Our deep blue hydrangea finally bloomed. All it took was torrential rains.

 

Several years ago I stuck this hydrangea in a corner somewhere. It came to the office free, as a trial plant, back when I wrote about gardening for a blog at work. Since it was Zone 5 long before they redrew the zone hardiness maps, I didn't have high hopes. And it turns out those were justified, because for several years it has done absolutely zilch except manage to survive amid a welter of invasive spreaders, which I guess is a form of an accomplishment.

Then the rains came. One day I rounded the far corner of the house where I don't go on a daily basis and was dazzled by this stunner of a bloom. I desperately wish I knew enough to be able to do a better job of color correcting this, because every camera I tried wants to wash it out. It's a deep, vivid blue, many petals so deep they warrant being called midnight.

The plant is nearly twice as tall as it has been every other year (it grows back from the roots each season). The same is true with the Endless Summer hydrangea this year, which also deigned to sport several large pink or blue blossoms after years of managing a stunted proto-bloom about October for the last couple of years. 

For the record, we DO water these plants on a regular basis. After all, hydrangeas are kind of the litmus test for dryness, since they'll wilt first. But I'm not sure we could have managed to dump as much water on as nature did earlier this summer when we were inundated by daily downpours. Apparently the plant requires regular drenching to put on a show. So it may be a one-year wonder, but it was worth trying to document.

And no, at this point, I no longer know what kind of hydrangea it is. In googling, it looks most like a Nikko blue, although on some sites that plant is listed as Zone 6 hardy, and while I stuck it in the most protected spot I can find, there is no part of my Minneapolis hard that could pass for Zone 6. Whatever it is, it's lovely, and worth the wait.

Happy Halloween

 

I once intentionally grew pumpkins. It was one of my first forays into growing things from seed as a kid. It was not a particularly auspicious start for my gardening career. The pumpkins grew large, sprawling out on wayward vines, but their tendency to take up residence in a little-used laneway was their undoing, and my brother ran over them with a tractor.

This year we unintentionally grew pumpkins and had a much greater degree of success. We nearly always have some sort of mystery vine that volunteers, but this is the first time it's turned out to be pumpkins. They did an impressive job of taking over a large area of the lawn where presumably a farmer squirrel had deposited the seed the previous fall. 

I can't claim that it was the most sincere pumpkin patch, and of course since we've had frost it's no longer extant and eligible to be visited by the Great Pumpkin in any case. Having grown them, we now question how Linus could spend any time sitting in a pumpkin patch, because those vines are very scratchy.

Our main question was whether these were eating pumpkins or ones best left for decor. They aren't the really large jack-o-lantern shape, but they aren't the cute pie kind either. We roasted a small one yesterday as a test and the flesh turned out to be suitably mashable just with a fork and not particularly stringy, so I think you'll be seeing a lot more pumpkin recipes soon.

 We opted for this soup recipe for lunch to use up our first small pumpkin.  

Why we garden

 Picked our first tomato of the season today. Just a cherry one, but it's one of those life-affirming acts of summer.

Sometimes the weeds, the bugs, the heat, no time combine to make me think I'm nuts for knocking myself out to grow what I can readily buy at local farmers market.

And then I go out and randomly pick a big bowl of herbs to make my take on James Beard's pasta sauce of butter and herbs. (Melt a half pound of butter, add a finely chopped shallot and cook until soft. Toss in a cup of assorted chopped herbs and juice of half a lemon. Toss with a half pound of cooked pasta.) Then I'm good again for a while.

Winter flowers

 Fall was pretty at our house, what there was of it. Bee-thronged wild asters and sedum were the main attraction, but it was a good fall color show throughout the neighborhood on our post-work walks. 

Sadly, I didn't get around to taking any pictures before 9 inches of snow put an abrupt end to fall. Much of the snow has melted, but it's still wintry and our plants are icicle fodder.

Our Henri clematis put out another cloud of blooms and buds just before we got clobbered with snow. Some of the blooms still look pristine, just encased in ice as if frozen in a time to which we wish we could go back.

