Cloudy, Cool, Comfortable, And Crazy

The weekend was not a washout and a lot of gardening was accomplished around the edges of a fairly busy social life. We had a house guest, Tayla Eulom, an artist in town from Los Angeles for an arts festival, who joined us on the heels of two other prior guests. There was a canceled Friday night party that turned out to be not canceled when everyone met up at a restaurant. And since Friday night had been previously canceled, the new Friday night was Saturday, so guests joined us for a second fabulous Friday night party on Saturday night. Sunday, we headed off to the water for a celebration of Maggie Wiles' 60th birthday party. And in between that, I got most of the new perennials planted. I went to the National Arboretum Plant Fair with Kate Newman, who is masterfully reestablishing her front lawn into a Maryland natives garden. While there, we ran into neighbors Ann and Chris, who also only plant natives. And also attending was former Smithsonian magazine Kenny Fletcher, who is now working part time at a nursery. He reports that he has recently finished building a greenhouse. The versatility of Fletcher, writer, traveler, Spanish speaker, videographer, musician, kite builder and now, nurseryman, never fails to impress me. Also, I met a new friend. Children's novelist, Amy Brecount White, whose new novel, Forget-Her-Nots, I bought and she signed. Meanwhile, Jim dug out that patch of invasive lilies for me and we filled four waste bags with the caste-off plants. Very productive weekend. Here's what I planted and where:
1. A Rosa gruss an aachen is at the white fence out front. The Rosa marmalade skies is in the side-yard next to the bottom of the deck.
2. A Hemerocallis clothed in glory is in the back garden along the path by the vegetable garden.
3. Two Astrantia moulin rouge are next to the lily clothed in glory.
4. Baptisia australis, the 2010 perennial of the year, is in the newly cleared space where the lilies were and next to it, I planted three butterfly weed plants.
5. Three hollyhocks, the old barnyard variety, are out by the front fence.
6. The new blueberry bush is potted on the deck in the container garden with the lemon tree and the new fig tree.
The Putterer