Cripes, Suzette!

If Spitefulness Is A Feeling Then Here Is Proof Positive That Plants Do Indeed Have Feelings

Remember how optimistic I was back at the end of April when I was going around planting seeds and building contraptions for my morning glories to cover with rich foliage and brilliant blue blossoms?

They just didn't do too well this year. They suffered from a dearth of sunshine and a plethora of rain. I tired to kid myself along, but as the leaves turned yellow and the flowers stopped blooming, I knew that this was  a fail for this year. Then whole vines started turning brown - leaves and buds - and I knew the jig was up.

During my regular Saturday morning flower maintainance rounds, I decided to put the thing out of its misery. I cut down the vertical part of the vines and strings and reached up to pull down what ever else I could. A good part of the horizontal structure remained waiting for a sweet young thing to come along with a ladder to take it down.

That  was 3 days ago. Look at it today:

If that's not spitefulness, I don't know what is.

Breathing Fresh Air - I Recommend It

Your faithful reporter is tired, very tired. AND my hand is all screwed up from clutching the mouse for 14 hours a day. This work business is really very burdensome. Some days, I don't even get outside at all. Last night, at about 7pm , I made it a point to go outside on the deck to enjoy what was left of the evening.

actual backyard of Suzette

Remind me to go outside as much as possible until the weather turns. I'm not one much for direct sunlight in the middle of the day but I do like a good twilight. The impending change of seasons makes enjoying the sunsets at this time of year all the more precious and I made appointments for myself to see as many as possible. If that doesn't work, I'm going to activate a pop-up reminder in my Outlook calendar. What is technology for, if not to serve us?

Sunday Morning

Stop me if you've heard this one before: it's raining again. Dear Pacific Northwest, Now I know how you feel - not depressed as much as aggravated. Your pal, Suzette.

My flowerpots are not doing so well this year so in an effort to accentuate the positive, I moved the sun-lovingest flowers to the place where they'd get the most sunshine hours. As soon as I arranged them, it started to rain.

Sunday Morning, Third Week in July

UPDATE - 2:00pm: Scroll down for a very sad development.

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1. Reminder for next year's deck pots:

• marigolds good;
• petunias bad;
• geraniums a lousy selection for supreme court justice (So-So).

2. Deck birds: wireless illuminated flamingo and cranky looking robin babies.

3. Rose garden recovery:

 

The formerly barren rose bushes are once again producing velvety red roses instead of dried out brown flower buds. I credit Bayer Advanced 3-in-1 insect Disease & Mite Control spray for the comeback. Of course, it could be due to the simple reappearance of the sun after the month long rains here in NJ.  There's still some blackspotted leaves here and there, but at least the buds are opening instead of shriveling up before bloom. Surprise: some of the blossoms have a full grown beetle in the center when they open.

4.Traumatic trip down memory lane:

This is the only surving picture of the same flower bed at the end of the patio in 2007. Those Black-eyed Susans  were started from three small pots about 12 years earlier. They filled in and thrived all that time and were maintainance-free! until the bastard deer or the bastard muskrats or the bastard rabbits or the bastard whatever they were chewed them down to their extermination.

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UPDATE - 2:00pm  Some of the pieces from my vintage wooden patio furniture collection needed a little touchup to the green finish. I asked Sami to tighten up the bolts before I started the painting. He turned the rocker in the top photo over and the rocker part came off in his hand. Rotten. It was all rotten. The whole thing was rotten through and through. Now it's gone to meet Walter Cronkite.

Wooden Rocker
~1945 - 2009

It Ain't Right It Just Ain't Right

Bobo's teleprompter committed suicide, Ahnold pulled the rug out from under the CA State Board of Nursing, Sotomojo is a big fat liar and Jon Minus Kate Plus 8 has a new, new girlfriend. Fine. That's all well and good but the really big news is that my morning glories have started to flower.

All this rain we've been having in NJ isn't as good for the flowers as you'd think it would be. Yes, these flowers are about 15 days ahead of schedule for blossoming but they seem to be a bit on the square side. FYI - they're supposed to be round.

I cannot even discuss my new rose garden which contains only a blackspot -resistant variety that now has the blackspot. Of course I blame the 40 rainy days out of 45 calendar days. Fungus!

