Its All About The Flowers And Plants

It's summer flower season, and the extra rainy spring and extra hot summer have helped things bloom. My little rock garden passed beyond Iris season long ago and now, in midsummer, the yellow Asiatic Lilies boomed on the south side of the little garden:

Orange Asiatic Lilies and Blue Sea Holly bloomed on the south side of the garden:

I was mowing the lawn when I noticed seedlings springing up around the productive plum tree. I mowed right over some of them, then thought better of it:

I went into the barn and got some bright yellow tent stakes to mark the little seedlings. I may need to select a couple of seedlings and move them, but for now at least, there are six plum seedlings which are safe:

And the mama tree is producing plums as she does every year:

The sunflowers I planted, at least the tallest ones, began producing buds and will soon be blooming:

The six multicolored Yarrow I planted produced buds and the first flowers to open were pink. I don't yet know what other colors I'll get, but it looks like the next ones will be red:

 The baby Carefree Delight rose is blooming freely:

And so is the Emily Carr rose:

 The little Sevillana rose has almost as many flowers as leaves:

 The Morden Sunrise rose is continuing to bloom:

 The first Daylily to bloom and so far the only one, is the Chicago Arnie's Choice. All in all, there are a lot of flowers blooming around the farm house, and the little plum seedlings are a bonus:

July In The North Country

The Red Polls spend their days and nights in the pasture, and sometimes I don't even see them. But they come back to the barn regularly to drink from the stock tank and lounge on the hay they wasted last winter:

Blue and Remy have had their yearly vaccinations and their hooves trimmed again:

 They are looking good, and staying inside their corral (so far):

 The small chicken door I originally made was simply a square, cut from the barn wall. It finally got so rotten that half of its guts just fell out, leaving it mostly hollow. I brought it into the barn so I could try to repair it:

I'm certainly no carpenter and was distressed at the poor job I was making of the repair, but when it was finally done, it at least worked for its intended purpose:

 And it closed more or less tightly. I may want to add some kind of weatherstripping in the winter, but all in all, it serves the need:

 The strip of sunflower seedlings is growing faster each day, to the point where I can sometimes see a difference from one day to the next. As the sunflowers get taller and leafier, the dogs are losing their view of me when I'm working around the front of the barn:

 The little rock garden began to glow with bright yellow Asiatic Lilies:

And the two Blue Sea Holly plants are so huge that they threaten to take over the entire space. They seem on the verge of becoming "The Beast That Ate Cleveland:"

 But they are fascinating, an odd plant with an odd flower:

 The red and orange Asiatic Lilies, the first to bloom, finally petered out with this final burst of color:

 The six multicolored Yarrow plants are beginning to take off, and one of them is sending up a flower spike. The buds look white, which I hope is not the color they're going to be when in flower. Just to the right of them are the Chives, one of the only seeds which grew successfully. Behind the Chives are unknown plants which might be weeds or might be Globe Thistle. Only time will tell:

Around The Farm - Part 1

Springtime seems late this year, even for up here in the north country where it's always later than much of the country. I have continued cleaning up big quantities of waste hay and dumping it on the compost pile. You can see Remy and Blue in the background. They were inside their new corral:

The barn badly needed cleaning, so I got that done also:

 Inside the back room, one of the new baby roses (Sevillana) bloomed. This was Day one:

  Day two:

 The Carefree Delight rose was pretty much spent but it had already put out a new bud to replace it:

My seed trays, baby roses and two new double Begonias seemed to need even more light in their back room, so I added two light bulbs:

The first seeds to germinate were the Globe Thistles. I've tried growing them twice already without success, but maybe this effort will produce some healthy plants. If not, I will give up on Globe Thistles:

The white fantail pigeons seem both happy and healthy. I put an ad on Craigslist, offering to sell some or trade for new birds which would add to the gene pool in my pigeon room. Alas, there were no takers:

The little hens are also doing exceedingly well:

The Iris and Lily garden is coming up rapidly now. It's so crammed with bulbs that I don't suppose I can fit any more in there:

The Daffodils put on a show for passersby on the gravel road:

I seem to have lost a number of plants over the winter, but it's too early to abandon all hope for them. The Mandarin Honeysuckle, however, survived the winter and appears ready to grow rapidly this year:

Around The Farm

The fantail pigeons have been making nests and laying eggs, but so far nothing has come of it. I think it's still too cold:

The little hens have done pretty well at keeping their room reasonably clean, and they are both happy and healthy:

Fergus watched me weed the Day Lily bed, which runs alongside the dogs' fence:

And the Sunflower bed, which is adjacent to the Day Lily bed, was much easier to weed because nothing was planted there yet:

The Iris and Asiatic Lily bed was starting to grow, so I quickly weeded that also:

The farm sign was losing its paint, so I took it down and plan to hang it inside the barn:

The white and yellow Daffodils finally flowered:

They are beautiful. The pure yellow ones will bloom next, followed by the pure white ones:

Another of the six baby roses bloomed, this one with a very large bud. This is how it looked on day one:

On day two it put on quite a show:

On day three it was fully open and quite large, as you can tell by my hand in the picture. This variety is called Carefree Delight. I hope it lives up to its name:

And the Darlow's Enigma climbing rose put out one tiny, white flower. It is supposed to be a prolific and continuous bloomer, with vines which can sometimes cover a whole house. It may not do quite that well here in the far north, yet I still have high hopes for it:

Around The Farm In Late Summer

I had far fewer apples than usual this year, but a few hardy trees are producing them anyway:

The plum tree was loaded with fruit but it appeared as if my straightening of the tree set back the ripening. I don't mind, as I only eat a few anyway:

  I do, however, certainly mind the regrowth of the Burdock and Thistles in my fields. I spent an afternoon once again weed-whacking them. The thicker stems had to be cut with lopping shears:

 The fantail pigeons have had several afternoon community baths. It's fun to watch them as they appear to be giddy with joy, splashing and playing like happy children:

 I cut down the remaining Blue Sea Holly flower stems. There are no flowers left in my little rock garden, though maybe something will rebloom in autumn:

 One day the pink Rose Mallows began to open. They are spectacular:

 More opened the next day. The red flowers always open later, so they are yet to come:

 I got onto a Sunflower kick and found a website which offered seeds of many varieties. I prepared a sunflower garden alongside the dogs' fence and adjacent to the Day Lily garden. I ordered four varieties of seeds, which I'll show in the pictures below. The website, if you are interested, is here:

 I ordered Cherry Rose seeds, the fastest to bloom:

 And Little Becka, a dwarf plant with 5" flowers:

 Red Wave, a short variety with short, branching stems and plenty of big, red flowers:

 I also ordered Pastiche, a variety of multi-colored flowers on branching stems. I put so much compost in the sandy soil that I expect to have a sunflower bumper crop next year: