 Pleasant weather over
Memorial Day weekend quickly turned hot this month, and since our
first few sprinkles of rain we've been blasted by a heat wave.
Drought, which has been the bane of our summers these last several
years, has set in again with a vengeance. Wild daisies don't
mind the hot, dry weather, though, and they nod their lazy heads
near the edge of the vegetable garden. Our more delicate plants
are soaking up the water we provide them after the heat of the
day subsides.
The deer have grazed the vegetables pretty well now, eating up the new shoots of the carrots and cucumber plants and finishing off the remainder of our lettuces. The spinach, which they didn't care for anyway, has bolted. We still have onions and corn growing.
Our Garden Journal is a production of The Parker Family. Copyright 1999, all rights reserved. |
By mid-month, we are
blessed with lower temperatures and some relief in the form of
thunderstorms. Many plants that typically begin blooming later have
already opened their buds, and we have early daylilies, yucca,
and bee balm. Pink yarrow, another forgiving
and drought-tolerant plant, entertains the bees at the top of the
garden wall. The lilac and the miniature roses are also thriving, with
no sign of powdery mildew. We've taken
advantage of the few days of rain and done a bit of transplanting,
moving some hostas to the hillside above the patio and consolidating
some Stella d'Oro daylilies at the base of the birdfeeders.
Our yuccas this year
send up plentiful, early shoots, but are slow to open their
blossoms. This glimpse of the stand near the front porch is
framed by one of the maples in the front yard. The cool
weather has been with us for a week, and is
welcome after the high temperatures early this month. By solstice,
the mercury creeps upward again into the 80s.
Garden visitors this month have included the usual clouds of
birds at the feeders, as well as chipmunks on cleanup duty. The
dry weather has drawn tiny toads to the bird bath that is set into
the ground near the patio steps. They are most likely the ones
that we had as tadpoles last year, come back to visit.
Since it's not
growing during the drought anyway, we've stopped mowing the lawn
in an attempt to shelter the roots and keep it from browning out
completely. So far, so good! The coreopsis, near the edge of
the lawn in the butterfly garden, opens its buds toward the end of the month, and brightens
the whole garden with its golden glow.