Moving through May

Between plant sales, cold and rainy weather, a new garden sculpture, and preparations for some friends’ annual visit to my garden, I’ve not had time to post in my blog. I figured I’d better post something before too many good photos built up on my computer!

I hope to have a grand reveal of my new sculpture sometime soon, but there’s still lots of work for me to do on it. Here’s a teaser:

The honeysuckles have been blooming and blooming and blooming. It’s a treat to work outside because I get to smell them. And they were spectacular in the cold rain a few weekends ago. Plus, I was working on my sculpture and I caught a glimpse of a hummingbird drinking from them. That’s so much better than the feeder I tried last year and never could quite keep fresh enough!

And there are other blooms in the back garden and in the garden on the east side of the house. It’s not blooming yet, but this year I added plants on the west side of the house as well. All came from the Master Gardener’s plant sale at the beginning of May. Actually, some had come from last year’s plant sale and then waited in pots because of all our roof troubles last summer.

At this point, I’m pretty well out of spaces for plants, so maybe I need not to go to the sale next year. But it’s so much fun to admire and choose from so many plants!

I had oodles of rose breasted grosbeaks when everyone else in Evansville was inundated with them, the hawks are still around somewhere, I spotted a prothonotary warbler in my neighbor’s trees, a family of wrens is trilling about the back yard as are a cardinal couple and a family of downy woodpeckers, and every morning for at least a week I’ve heard a Swainson’s thrush trilling in the background. I think I’ve even seen it a time or two.

And finally, The Ladies continue to delight. Ygraine is sweet and floofy and she will sit at the back door all day if I give her the opportunity. She loves watching the outdoors but seems pleased with her life of luxury indoors. Meanwhile, Morgaine is sassy and dreams of taking over the world. One day John caught her studying my cordless drills and a mini butane torch as if she was plotting something. She likes to sit on the front table to watch the outdoors through glass, and when she sees us approach, she stands up and inadvertently sticks her head inside the lamp sitting there with her. It’s funny. She looks like a party girl with a lamp shade on her head.

Welcome to the AMAZING WALL OF SCENT

It’s a wonderful time of year for my garden. The honeysuckle that forms a green fence around the garden is in full bloom and the scent is amazing. It’s a massive, enchanting scent. I’ll miss it when the blossoms are over.

The honeysuckle in the front looks stunning, but doesn’t smell at all. Luckily for it, the scent in the back often is strong enough to make its way up front, giving the illusion of scented flowers.

I’ve had the pleasure of hosting a couple groups of friends in my garden in the last week. It’s always fun to get to show it off in person, and I’m grateful for their interest and for the fact that they humor me and all my plant talk. Several people were interested to see my garden but weren’t able to come in person, so here’s a virtual garden tour.

Looking East

Looking West

Looking North

The Vegetable Garden

The New Garden

And here’s a new garden space that I just planted. It looks pretty sparse, but the plants should all spread. I’m interested to see how it develops and which plants will thrive. Since it’s in an exposed area at the front of the house, I was concerned that the neighbors would give me a hard time for spending time and money on silly plants, but everyone I talked to was nice, interested in what I was doing, and adding their own two cents. So, it was a great get-to-know-your-neighbor event.

One of my big accomplishments for the year is getting a black iris bloom. My friend and neighbor Alan has a nice little patch of them in his garden. I transferred one of them to my garden 5-6 years ago, but no bloom. So I transferred a second one in case the first had died, but no bloom. But finally this year…

In other news of the extraordinary, early one morning I awoke to birds’ alarm calls and looked outside to see a hawk perched on the alley streetlight while holding a dying dove. It was pretty interesting. The hawk sat there for a while before flying away.

And an interesting bird skull I discovered while mulching the new garden in the front…

And a sampling of other photos from around my garden (remember, click any one for a slide show with captions):

 

 

Winter Bird

Out and About in the Evansville Area

We’ve finally had a string a beautiful weather in Evansville. I’ve been out in it as much as possible.

For several weekends now, I’ve spent some time birding and this year I saw quite a few migrants. Unfortunately, birding in Southern Indiana tends to include lots of fully leafed out trees and lots of time waiting for a little bird to make a quick appearance from behind a mass of greenery.

I started looking for birds at Wesselman Woods, a nature preserve located in the heart of the city. It’s full of huge, old trees.