But the sturdy kale just shrugged off the snow, so we're still in harvest mode.

When the bush is dripping ice, you just have to imagine next summer's blueberries.

 

Summer garden tour at home

Thalita roselilies have a pleasant fragrance. Just be prepared to dodge hungry bumblebees if you want a whiff.

Summer at home has its compensations. But honestly, I thought I would have more time to weed now. Cue derisive laughter. I just squint at the blooms instead.

Some 25 years ago, Sonja brought us a "shrubbery' as a housewarming present. It has stayed bought.

These lilies have been in the same pot since the lat 1990s. I just keep adding more dirt as needed.

Pinks!

Daylilies are so reliable. Bless them.

I have a bit of a clematis obsession. Can a gal have too many trellises? Don't answer that.

This guy so doesn't fit the color scheme. But he was here when we moved in, so he gets to stay.

Spring flower show, stay-at-home version

Not everything is worse in this timeline.The blooms are back and so are the bees.

Last year, Goldie did not bloom. At all. A late spring 2019 cold snap did a total number on our Golden Raindrops crabapple, which was a big disappointment to us and to the squirrels who dangle precariously from her branches each fall to eat the tiny golden berries.

This year, she put on a lush show in the front yard, a heavenly scented cloud of frothy blooms, hovered over by very intent bees.

I'm not sure I've ever seen this many stinging type pollinators this early in the year, from the bumblebee buzzing audibly among the pink and white bleeding hearts and deep blue centaurea, to the wasps working the other side of the patch. Still waiting for a fly-by visit from another pollinator, the tiny hummingbird that usually makes a spring and fall appearance at our weigela.

Note to self: Memorial Day weekend and the week after might be the best garden party timing. When we're allowed to have such frivolities again.

Hummingbird heaven.

This miniature rose has overwintered in our basement for about a dozen years.

Goldie starts life with tightly furled deep pink buds that open up to a surprise white.

The lilac tree is still hanging in there.

Only one azalea left of the three we planted years ago. Blasted rabbits. Go, foxes, go.

Random, but lovely

Well hello, handsome. This gem finally burst on the garden scene after seemingly weeks in the bud stage, and long after I’d forgotten I’d even planted it.

When I saw two lily-ish things poking through by the garage this spring, I was puzzled and at first thought they were another example of my tiger lilies going rogue in a spot where their vivid orange would be most jarring. I’d forgotten that when I hit reset on that particular garden bed last year, I’d planted three of these lilies, only to have them felled by rascally rabbits in short order, long before they bloomed. 

The entire bed was a mass of good intentions gone awry, since the order of bare-root plants arrived at the worst possible moment and it kind of went downhill from there.  So this year, while pondering how to regroup minus the three astrantia plants that didn’t survive last year’s delayed planting, I was wondering what on earth those lilies were.

Now I know, and I wish there were more of them, and that it wasn’t the middle one of the threesome that died, naturally, leaving an odd gap. The rest of the bed is a hot mess, but at least now I know I’ve got something lovely to work with.

Harvesting last year's tomatoes this year

Last fall, one of the herb pots we brought in to overwinter had a small volunteer tomato that had yet to blossom. We kind of ignored it, and while we watered the pot, we eventually forgot about the tomato and figured it had just withered and died in the cold, not-too-well-lit basement.

Then come spring when we tried taking the herb pot back out to the patio, we realized the volunteer tomato hadn't died, it had just gotten really tall and scraggly and wrapped itself around the plant light, poor thing.

We unraveled it, stuck the pot back outside and figured the shock of relocation would finally do in the plant and then we'd yank it out. Nope. It still looks pathetic and is using a sturdy basil plant as support, but we just harvested two little red tomatoes from it. I love food with a backstory.

Also fun in this year's garden: purple peas. Sure, they're the same green color inside, but they look pretty on the vines, have pretty purple blossoms and are easier to harvest because they standout against the green vines.