One Down, Shelley and A Few To Go!

Sometimes with The Herbal Husband I pick what battles I'm really going to fight for.  I have been trying to quietly get the butterfly bushes removed from the patio for a while.  Not only because they are an invasive species, but the roots will ruin the patio!   My master gardener friend, Shelley was over the other day and added to the pressure I was putting on him to move them.  It worked Shelley, sort of.  You might think that the first butterfly bush was a back for the concrete bench!  Frankly it was just in the way and fortunately for me not flowering!  That would have been the kiss of butterfly bush death if it had been flowering.  Meaning it would have been moved after it was done flowering, maybe.  I have been saying to him that it is on the invasive list and he finally heard me!  Of course, this project was not on any list, but out the butterfly bush came.

Then there was a brick that had sunk down in the patio and he had to fix that as well.  Here is the finished view.

We have to work on the left side of the photo.  There are two butterfly bushes there in full bloom, but we'll move those in the fall, hopefully.  As The Herbal Husband said now you can sit on your bench on a hot day and contemplate how long you're going to sit there!  Hey as long as it's moved out, it is always a good thing for me!  Hope you are having a wonderful Father's Day.  Talk to you later.

A Pretty Weed! Erigeron Annuus! Thanks FlowerLady!

OK, I always seem to have a weed/flower that never makes it into the weed book.  The closest plant I can find is the white heath aster.  It doesn't bloom until late summer!  Oops!  I guess it's just early like everything else!  Well, I just want to get it pulled before it spreads thousands of seeds everywhere.  You'll cover for me in case you know who wants to know where it went!  Well, thanks to my FlowerLady in Florida came up with the ID for me Erigeron annuus or Eastern Daisy Fleabane. Very soggy and humid in the 'Burgh!  Got my walk in and that's all that matters.  Hope you are having a great day.  Got to go read.  I'll explain tomorrow.  Talk to you later.

Maybe Surrender, But Staying Ahead Is Better!

I have limited photos on my new computer and so many stories to share.  One of my limited photos relates to Sharon Lovejoy who spoke of surrender this morning.  I do have some of the same surrender issues as Sharon.  I don't have photos to prove it, but I do have the same issues.  I think my theme will be staying ahead, herbally speaking.

The Herbal Husband said he was going to fertilize the roses!  It struck terror in my herbal heart.  I have this unknown rose that is supposed to be an Alfred de Dalmas at the back corner of my herb garden  It also has garlic chives tangled at its base!  Yikes, I thought once it is fertilized maybe a new cultivar, GIANT garlic chives!  It is not a good thing as Martha would say!  So here is an empty space, Sharon, but I think it is better than GIANT garlic chives!  I am going to try to stay ahead if possible.   When they start to coming back under this plant, I will try to be there to get them out.  The Herbal Husband is planting them in other parts of the garden!  They will be everywhere whether I want them or not.  I also found a dwarf chive plant.

I want to do a more detailed post on chives.  Here is a dwarf one that would be excellent in a container on a southern facing windowsill for winter consumption.  A little late for this year, but we are still having temperatures in the 30's!  Some are still having snow!  Yikes!  Still trying to get used to my keyboard.  I'm hitting all kinds of keys other than the ones I want.  Hope you are having a great day wherever you may be.  Pray for me.  I take my car in for service tomorrow!  Talk to you later.

One Herb That Is Flourishing!

I can always count on having lemon balm at this time of year.  I will be removing a lot of lemon balm early next year.  I'll just have to take it one plant at a time!  You have to use lemon balm fresh.  It does not dry well.  That little gray sign beside it is really for the tomato that is lurking off to the left of the photo.  We had a beautiful day today in the 80's, bright sunshine.  Raked chestnut hulls so I can mow tomorrow and now I think it might rain!  Oh well, have more lavender to process in the basement.  The new shelving looks great.  Working on some Christmas crafts in the coming weeks.  Hope you had a great day wherever you are.  Talk to you later. 

If Your Garlic Chives Look Like This...!

Get out your clippers and clip those seed heads off quick!  I have zillions (OK, just millions) of garlic chives!  I already have tons of garlic chives.  So if your seed heads are like the ones above, get busy!  I got most of my mine cut yesterday.  Yes, I become herbally obsessed!  Hope you are having a great day wherever you may be!  Remnants of Nicole are giving us a gentle rain.  Not like on the east coast!  Hope there is not too much flooding with Nicole.  Going to see the new Wall Street movie.  Talk to you later!

A Quick Update for Becca and Anonymous  Garlic chives are similar to chives but have flat leaves not round that can be added to stir fries  and other dishes that you need to add a garlic taste.  They have white flowers in August and September.  The seed heads need to be cut vigorously to make sure they do not take over.  I'm going to be spending a lot of my gardening season next year getting rid of my volunteer garlic chives!  Becca and Anonymous, you can plant garlic in about two weeks.  You can buy a bulb in the grocery store and separate the cloves and plant them in the ground.  Supposedly the bulbs in the stores are sprayed so they will not grow, but I have grown garlic from grocery store cloves.  I know Becca is in the south and maybe Anonymous as well, you can actually plant it now, but here in the north we plant it around Columbus Day.  It is usually dug up in mid to late July, depending on the weather. 

Wall Street, the movie was very good.  Great cast, well acted!  Talk to you later!

My Wild Green Front Garden!

Sometimes you never realize what your front yard looks like until you take a picture of it!  Ours is not the typical yard at the very least.  Even though the February snow got a lot of branches, the front is still a wild thing!  We have phlox, anemones, daylilies and bee balm and it will all be blooming shortly!  So enjoy the calm of the green now because soon it will be out of control with color!  Going to be a hot day with strong storms later!  Yikes!  Hope no more sewer sludge!  Although I slept through the cleanup!  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  Too many exclamation points, once again!  As you can see the Christmas/Valentines All Season wreath is still on the door!   I did change that since this photo was taken to the sunhat that needs new dried flowers and a glue gun revision!  Maybe more on that at a later date!  Got to go help the plants get ready for more rain.  The Herbal Husband likes his sticks and strings when it comes to plants!  Have a great day.  Talk to you later!

Fall Color in the Garden!

Early on in our marriage and after we bought our house, we went to visit our friends, Norm and Marilyn in central Pennsylvania.  The Herbal Husband and I always loved the fall colors along the Turnpike and in the countryside.  He spotted this beautiful bush with brilliant red color on the highway, in a nursery, somewhere.  He said we have to get one for our yard.  Well, you guess it.  We got home and we already had one in the yard!  It is Euonymus alatus or Winged Euonymus and it is on the invasive plant list for Pennsylvania!  This bush is a monster now and its main insect pest is scale.  It has seeded underneath, but as yet it has not seeded anywhere else in the garden.  Now I just have to convince The Herbal Husband if it does start seeding in other areas of the garden to pull them out!  Hope you have some beautiful foliage color wherever you may be! 

Have No Idea What Flower This Is!

Can you help?  It isn't the greatest picture.  Click on it to enlarge it.

Be Careful What You Wish For!

The Herbal Husband several years ago said he wanted a plant that attracted the hummingbirds to the garden. I told him that I knew of just the plant, but it could become very invasive! No problem, he said. We won't let it get to that point! Well, unfortunately this pile in the picture is all of the vines that have sprung up in other parts of the garden. It chokes out the good plants. So the botanical name is Campsis radicans. The common names include trumpet creeper (not a good analogy!) and hummingbird vine. Really for the first couple of years, the hummingbirds went right by it. Now they have found it and that is the bonus, the only one. If you see it in your local nursery, turn and run the other way!