Also, remind me next year not to pot petunias and portulacas. I expect every year to be successful and yet, every year it is the same failure as far as those are concerned.

Waiting for The Fireworks To Begin

After yesterday's periodic downpours, it dried off enough to sit on the deck and kick off the holiday weekend celebration.

Sorry, Hoss - dogs not invited.

The festivities continued with early morning activities today. First came the single participant event in which I picked up dog poop in advance of the arrival of the lawn mower guy and then the more challenging removal of a poison ivy vine by means of a long-handled clipper. I used the same body posture as if I was taking a glowing bar of Uranium-235 out of a lead canister.

Later in the day, team events will take place. The high speed "Get Those Cushions Inside" relay race will take place as soon as it starts raining again. For those looking for a more vigorous competition, the highly anticipated "Fry Daddy Faceoff" will be held indoors, pitting the team of Oh No You're Not against the returning champion, Oh Yes I Am. It's a death match.

Like England But With More Rain

Don't you people in New Jersey have anything better to do that to sit around in the rain? Is it true that for the entire 10 days that I've been out of the state it's been raining all the time? In California, I was under the June Balloon - here' it's like the June Water Balloon.

The saucers are overflowing and the blossoms are knocked off of my deck pots almost entirely - the only evidence that there were flowers at all are some spent blooms that are beginning to hair out with mold.  It has been pretty good for the morning glory vines, though. They are just at the point where they are making the horizontal turn on the string trellis, if they would turn horizontal, that is. They keep righting themselves and heading for the sky. Irksome.

I am happy to be home, in spite of the rain. Something extra was added to last night's arrival at Newark Liberty. That astonishing first impression as you walk out of the terminal door - redolent with the stank of bum piss and weighted with supersaturating humidity - now has something new added: goose poop on the sidewalks.

 AFTERNOON UPDATE: The sun never exactly appeared today but there was a weak kind of almost-shadow business going on for a moment. I know this picture doesn't thrill anyone but me, but I don't care. The leaves have ittle bug bite holes in them and who knows if the thing is going to last all summer? I need t get this on the record.

The red begonias are starting to take off and exhibit their customary exuberance and the wireless illuminated flamingo seems unharmed by all of the rain. The dog likes to chill out in this area of the deck (to maximize the chances of having somebody trip over him on the way to the door) but I'm getting a bad vibe that he is developing a resistance to posing for pictures.

I Didn't Know That He Knew That We Even Had A Theme

Earlier this week, Sami and I were sitting on the deck and he said to me: "So what's our theme this year? Red? "  You could have knocked me over with a feather.  Is it possible that after only 30 years, he is starting to understand how I operate?

Tell Me What You Love And I'll Tell You Who You Are

Apparently, I am a shiny red lobster claw.

Never in my extensive history of $1 purchases have I ever loved anything as much as I love this $1 lobster claw wine bottle stopper that I bought today.

Come On Summer

Only one or two more days of rain until New Jersey can start really enjoying the outdoors again.

I took advantage of the brief spell of non-rain this morning to go to the garden center for a 98 ¢ cellpack of impatiens. Here's an unexpected twist: I came away $200.00 lighter. Who could have predicted that would ever happen? I'm thrilled about everything that came home with me except for the impatiens - I should have gotten the purple ones.

Here's this summer's outdoor lighting:

It's a sideways grapevine wreath festooned with assorted Xmas lights. It makes the fabric canopy cover glow in the night. It gives off a kind of UFO-ish vibe, doesn't it?

Sunshine On Objects of Beauty

The flora and fauna of New Jersey.

 

Early Sunday morning on the deck.

Coffee And Cigarettes

There was a time that Sami was afraid that I'd find out he was smoking. Those were the days - he's very brazen about it now. This morning when I went out to inspect the deck pots after last night's storm, I found this charming vignette.

Now it might be that my quirky ideas about gardening ornamentation has rubbed off on him and this is his first attempt at guerilla art instalation, but somehow I don't really think so. I think he meant to be funny.

So funny I forgot to laugh.

Pots of Glory: Contraption

The thing I like most about the stringification of the glory pot is that it's an actual contraption. You don't see too many contraptions these days. I like to do my part to contribute to society.

