Around our (Maryland) Yard - September 2013

The temperature trend is down (not cold exactly but definitely cooler than August) and the flowers are fading. There is one dahlia still blooming.

The chives that were just beginning to bloom in August are already creating seed pods this month.

The highpoint for color are the clusters of pyracantha berries. This has been a good year for the bush. I’ll cut a small bunch to bring into my office soon.

Chives Blooming in the Garden

A clump of chives survived the overwhelming growth of lemon balm in our garden for the past few years and is blooming gloriously this year now that the lemon balm is mostly gone (cutting the tops then digging out the roots of the lemon balm being one of my August projects). The chives that are too close to the edge of the garden are being pulled too - but most of the clump is well placed and will stay.

There are lots of insects that like the flowers of the chives. By far the most numerous and persistent on a recent afternoon were blue winged wasps (Scolia dubia). A tiger swallowtail butterfly did not linger long enough for a picture. The cone flowers and zinnias were evidently more attractive to it. A cabbage white stayed a little longer but it too was off to other flowers very quickly.

Last year the chives had a few flowers and I enjoyed photographing them. I am anticipating that the clump will expand for next summer because more seeds will find their way to the tilled soil. I'll have plenty of the thin green leaves to enjoy in salads!

Around our (Maryland) Yard in April 2013

We’ve had a cold spring in Maryland. The plum and cherry trees are not yet in full bloom so I’ll wait to post photographs of them later. The hyacinths and daffodils have been blooming for over a month. Perhaps the cold has kept them vibrant for longer than usual.

The iris, tulips and lilies are up. The deer have eaten the tulips to the ground and the lilies are only looking a little better because their foliage grows rapidly after the deer have eaten the above ground parts. The iris either have not been found by the deer or are not tasty enough for them. 

The chives and lemon balm are up in the garden. It’s been too cold to do the usual garden clean out so I tell myself that the old leaves make good mulch for the tender plants.

The edge of the woods has waning daffodils and spindly forsythia.

 

The maple branches have been trimmed so high that the only up close view of the blooms is finding a recently downed twig in the grass. The tree itself seems to be blooming unevenly this year. There are lots of red tuffs at the crown of the tree and only sparse ones in the middle and lower part of the tree.

Spring is here…getting more established every day. A few warm days will get us all out working on cleaning out our garden beds!