bambi

Or some distant cousin, paid a visit today. What a treat! I was upstairs when I heard the boys going nuts. Something was afoot, or is it afeet since Bambi here has four of them. By the time I made it to the Aztec to chase Bambi down, he was gone. Pat got these pictures. Deer are in our yard every night, but seldom do we see any during the day. This little guy got his sleep patterns out of wack, or maybe he was just hungry.

I put the wind chimes next to the bird feeders thinking that if the deer bumped into them, they would run off.

So much for that idea. I always thought that the squirrels emptied the bird feeders. I guess I owe them an apology.

Pat took this vid using our brand new camera. It was the first time she used it.



wordless wednesday

Cleveland Garden Walk

This past Saturday was the first annual Cleveland Garden Walk. There were more gardens to see than there was time to see them. Pat and I walked through 2 of the 4 neighborhoods on the tour, Tremont and Detroit-Shoreway. It was a great way to learn about some great neighborhoods in Cleveland. We saw beautiful gardens and met some wonderful gardeners. Along the way, we also found some nice places to eat.

Every garden we visited had rain barrels. It looks like the gardeners all went to the same Consevation District workshops Pat and I attended.

When I gazed upon the giant train set in the back yard I started laughing and couldn't stop. You could sense the fun its creator had in showing it off. It was magical.

 

This roof top garden was the WOW! of the garden walk. It is two years old and the owners did everything themselves. Is that cool or what? The plants are all native Ohio grasses and flowers.

wordless wednesday

wordless wednesday

pachysandra, spawn of the devil

Pachysandra and ivy were the groundcovers of choice when our neighborhood was built 30 years ago.  There’s an ivy post waiting to be written but not until Pat, Jimmy and I embark upon our annual ivy eradication weekend. Pachysandra is our problem at the moment. That evergreen, slow growing ground cover overwhelms everything in its path. For the last who knows how long, we’ve tried to plant hosta in the pachysandra beds. I overdig a hole, attempting to rid the planting area of roots. We use sweet peet in the planting areas and add additional sweet peet every year. The hostas love the planting areas the first two years. By year three, the pachysandra roots are strangling the hosta. Robust plants turn into little starter plants just trying to hang on. I know when to quit or at least get sneaky. Na, na, na. We put some of our big hosta in pots. There, pachysandra, spawn of the devil, strangler of all things hosta, take that. I know that we said no more pots last year, well actually we say that every year, but these pots and the hosta look really cool.



Columbus Arts Festival

Pat and I headed south to Columbus this past weekend for the Columbus Arts Festival. It had music, food, art, and more food. We had that perfect getting ready for global warming kind of weather. The temps were in the 90’s. Add concrete, asphalt and high humidity and everything was perfect. We stopped for breakfast on our way down at The Linden Café for the best chicken and waffles in the known universe. This breakfast is worth the trip to Columbus all by itself.

The real surprise of the day was our side trip to Scioto Gardens, just west of Delaware. The place is so unassuming when you drive in. The wow factor is in their plants. We found wonderful looking marsh milkweed and marsh marigold plants. For once we got just what we came for, mainly because we brought the Hyundai. We’re going back the weekend of July 16 for their garden and art fair, because as their sign says: “Never Stop Planting.”

Maybe these guys would scare the deer out my back yard.

I am always in search of a garden oasis in urbanated areas for a bit of peace and solitude.

wordless wednesday

pat stole my pot

I was reading Carolyn’s Shade Garden’s post on large hosta when I came across the picture of a tall pot or urn kind of container filled with hosta and ferns. What a great idea. I may not have a creative bone in my body, but the bloggers I follow are creative as all get out. I always thought a tall pot would be a cool addition, and now I knew what to put in it and where I would put it. I was surprised when Pat agreed to go on the hunt for a tall pot at the local pottery store. Most of my ideas are greeted with the skepticism they deserve. Well, off we went. I was giddy with anticipation. We found a great looking pot and back home we went. About half way home Pat suggested that this pot was so cool looking that it would be wasted in the side yard already filled with hosta in pots. A better place would be the front yard where we could fill it with flowers and put it in one of the new beds. I was so close, I mean really, really close.

pumpkins

Pat and I are hoping for another bumper pumpkin crop this fall. Right after last Thanksgiving, we tossed our display pumpkins and gourds into the front yard flower beds. We didn’t get any sprouts from the new bed. A likely explanation might be the bed's tenants. The bed is riddled with tunnels. Three large pumpkin plants probably were like a 24 hour grocery store to the chipmunks.

Luckily, everything seems to have sprouted in the other bed. Now if I could just remember what we tossed where. It would have been too organized to take a picture, so true to form, I didn’t. I know we had a pink pumpkin, a cinderella pumpkin, your run of the mill orange pumpkins and a whole bunch of gourds. I guess we’ll have to wait. I have convinced Pat that even though we have triple the source pumpkins, we can manage the vines so the other plants in the beds and the pumpkins can all coexist in harmony. When Pat says “uh huh”, that means she buys into my vision, doesn’t it?

J'accuse

I’m as big a fan of Bambi as anyone, but this crosses the line. I weep for my poor Sum and Substance, or what’s left of it. Maybe field mice or rabbits did the dirty deed, but I kind of doubt it. I didn’t find any field mice or rabbit tracks, not that I know what they look like. I did find deer tracks.