More (yes, more) new plants

These I bought at the plant sale this morning:

• a Bishop's Hat plant (Epimedium) -- likes shady, woody places
• a Balloon Flower (Platycodon grandiflorus) for the border
• a Siberian Iris (Iris Sibirca) to go near the water
• some Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis) to go in a container for now

Then later I went to the shed shop in Medford to take a look (it was the really-cute Victorian playhouse that caught my eye... what a treat that would have been for the children when they were littls)... and then to Lowes because I needed some more plantpots and it was almost next door... and of course couldn't walk out without a plant or three, so two more clematis came home (one summer-flowering and one autumn-flowering), plus a big beautiful hanging begonia.

Now it's thundering and lightening and generally storming, so they are all waiting underneath the deck for a dry spell.

Am glad I went to Lowes before buying a wooden shed. They had a few examples in their parking lot, one of which was very sad. It was rotting from the floor up. It made me realize that if I buy a wooden (i.e., any wood-based material that is not real cedar or similar), and put it where I was thinking of putting it, without constructing a concrete slab, then it will just rot away very quickly.

May revert to original plan of smaller storage sheds under the deck, against the wall. They they will be on the same concrete slab as the house, and protected from the elements. Lowes had a decent 8 by 3 foot one, made of metal, with shelves and garden-tool racks, which would do nicely. A lot less expensive, too.

Plant sale!!!!! (And somewhere to donate your extras)

William Floyd Community Summit Beautification Committee

PERENNIAL PLANT SALE

Saturday May 31st 2008
10:00 am to 4:00 pm

We are looking for more donations of plants. If you have extra please bring them to the school the morning of the sale.

AT WILLIAM FLOYD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEXINGTON ROAD, SHIRLEY

RAIN OR SHINE

For Information please call Phyllis at 631-949-7080
Or e-mail wfbeautication@yahoo.com

All proceeds will go toward beautifying our community.

... find something new every day...

... and if it tastes good, eat it.

I thought the compost heap was composting-down nicely. It was defiitely shrinking.

No. The deer are eating it. I wonder if it's the soggy lettuce leaves or the sweet-potato peelings that they prefer?

Rainbow

... from sometime this sunny, rainy, windy, stormy, sunny week.

More street scenes

Not so green, but still somehow organic.

Street gardens

Was in the city last week, meeting cousin Kerry and Jane, visiting from England. Took time to notice the little (and not-so-little) gardens in all sorts of unexpected places: by Houston Street, between the busy road and flat walls; tucked onto little triangles of earth where no building would fit (one sported a proud sign with the name of the garden and "0.05 acres"); along the streets, everywhere. There is a surprising amount of green, and if you love gardening, there is plenty of opportunity to volunteer or just do it yourself.

A few notes

Been away from keyboard; keeping the tendonitis at bay. Just watching the changes, changing... been here (almost, not quite) a year. So I have experienced the whole cycle, once... but it's still changing every day, it's all new.

- Mini-egrets have appeared. No, they are not babies, and no, I didn't shrink them--they are just small egrets. Like miniature versus standard poodles. Just with feathers.
- Mini-herons too. I saw one perched in a tree (no I wasn't dreaming, it was perched, and in a tree) at the bottom of the garden. Glossy greeny-brown, russet-brown chest.
- The deer have allowed me to see the beautiful purple iris in the front garden. They are royalty (the irises... OK, the deer too, I am their humble subject, anything to stop them beheading any more flowers).
- The birdhouse gourd vines have sprouted (giant seed-leaves!)
- The collection of sedum(s) has grown and have been housed in nice blue pots from Forge River Nursery
- The lilac is pale mauve (back garden) and deep red-purple (little one in the front), and it makes me sneeze when I sniff it (it's worth it, it smells so good)
- The allium is flowering, blue-purple (sense a colour scheme here???? not all intentional)
- The sunflowers are almost a foot high...

The new birds on the block

Recent (re)arrivals include:

• Catbirds (http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/557/_/Gray_Catbird.aspx)
• Yellow warblers (I think--they move very fast) (http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/343/_/Yellow_Warbler.aspx
• Little finches with red heads? I haven't identified these yet... almost sparrow size, brown and cream body, red heads...

