccccchinacea (my spelling) "Razzmatazz." Well named, at least. It's less than a foot tall, and there's no way for butterflies to access nectar, even if there were any, because the nectiferous cone is all covered with petals. Please. You take one of the most useful plants in the garden, full of nectar for leps and seeds for goldfinches and buntings--and you remove everything that makes it useful, ergo everything that makes it beautiful. And just for good measure, you dwarf it. Yeah! That right there is Improving on Nature.

This time of year my tall natural beauties--chest high to me-- are alive with fritillaries and swallowtails. I've counted more than twenty butterflies at once on one stand of coneflower. We have four stands, all along the driveway, so that's a lot of fritillaries.
On our last walk, Chet found a cluster of balloons that had doubtless been released at a baby shower or wedding. Mether. If ever there was a perfect thing for a Boston terrier to bring home, it is this. It is lightweight, and very very shakable. Listen. It goes wubba wubba wubba when I shake it. I will take it home with me.
Well? Are you coming with me?
Carrying these balloons home is nothing for a dog like me, who once carried a basketball named Scooby all the way around The Loop. You must, must click on the link to see me, Chet Baker, as a baby.

And once I get them home, I rip them up, completely. This picture shows my brindling very well. My father, Peanut Brittle, is a bright red brindle. I am a seal brindle, the best kind.

Because KatDoc will scold us otherwise, we have to say here that Mether took the balloons away from me as soon as I started shredding them. And it is true. Most good things must come to an end, and one of them is blue balloons. But wild purple coneflowers go on forever.

Garden Tour

Oh, the things that are blooming. We invited some friends over, including some very avid gardeners--one a professional landscaper, British no less. I decided to be loud and proud about my gardens, which look like they were planted by an insane monkey. What choice do I have? Tim was kind. He said it was really a classic cottage garden, informal, and quite charming. And that what matters is that it makes me happy. Thanks, Tim. But I know it still looks like it was planted by Bubbles the Chimp on speed. Hey. Anybody remember Bloop Bloop, Penny's spacechimp on Lost in Space? Me, too. Wonder if she outlived Dr. Smith? Hey, nice hat. Nice spacesuits too, Will and Penny. Looks like it's the Bloop's birthday. Aww. Somebody baked her a cake.

Just a few things, other than ridiculous late-night surfing for images from old TV series, that I love. Red daylilies from the Marietta Farmer's Market, backed by pink garden or musk mallow (Malva alcea fastigiata) from White Flower Farm. It behaved itself until this year. Now it is EVERYWHERE and I cannot dig it out. "Naturalizes well from seed." To say the least. Tap root to China. I guess I still like it, even as I hack it back. Those durn mallows will sneak up on you and try to overtake everything. They spread babies everywhere and you don't know it until it's too late. But it does a nice job of stitching together hot and cool colors with its shell-pink blossoms.There are some terrific daylily people selling their lilybabies at the Farmer's Market each Saturday. I cannot resist them. They fit easily just about anywhere, being so ectomorphic. The lilies, not the people. Good for a "cram and jam" gardener like me.

I like containers a lot, though I've planted fewer this year than any other year in memory. Just gone too much, I guess. But this is where I grow pelargoniums like the bright coral "Grey Sprite," a true miniature geranium. "Frank Headley" is another dwarf I adore, with its broad white edgings and salmon blossoms. The new "Renegade" series (pale pink, in the front container) has chocolate leaves and is very floriferous. I give it two trowels up. Laurentia is the blue star-shaped flower in the rear container. WHATTA PLANT! Brand new. I adore it. It has bloomed hard since May. Yeah!

Bill and I planted purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) seeds along our driveway about twelve years ago, never really expecting them to establish. But oh, they did, in five different spots along the quarter-mile, and they are so much more beautiful, grown en masse and in partial shade, than the sun-drenched dwarves in my garden. No wonder I find excuses to take letters out and check the mail. There is always a great spangled fritillary or a tiger swallowtail enjoying the coneflowers when I go out to get the mail. The plants are as tall as I am. The flowers look me right in the eye.
Here's the hummingbird garden. They're all hummingbird gardens, but this one is dedicated. The cardinalflower (Lobelia cardinalis) , salvias and agastache are competing with lush plains coreopsis ( yellow with red center) for space here. Goldfinches adore plains coreopsis, and they help scatter its seeds. I haven't planted it but once, years ago. It pops up everywhere, and I adore it. Native, too!Just a look. More flowers come in every day. It's turning out to be a pretty darn good garden year. Little rains and a lot of hand-watering are keeping things going. And it hasn't really gotten beastly hot. I'm thankful for every little mercy, and especially glad to be home to enjoy it all. Dang it all, I'm off again. See you next week. Garden on, Garth! Garden on, Wayne!