Maid Marian and her Merry Men - Tony Robinson (Kathy 'Winesburg . . ' is one of the most depressing books I've read!)

I have been gone for almost two weeks, and much has changed in the yard, thankfully. One of my favorite azaleas is blooming, this view which looks upwards into it. I like for its luminous white-pink blooms and because you can see the topmost blooms from the back deck. These tiarellas were rescued from near extinction last year, and they grew from extremely small starts to what you see below. I think I'm going to add some more for a mass planting. And, I LOVE the cobalt blue of the Brunnera. I will definitely turn that into a mass planting. These were abused by the plowman, and still look good this year. I thought they were goners. Just wish the variegated leaf forms would grow from seed. I bought four Percy Wiseman Rhododendron this year. I LOVE these colors. The buds are bright pink, but the flowers are light pink tinged with yellow. The three colors simultaneously on the plant are just gorgeous. And, ending with a very pleasant surprise. I ordered roughly 15 bare-root peonies last year in the fall from GH Wild. I planted them in rich well-prepared soil, and nearly all of them have buds this year. Did NOT expect that. It's going to be exciting! Below is one with two big fat buds. As a side note, I am realizing that these spring-blooming trees and shrubs are a good color bridge between bulbs and my "normal" herbaceous perennial season. The new azaleas may be off their true bloom time since they were just purchased and I'm assuming are under more of a greenhouse/grower timeline. But, I'm hoping next year they are blooming during this needed "bridge" time.

My goal for September is to just get through it. Have enjoyed being with family even after receiving more bad news. No sewing but maybe a big utility quilt repair is in my future.........maybe next week when everyone is at work/school. I bought some FQ yesterday and thought I'd just raw edge sew hearts or whatever over the places...seems to be the easiest I can think of for hand sewing. It has been used, that's for sure.....and that's what I want. I hope everyone's lives have settled down a bit and things are looking a bit better. How about some Homespun fun to help us smile........ http://www.jubileehomespun.com/pumpkin-coasters-quilted-homespun.html .......sorry, for some reason, this link doesn't work. correct one in message below Bev's post.

We have a huge mosquito invasion here. Hordes of them hang around just outside all our exterior doors just waiting for us to walk out the door, and every time a person, dog or cat goes in or out, the mosquitoes try to fly inside. Hunting them down indoors and killing them if they make it indoors is very tedious. It is the same thing when you get into the car---the mosquitoes fly in with you. Many counties near us, mostly on the TX side of the river, are reporting positive findings of West Nile in mosquitoes caught in traps. Fort Worth has had 200 mosquitoes test positive for West Nile in recent days. Some cities have begun spray programs. Y'all be careful around all these mosquitoes. I assume that with this many mosquitoes active and testing positive for West Nile, we likely will start hearing about human cases of West Nile soon. Tim and I suddenly have wasps---three new, big wasp nests have appeared on the house this week. He sprayed those with a wasp spray just around sunset yesterday and will spray again this evening if any wasps still are on/in the nests. I imagine the cooler weather explains the sudden appearance of the wasps and the building of nests on the house. We had wasps around all summer and just ignored them because they are very beneficial insects to have as many prey on caterpillars, but they weren't around the house much in the hot summer months, and they weren't building nests attached to the house. We won't even mention the huge fire ant mounds popping up everywhere, other than to say they are here. There's tons of grasshoppers still, and we also still have stink bugs and this week I am seeing a few squash bugs. Y'all know that squash bugs will feed on Halloween pumpkins and decorative pumpkins you have sitting outside for autumn decorations right? I watch for them and try to kill them when I see them there. Any that escape death will overwinter and be the start of next year's squash bug problem. Back in the summer months I got tired of weeding the asparagus bed, so cut back the asparagus really hard and sowed a ton of leftover flower seeds into that bed. I figured if weeds were going to grow mixed in with my asparagus plants, they might as well be the weeds of my choosing. So, in the asparagus bed we now have a lot of plants in bloom: cosmos, the grain type amaranths, Nicotiana alata, daturas, Laura Bush petunias, zinnias, rose moss and more. I'm sure there's weeds in there as well but you really cannot see them because of all the pretty flowers in bloom. The asparagus grew back of course. Nothing kills asparagus. The seeds I tossed into the asparagus bed were slow to sprout and grow because we were in drought, but the plants are doing great now. That is a good thing as many of the summer bloomers that have been growing in the garden since March or April are worn out and dying back or going to seed, but that one long asparagus bed is full of fresh fall blooms. Many of the zinnias I planted in the spring are rapidly declining now after this latest couple of inches of rain that fell this week. The soil is just too wet for them now, but at the same time, a few small zinnias that sprouted in the mulch in adjacent pathways are getting ready to bloom. I'm glad I left them in the pathways when I saw they had sprouted there. Usually I immediately yank out anything that sprouts in the mulch, but I can't yank out baby zinnias in August because I know the older ones are tired out and worn out and declining. Some of the pineapple sage plants are in the same condition of decline---they like well-drained soil, but I have a total of 9 pineapple sage plants, which means we still have plenty in bloom because only a couple have died. I believe the monarchs are migrating through here now. We had tons of them nectaring yesterday and most are flying south. Some are flying southwest, which also is fairly typical here at this time of the year. Some of the males are puddling. All in all, there's still a whole lot going on outdoors even as the season is winding down. The most amazing garden survivor is 2 or 3 flat-leaf parsley plants that somehow survived all the heat and drought (not bad for cool-season plants in a 100+-degree summer, growing in full sun), followed by purple datura volunteers that sprouted in August and are getting ready to bloom in the next few days. The fall tomato plants still don't have much fruit on them, likely because we stayed in the 90s very deeply into September so it won't be a great fall tomato year here, but the SunGold I put in the ground in March still is producing so at least there's that. So many morning glories, mostly Grandpa Ott's, sprouted and started growing along the fenceline in late summer that they are beginning to shade the pineapple sage, Russian sage and purple daturas, so I spent some time last evening yanking out a bunch of them. With sunlight/day length becoming increasingly limited as we go more deeply into autumn, I want for the flowers in the border along the driveway to not have their sunlight blocked by aggressive, weedy MGs. Today's task will be to cut back four o'clocks that are growing through the western fence and shading my peony plants and adjacent container plants. If only the four o'clocks would stay where they are supposed to grow outside the garden fence, but four o'clocks ignore boundaries. It is all fun and games out in the garden later today, at least until I encounter a snake of any kind. Then, the party will be over. Dawn