Big (grey, furry, fuzzy-tailed) bird

So this is the "bird" that is making such a mess of the bowl of birdseed close to the office door. It's usually the cardinals and finches and sparrows who eat here, with the bluejays and grackles dining at the hanging, squirrel-proof feeder.

He sat there, enjoying dinner, for about ten minutes. Each time he tipped the bowl it made him jump, and he ran a few steps back along the deck rail, paused, and then returned. Eventually he knocked the bowl right over and down into the grass below.

He really enjoyed the dry corn kernels!

How To Be A Gardener--a book review

I am reading Alan Titchmarsh's "How to be a Gardener", published by the American Horticultural Society, and with the note, "From the host of Ground Force BBC" at the bottom of the cover. It's a beautiful book, nearly 600 pages, loads of photographs, just excellent. I bought it on Amazon.com from a "new or used" dealer for just under 2$ (retail price is nearly 40$). If you would like a copy, try here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159258036X

This book is fascinating to me, not just because I love gardening, but because I work in translation and localization. Alan Titchmarsh is one of the faces of British TV gardening. If you're American, you will probably only know him if you're in an area where BBC America is available, assuming you watch it (it's not on Cablevision, darn it!) But as a native Brit, I know his face and voice and mannerisms. Reading a book that is Alan through-and-through, I hear him talking, and the "localization" for the American market jumps out and bites me... and the missed localization makes me wonder what other readers in the USA make of it.

There is some hugely interesting, fascinating info about general horticulture: what makes things grow, how it happens, how plants "work". I am reading this book like a novel: page by page, beginning to end: not like a reference book that you dip into now and then. As a gardener, I love it. As a translation manager, I am very very picky :-)

(Who authorised (with an s) the replacement of the word "use" with "utilize"? Are you so afraid that "use" means "abuse" and so choose to u-til-ize a three-syllable non-tactile word instead? That one I never understand... Yes, it does have a place in the English language. No, it should not be used as a total replacement. See, I said "used" not "utilized". Yah boo.)

So... all the instances of "colour" have been replaced with "color". A section has been added (or replaced) to explain the North American hardiness zones. But when Alan talks about the different climates in the country, and how daffodils are in different states of bloom as you drive from north to south, I see him driving down the A1 from Yorkshire to London, not on any American freeway from the Canada border to Florida.

There are pictures of newly-emerged weeds, and their big brothers, to help new gardeners with identification. Bindweed and stinging nettle and dead nettle and giant hogweed.... but no poison ivy, no smilax, no rampant grapevine and none of this stuff with leaves that are a cross between chrysanthemum and poppy. (I would gladly trade my poison ivy for a patch of stinging nettles.)

And the animal/insect pests are all English :-) (yes, I asked for that comment, I heard you) though of course some of those are common to both sides of the Atlantic (slugs, snails), but are there Cabbage White caterpillars here, or are they called something else?

In the irrigation section, "you'll need an outdoor tap because you'll soon get fed up with running a hosepipe through the kitchen window", someone forgot to replace "tap" with "faucet", and they also forgot that a huge number of American homes already have an outdoor water supply, if not in-ground irrigation systems. Soaker hoses, made from recycled tyres (or tires, if you prefer) are more common that plastic hoses with holes in for slow irrigation.

I love the book, but the localization is not correct. I can read through it, and maybe enjoy it all the more, because I see both sides. But how does an American reader like it? Do you even notice? Is there so much good content that you ignore, or don't notice, the inconsistencies? Or is this the reason that I was able to buy this gem of a publication for less than two dollars...

Go on. Buy a copy and let me know.

Alan: I volunteer to be your editor next time :-)

This is just a "Before"

There is no "after", yet. It's under the office and deck, looking towards the boiler room. Lots of space for... something shed-like. Maybe.

Bachelors' buttons, geranium-pelargoniums

Flowers!

The woodpile, at last

Before...
... after several hours of sorting and hammering in the old nails. Looks about the same, doesn't it? Kept thinking, one bite at a time... there is a difference, the blanched dandelions and squashed grass and bare, revealed soil prove it but... still a long way to go.