I saw warblers, gnatcatchers, thrushes, white throated sparrows, Baltimore orioles, and a sandpiper. After a couple days at Wesselman Woods, John came with me to try another spot: Eagle Slough. I liked it even better. There, I saw lot of warblers, summer tanagers, indigo buntings, rose breasted grosbeaks, more thrushes, and a wild turkey.

I’ve also had some fun bird sightings in my own back yard. I’ve had male and female rose breasted grosbeaks at my feeder, white crowned, white breasted sparrows, an ovenbird, and a thrush scratching around the ground. I’ve had prothonotary warblers and Philadelphia vireos in the line of trees next door. and a hummingbird who was checking to see if our neighbor’s Rose of Sharon trees were blooming. Not bad for sticking my head out the back door between cups of coffee.

Last weekend I took the trip up to the Azalea Path Arboretum and Botanical Gardens. I’ve heard a lot about it and I’m glad to have finally seen it. The azaleas were just starting to hit their peak, the peonies were also gorgeous, and it was a beautiful day. I only regret that I was a little rushed, fitting the trip in between a couple other things I was doing that day.

 

 

Springing

The crocuses are in bloom! And so are the snowdrops! I keep getting surprised! This year I’ve been so busy and it’s been so cold and brown and gray that I haven’t even looked outside much. When I do: bam! there’s a little bit more color that’s appeared out of nowhere!

First there was an amazing cluster of light purple crocuses that faded perfectly from white to purple. Then it was some that were darker, richer purples and yellow. Then we had yet another round of snow on the crocuses. Pretty!

Meanwhile, my love of cats and my love of birds are in serious conflict in my yard. This winter our neighbor’s cat has decided to start murdering the birds at my feeder. It’s getting terrible. I had noticed the cat lurking around by yard. Then I noticed a pile of feathers. Then I saw this and realized she’s an amazing hunter and so well camouflaged:

Do you see her? She’s perched in the crook of the magnolia, eyeing a plump little junco, and just waiting… I chased her off as soon as I got done taking the photo. Then this morning I heard a commotion outside and looked up from my breakfast and newspaper to find that she was in my yard again and had caught another junco.

I was reminded of this great infographic about How Much Cats Kill.

Research shows one in three cats commits an average of two murders a week (in between blinking lazily, purring, sleeping, cuddling, and eating actual cat food).

My cat knows the proper way to appreciate the birds: from inside the house.

 

Ice Storm: the Sequel

Despite my crocus’ insistence that spring really is around the corner, the ice and snow continue to fall.

We got another round of winter this past weekend. First there was the ice–not as thick as last time but still pretty–and slippery. I tried to find interesting things in my yard that I hadn’t photographed before or new perspectives on the ones that I had previously photographed (click a photo in any montage to get a slide show).

And around the neighborhood…

Then snow fell…

And there were more interesting photos to take:

I’ve been working hard to keep the bird feeders full. The birds had a great party tent with an ice fringe.

And I’ve enjoyed the crocuses’ journey through the ice and snow.

I’ve had a wonderful visit from my sister and her family. We got to enjoy the snow by sledding on the Evansville riverfront. It was picturesque.

 

Beautiful Winter Browns

The cold winds are blowing ever onward. We had another blast of very cold air last week and I noticed a particularly large flock of birds eating at my feeders. In this photo, I think I can see about 50 goldfinches plus a couple juncos eating seeds off our side porch and from the thistle feeder in the background (click the image for a larger photo and you can try to count them yourself). I resorted to spilling seeds on the porch just to have enough area to feed them all.

While it’s been cold, we’ve only had periodic dustings of snow–just enough to show the critters’ comings and goings around our house. I’ve been on the lookout for raccoon tracks, but (thankfully) haven’t seen any. There have been plenty of tracks from a couple marauding cats and, of course, all the birds.

There is  beauty in my brown garden.

This year I left the dry astrilbe seed heads and I like their addition to my winter garden along with the dried hydrangea flowers and assorted leaves still clinging to plants.

All the wind in the bare trees has kept my wind chimes in motion. It’s even been enough to activate the little bells that are part of the tree jewelry I made last summer. I got a new chime for Christmas and I’m experimenting to find out where to put it so it will ring. So far I haven’t heard it, so I’ll have to keep working on it. It sure looks nice, though.

Life isn’t only shades of brown, though. Inside my house I’ve got four orchids in bloom and one working its way toward a bloom.