The Week In Pictures

Hullo, ducklings! As per our wont in the Casa del Piffle around Labor Day weekend, we have been very, very energetic, here among the birds and the bees (get your mind out of the gutter). Thankfully, we have NOT been among the cicadas, though. I can't fathom being out among billions of large, screaming, flying insects. I think if I lived in Chicago or any other place where the 17 year hatching is going on, I'd have to hop the first plane to Baffin Island.

We do not do bugs on that magnitude. No, we most definitely do not. I don't care how good a fertilizer their little rotting corpses are. I'll take well-rotted steer poop any day.


Anyway, the following is one of those posts I periodically warn you about. As this blog is partly for me and my gardening whims, this is all about the yard and only about the yard. Feel free to pass it by. You won't hurt my feelings in the least and will be doing yourself a favor.

This year, we (and by 'we' I mean 'I') built an addition to the famous Raised Beds From Hell, constructed 2 years ago. We now have a strawberry pen/corral. We needed the extra room for the additional 3 breeds of strawberries we added to the herd this year:



Nothing prettier than a well mulched, weeded garden. Pity it won't last the week. Here's hoping they go forth and multiply. Also, schlepping just shy of 1000 lbs of cement blocks is harder going uphill from the stable than down hill to the stable. In addition, I'm not sure if there's anything more tenacious than prairie grass as far as digging it out of the soil.

I am happy to report that the 4 disease-resistant apple trees and 2 sweet cherry trees planted this year are not dead, yet. They have been sprayed by a 'biologic deer and rabbit deterrent' that Charles picked up at the garden store. The nice man on the label swore by it, and as he has an honest face, we are sure he can't be wrong. I figured it was likely either coyote piss or hot pepper oil. After spraying it on all the new plantings, I can attest that it is, indeed, coyote piss. I spent most of the time walking from tree to shrub to tree looking over my shoulder to make sure no coyote came dashing out of the underbrush to hump my leg. So far, my honor is still intact, but I've still a few more sprayings to do. Molly-dog thought I smelled very intriguing and alluring. Good thing she's too much of a lady to act on it.

After last year's demise of the hardy blackberries, we are trying once again to introduce these berries to the upper Midwest, and are pleased to note that this year's blackberry-lings arrived much healthier and are actually thriving. Well, except for that odd incident last week, where I found one of the plants completely uprooted, roots cleaned off and left to die of exposure. I have NO idea. I replanted it and it's limping along. I fear it's a mob hit, left as an example as to what may happen to my jostaberries next, (done by either the thug deer or their stooges, the killer rabbits) but have yet to be told where to leave the 'protection money'. Theirs is not a very efficient organization.



I also spent large time planting large amounts of perennials in the perpetual perennial black hole that is the front beds. After another 4 dozen plants, it is slowly looking better, especially after the hollows left by the mysterious alien abduction (ahem) of Wanda and Muriel were filled in.



But wait! What's that? Why is our heroine giggling so heartily? Can you see it? The recent find that she just couldn't resist?



A closer look:


Why, yes! That would be a rhododendron. A rhododendron that's supposed to be hardy to -30 F. Why, yes! I've clearly taken leave of my senses! Why, yes! I actually spent more than a little money for this. Why, yes! I know full well that this EVERGREEN plant won't survive the winter in the freeze-dryer that is Wisconsin 5 months of the year. I know full well that plants of the genus Rhododendron love acid soil and that the pH of mine is practically 14.0. Charles is a more optimistic soul. He thinks it will live. I guess he figures that it will learn to develop a taste for -OH, like we did for brie my sophomore year of college.

Oh, how I've missed rhododendrons. It's my only plea. I really couldn't resist. Temporary insanity. And now I will watch it languish and die, a victim of my misplaced adoration. Some one should lock me up.

Finally, speaking of acidophilli flora, I bring you something that has left my gast completely flabbered:



Here is a blueberry. Blooming. It was one of 2. See, I know full well that blueberries only thrive in acid soil, but such is the level of my adoration of blueberries and the depths of my denial that over the past couple of years I bought and planted no less than 20 blueberries. Most didn't make it past the first summer where I planted them, in a cluster, near the vegetable bed. The ones I placed around the slab of concrete that sits bizarrely in the middle of the back yard, near the swing set (was the floor of a dog kennel for the previous owners) that the kids use as a chalk art surface and a place to crack rocks, are, um, not dead. Well, at this writing, 3 are not dead. Day before yesterday, 8 were not dead, then my husband, Gorbag, the half-orc, took the weed eater to the area and whacked everything he thought looked suspicious.

So, maybe the rhododendron will not succumb in the next year. Perhaps it will grip on to life, becoming a spindly thing with 2 flowers a year that I can not bear to euthanize.

I will deserve such an outcome to torment me for the rest of my days; at least until Gorbag and his Weed Whacker of Death come through.