It's still a contraption that only exists mostly in my mind at this point but I think you can get the idea from this morning's picture. We are going full swag with this. I think of this as a large-scale plant installation and sooner or later, you will too. The elements of the contraption are:

• string,
• plastic gutter clips
• one set of plastic rings that hold a six pack together.

So far, I've got the string thing down. As for the other elements, it's not going quite so well.

We spent the morning assigning blame for the failure to locate more than three gutter clips from last year's Christmas lights. Someone may have thrown them out. Also, do they still make those six pack rings? Or did those Save The Birds people cause their extinction? I hope I can find some - preferably around the tops of Schweppe's Tonic Water cans-  because they are integral to my sideways trellis design concept.

 

Strings of glory. 6-14-08

Pots of Glory

I cried because I had no morning glories until I met a man who had no twine. Amend that to say "married a man who had no twine".

Last year, the morning glories that I planted to cover the side fence were an embarrassing disappointment. This year, I tried growing them in a large deck pot which resulted in a plentiful and abundant crop. There are a few moonflowers in there, too.

My plan is to use twine as a vine support  by tieing it to the black wire stand and running it up and across the rain gutter. I'm a few days past implementing that plan due to the aforementioned lack of twine and today, I'm starting to fret that the 5 " per day growth rate is going ot get ahead of my procrastination and the vines will wrap around each other and ruin my whole plan.

I am powerless to do anything about it today - even if I did have twine - because it's Thursday and you know what that means. I am not available. So just like the rest of my garden, if the flowers on the deck plan on surviving, they will have to take care of themselves.

Side note: how many plants do you suppose a pot like that can support for the summer? It's 16" wide and 12" deep. I'm thinking 2 moonflowers and 5 morning glories. Should it be more or less?

Come On Summer

The decorative elements of summer:

Unplugged. Originally a windspinner, then an outdoor lighting fixture, now a windspinner again. Soon to be electrified once more. This whole thing looks a bit crooked, doesn't it? In person, it looks fine if you just slump to the side in your chair. Try slumping in your desk chair as you look at this - it helps a lot.



Plastic frog makeover. Lazy Sunday + shoebox full of acrylic paints + shabby pot feet = voila! The old resin froggy pot feet are looking mighty fine now, don't you think? Never one to leave well enough alone, I'm considering highlighting the toes, eyes and mouth with a light rubbing of chartreuse paint. As a general rule, just mark me down for excess.

Potential. Picture if you will, the big empty urn holding vines of morning glory and moonflower making their way up a twine trellis until they reach the rain gutter and then making a sharp right. Good idea, Gregor! You can see that I've already lost my nerve for this and installed a pink geranium for insurance in case the vine thing doesn't work out. Today I found three little sprouts poking up from the dirt and I feel fairly confident that the rabbits won't get to them up here. Squirrels are another story, though.

Sunny Saturday

From Our Department of Ready and Waiting -

New pad on an old chair.
Do not mock my impractical but beloved vintage wooden patio furniture.  Mr. Sami had to reinforce the arm on thiis one with metal brackets. That usually portends the end. Spring clean-up is just around the corner and I hope to harvest a few more pieces of this for replacement parts. It gets harder every year.

Blue sky / red buds.
This is the only stage of the game when the enemy Silver Maples are not offending me with their pollen, their spinners or their airspace-blocking foliage. This is the actual chunk of sky where I look for planes heading for Newark Liberty. I wonder where I put my binoculars?

The pit of conversation.
Suitable for discussing Ike and Mamie and debating the merits of building a fallout shelter. Those were the days! When the branches leaf out, the wall of foliage is so dense as to obscure the neighbors completely. We can conduct ourselves in complete privacy. We don't have enough friends to fill these seats. Pathetic!

Saturday Morning 10 AM

Breaking News:  Fallen Limbs After NJ Storm

Why did it have to be the Hula girls? So many salty days ahead, so many nights yet to be peppered up. (Breaking news, get it? I crack myself up. Crack, get it?)

Recovery Zone

 

Then 7/24/07                                      Now 8/11/07

All That And Three Bags of Pine Bark Chips

The "all that" being weeds, neglect and Black-eyed Susans in disarray.