It was the wood from the old deck. I asked the deck guy to leave it, so that I can make it into wooden pathways, boardwalks. I asked him to leave the useful, big bits. *Just* the useful, big bits.

I didn't ask him to leave all the little corner bits and broken trellis and rotten bits and plastic bags and some-gooey-chemical-mess-that-had-escaped-from-somewhere and the used-up containers of glue and other stuff, all of which I found hidden under that top layer...

Am sorting them into railings, treads, and supports. Then when we've had a few dry days, I'll saw them up into the right size. Then it will be a relatively-simple task of drilling and screwing them all together. And that can be done a little at a time. At least, it will be a neater pile soon.

I am so glad I grew up around a carpenter.

Arrival of the horseshoe crabs

There were quite a few on the beach today, alive and crawling. Usually it's just the empty shells, like war helmets, curved in the sand... but today they were coming ashore and then slowly, slowly crawling towards the water.

A family was trying to rescue them: picking them up and putting them back into the waves. I didn't help, was holding the dog on her leash and she was interested in other things, like what other dogs had left behind, footprints, and the playful water.

As we walked away, I thought... don't they come ashore to lay eggs in spring? Isn't that what they are doing?

I think the family was trying to turn back the tide...

All my own fault

It is. All My Own Fault. I knew the two pots of tulips were still within deers' reach... and I had learned that while deer dislike daffodils, they enjoy tulips. Very much.

And I had sprayed the front garden hostas with all-natural (so natural that you can drink it) deer repellant, which to me smelled just wonderful, a mix of cinnamon and coffee and other yummy ingredients... so the deer hadn't nibbled the hostas or new roses for a few days.

I guess I forgot the tulips. Or this was deer's way of saying, We Rule!

Anyway, this is all that is left of the tulips. Just one pretty head with about an inch of stalk. All the others, gone. Just the flowers gone. The stalks and leaves are still there, reminding me of my guilt...

... last night I planted astilbe in the woods. "Planted" is probably not the right word, "scraped a hollow and covered roots with more leaf mould and other stuff found on woodland floor" is probably more accurate, as there is such a mash of roots and vines and long-dead branches and twigs that you can't dig holes. Four astilbe, two red and two pink, under the big-entwined-trees. We shall see if they root. There will be a lot of we-shall-see-ing in the woods. We-shall-see if the smilax stays under control. We-shall-see if the deer ignore the stuff the books say they don't like to eat. We-shall-see what it's like in there once the mosquitos return...

Gone fishin'

Dog fishing.

Just found Fury standing in the shallow end of the pond, happily watching the fish. She was wet all over, so either she'd swum a few lengths, or she'd been laying in the water. She jumped out when I suggested it might be a good idea.

Now she is restricted to the deck, unless under parental supervision.

Maybe she thought they were cat-fish?

High tide

Looking back up Park Drive from where it curves towards Riviera Drive

Park Drive looking towards Riviera Drive and Lincoln Drive

Riviera Drive from Park Drive, towards the wetland beach and No. 1 Beach.

We enjoyed paddling, the dog and I.

Twenty minutes later, the water level is already dropping. Fast. Tomorrow it will be like it was never there... apart from a boat, stranded in the reeds.

Did you lose your boat?

It is slowly drifting south, across the marshes, towards the Great South Bay. The ducks are keeping an eye on it, and the swans may adopt it as their nesting platform.

If it ends up in my front garden, you may find it filled with compost and sprouting alyssum and lobelia...

Very-wetlands

This is why we need to protect the wetlands.



Because they protect us.



This is at 4 p.m, wind still from north-east, inflating the tide and pushing the water inland.

At least no tornadoes here

We have scary-high winds this morning; been blowing all night. The windows on the east side are creaking. Forecast gusts up to 50 mph, some powerlines already down in Nassau county; tidal flood warning until 6 tonight.

High tides around 6 o'clock today here; predicted around three feet higher than normal. But not much rain expected out here; it's sticking to the city today.

Wildlife doesn't seem too bothered by the weather. Grackles still hugging the birdfeeder. Seagulls wheeling and yelling. The swans paddling upstream and now sitting on the edge of the creek.

And three young raccoons playing in the street. In broad daylight...