A Botannical Success Story

Don't be going around feeling sorry for me because of my pitiful plants - there IS one happy little survivor here.

This is the spider plant that She Won't Let Me Use Her Real Name got as a clipping from her science teacher when she graduated from high school. She took it off to her college dorm room every September and dragged its near-dead carcass back here every May.

The deck seems to be the right environment for this thing. She brings it home extremely diminished in size with its color changed to yellows and browns.  Last year, its whole life force depended on the single yellow leaf it was down to. We put it outside under the canopy, move it into the open when it rains and it makes a remarkable comeback every time.

This year, it was only half reduced, but it was listing to the side at an alarming angle. Look what an excellent recovery it has made - blooming flowers and all.

Still Life With Okabashis

I don't know what to say about my deck pots this year. I love them, but nothing can live on love alone. What went wrong here? I gave them sun, I gave them water, I gave them Miracle-Gro potting soil mixed with yard dirt. I'm haven't knocked off the geraniums yet but I can't grow a petunia to save my life.

You now those "Wave" petunias that are so popular nowadays? I figured since I have an unbroken losing streak with regular petunias and the plant stake description was so encouraging about the easy-to-growness of it all, I took a chance and this is what happened.  Its supposed to look like this. I don't know.

Even the impatients that I could always count on have turned on me. Look at how these orange petals have taken it upon themselves to show up all white stripey and difficult. (Perhaps its not their fault - look how Sam has his electricity pointed right at them. No wonder  they're white, with fright no doubt.)

This though - this is true evidence of my high regard for you, all you wonderful people out there in the dark. Look what I'm showing you - a pot of portulacas. I know - eek! , right? Who can't grow a portulaca? They grow themselves practically. I did buy them very late in the season, and they were kind of tired looking , all jammed together down on the gravel of a roadside stand. The lady behind the counter obviously made it up when she charged me $3 dollars for 5 cellpacks, and then quickly tired to get me to take a whole flat for $5 when I didn't protest at that price. She must have known something about their imminent demise.

I tried to help them - I thought I might give them a squirt of watered down Palmolive dish detergent to rid them of any infestation they might have. Little fuzzy white patches raised their wings and took off at the first spray and this poor plant cluster was never the same again.I suspect that the bugs were what was holding it up.

So there we have it. Now you know. I'm losing it. Bad plant skills. Bad knee. I don't know why I even bothered to get my teeth fixed. I could have lived this kind of lifestyle with my broken teeth and saved myself some trouble. Boo hoo.

101 Views of My Deck: Sweet Potato

Gather 'round, friends. It's time for another of the countless recurring post topics around here - its the annual digging up of the sweet potato.

Not that I'm anxious to say goodbye to deck season, but the Coleus Corner is gone past its prime as anyone can plainly see. To say that they have become leggy is an understatement. How leggy are they?  I couldn't justify spending the bandwidth on getting the tops into the frame. That's how leggy.

Start by clipping away the stems. As validation for emptying the pots now, I am relieved to see that the foliage looks much more lush on the ground than it did in the pots. Just slightly out of this frame are my bare feet in a cold puddle. It's going to be a quick ceremony this year.

The dig begins and one small tuber is exposed. And that's it. One small potato, about 2 1/2" long. Last year, I got only one potato as well, but at least it was fairly sizable. I've been planting the bright green colored vines these past years - next year Im going back to the maroon ones that at least produce cute little multiples.

Only barely qualifying for its beta-carotene pedigree, you need a sharp eye to see the slightly yellow ring near the peel in this cross cut potato. So,  a disappointing harvest all the way around this year.

I grow weary of the Coleus Corner and vow that next year, I'll put flowers in this spot. It won't be much of an event to dig those roots up, though.

101 Views Of My Deck: Dream Come True

Soon, soon my little beauty! Soon you will be sitting on my own deck, sporting your sturdy wire mesh seat reinforcements and all covered with Evergreen Waterproof Woodstain to match all my other discarded patio furniture of the 70's. click image

All I have to do is go to Delaware to collect you, unbolt just enough of your 74" long magnificence to fit into the back of my CR-V and reassemble you in Home Sweet New Jersey. Then my long-time dream of a Redwood Jack-n'-Jill chair of my own will finally be realized. Happy is he who who refused to let go of his aged aluminum umbrella base. Expect 8-rib patio umbrellas to start appearing after each trash day.

And look at that rocker (ROCKER!*). Talk about your love at first sight - I didn't even know I wanted it until I laid eyes on it. Its already on my deck and let me tell you, friends, it is one sweet ride.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This post has been brought to you by my own Stubborn If Somewhat Eccentric Personal Vision. One of my new acquaintances is a Red Hat Society lady and I fear she will someday suggest that I sign up. But I cannot because I have been Red Hat material** all my life and I think I should be working towards trying to tone things down a little bit and aim more for conformity. Even so, I will never give up my quest to corner the discarded redwood patio furniture market throughout the original 13 colonies.***

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* Imagine Kirstie Alley screeching ROCKER! instead of FETTUCCINE!)

** If "Red Hat material" can be defined as unbound by conventional expectations and undeterred by public ridicule.

*** Dear Massachusetts,

I'm coming up next weekend.
Got anything for me?

Love, Suzette

101 VIEWS OF MY DECK: DOWN THE STEPS

It's snowball season again. I wrote about this PeeGee Hydrangea bush last year* and I haven't changed my opinion that it is possibly my all-time favorite planting on this property.

* In fact, I use the last photo of the mass of flowerheads in that entry as my desktop background image. I have never found a more beautiful image to take its place. You can use it too if you want, unless of course, you prefer the painted deer.

101 Views Of My Deck: Turtle and Dragon

Here are two types of begonias: the common and easy-to-grow wax begonia is in the turtle planter and the beast in the clay pot is called a Dragon Wing begonia. Click the thumbnail to see the stretched-out heart shaped leaves and the big blossoms that hang down.

The thing is like a begonia on steroids. I just stuck it in a pot, watered it and let it go. It's very heat-tolerant and always covered in blossoms. It also makes a big mess when those flowers drop off, and since there are so many flowers on it they are always dropping off.

Poor little turtle planter. Standing outside through 6 summers and winters has had a bad effect on the finish. Cracks have cracked and flakes have flaked. He might be good for one or two more years, but he's not the boy he used to be. And while we're on the subject, let's say that you were in a restaurant and the waiter offered you the "world's best fish soup". Would you expect to to be served a soup that was made with fish? Don't be naive!

101 Views Of My Deck: Red Hot and Blue

Honey, it's HOT out there today. The heat index is 99 - whatever that means , but it sounds HOT, doesn't it?  Try and cool of a little by looking at my cool blue hydrangeas:

The hydrangeas are a bit disappointing this year - they are usually much more intensely colored. I waited incase they were just immature flower heads, but they seem to be getting even more pale as they age.

In other deck news, no one was looking after my deck pots while I was gone to Pennsylvania last week and now there is none of that bushy greenness left out there. I tried to revive what I could with a good soaking via garden hose dragged up onto the deck, but it remains to be seen what did and did not make it. The only certain casualty is the potted New Guinea impatiens which was kind of struggling anyway - even under my careful watch. The rest of it just needs to be coaxed.

Also, sawdust. (click)  Should I be alarmed? It's those damn carpenter bees. I suppose they like the way I stained the pine benches dark green. Or maybe its cooler on the underside there. Or maybe they like it that they are directly under the place where I park the NPR on weekends. Who knows? It's too hot to worry about it.

1 View of My Other Deck

Ok, it's not exactly a deck - it's a front porch.

This is the front porch of the old house in Pennsylvania. If I tried, I couldn't possibly count up the hours spent here - reading an endless supply of library books, watching people walk up the street to the church and down the street to the grocery store, listening to the polka music from the weddings at the hall around the corner, hoping for one of the cool older boys to drive past and washing washing washing every part of it. It wasn't summer until the siding was washed. There is not a better place to be during a summer rain storm than sitting on that porch, protected by the big awning and feeling the cool breeze at last, watching the rainwater flow in the street.

The most interesting thing about the porch now is that we furnished it with stuff that Mr. Sam collected from other people's garbage*.  We painted the chairs and the Lazy Susan** barn red, left the hot pink flower pot alone and invested 79c in a citronella candle bucket.

You can see the front porch of the Deerpainter next door. Anything that looks like a flower over there is plastic. I am ignoring her.

*Note for future blogger meetings: please do not mention the garbage piles to Mr. Sam - he doesn't like that I tell people about it. He does it, he just doesn't want to talk about it. I used to think it was embarrassing that he did that - now I send him out with specific requests for stuff.

** No relation.

101 Views of My Deck: Rose of Sharon

They're late this year. The blossoms on the Rose of Sharon usually open on July 1st. Everything else in the garden is off schedule this season so I'm not surprised that this is, too.

I bought this flowering shrub when it was just a little stick in a 1 gallon pot at Frank's Nursery. It had a hang tag on it that said "hybiscus syriacus" and no more, so I was pleased when it produced deep pink blossom with double petals. I planned the placement so that it woud provide a dappled screen between our deck and the neighbor's shed, but I planted it years before the deck was built. Mr. Sam was always grumbling about a bush sticking up out of nowhere, as if it was in his way. I'm not sure that he appreciates that the placement at the end of the deck is not accidental.

He does not care for this plant. His main objection is that it the weight of the flowers in bloom pull the branches down to hang over the deck. I think that feature is utterly charming. Observe the charming vignette in the photo: the almost tropical look of the flowers that swoon low next to the raw wood of the deck chair and the happy gnome hoisting his beer mug down near the garden path. Who wouldn't be enchanted?

The look of that chair appeals to me.  When we bought it, it had a light coating of varnish on it and it was ok, but the plan was always to cover it with the same pine green deck stain that covers all the other wooden furniture out there. A few seasons of sun and snow have scrubbed away  that varnish and I like the way it looks just as it is. The bleeding of the nail heads, the unprotected surface of the wood - it is a lesson in the transient nature of things. It fits the garden.

The flowers will wither and die, the leaves will fall off the branches, the wooden chair will rot and fall to pieces. That makes the now of everything so precious. There's a lesson to be read out in the garden and on the deck: Everything is temporary.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

101 Views of My Deck: Light Ball

How to make use of last year's tangled up Xmas lights and a junky plastic wind spinner that you are sorry you threw $2.50 away on:

Directions:
1. Disengage one ball of Xmas lights from pile of tangled sets in the garage.
2. Work one end free until you have a knot-free 4 foot length.
3. Place tangle of lights inside of the plastic spinner with 4 foot knot-free length coming out of the top.
4. Pull at random individual mini-lightbulbs to create artistic protrusions. (note: asymmetry acceptable.)
5. Find somebody to stand on top of the picnic table.
6. Suspend light ball from the peak of canvas canopy.
7. Disconnect orange power cord from weed wacker and repurpose it for festive outdoor lighting use.
8. Power up.
9. Enjoy.
10. Pepper conversation with references to "outdoor chandelier".  Skip this step if you are speaking to someone who has actually seen it.

101 Views of My Deck: Stand Back 200 Feet

I am the new gas grill of Mr. Sam! Click my image to bask in the glow of my majestic full-sized presence!

I will blacken your all-beef patties and incinerate your kosher franks! Your beer brats will shrink back  in terror and the little sausages will cry out for their mothers! "Rare"  is not an option! Your brisket will beg for mercy and your ham steaks make me laugh! One word, suckas:  nitrites!

Death to the marinated chicken legs!

I have many knobs and a side burner on which to heat up your disgusting kippered herring snacks which are not allowed inside the house!

Your Martha Stewart windchimes will warp and the paint will blister off of your metal TV stand  from my intense heat! I will dry out  a patch of your lawn from a distance of 20 feet! Gas mark 9! Rawr!

Kabob? Ka-boom!

Fear me!

101 Views of My Deck: After The Rain

Saturday Morning After the Rain

All that's Missing Is Marlon Perkins

We have squirrels, chipmunks, ducks, field mice, tutles,  rabbits, birds, muskrats, regular rats, bats, cats, dogs and bees in the backyard and we have grown comfortable with them all, but whatever the heck this is can't be good.

Something fat pushed its way between the lattice panels on the bottom of the deck to get under there and then couldn't get out so it started chewing. I hope its gone.