Thanks to Carol

The Prologue:I had a nice chat with my cousin yesterday. We don't talk often and haven't seen each other in years. She lives in Las Vegas and I'm in Northern Colorado, and neither of us seem to be too excited to travel much out of our comfort zone. Of course our friendship began long ago as children. In those early years, the family gathered for the holidays and trips to the grandparents' cabin; then her family moved to California. Still we  nurtured our friendship by writing letters back and forth, spending some summer vacations together, and sharing our love and passion for horses. On our paternal side there were only 8 cousins, six natural ones, and our aunt's two adopted sons who were good as gold. Carol lost her brother Rick several years ago, leaving our two sisters and my brother and the two boys. Ours is the best kind friendship-- a kinship that morphed from family to best friends. 

While our conversations are few and far between, they are l-o-n-g as we catch up on our daughters, she has one,  I have two. We reminisce about our childhood, remembering the best of those years. This time Carol shared with me about her writing, confessing that as an avid quilter and seamstress, she now writes more than she sews and writes daily. She asked about my blog to which I confessed that I had abandoned it, and she encouraged me to start again. As I look back over the years since I began the blog in 2009 shortly after we moved to the Garden Spot, I amazed myself to see how much of the family history I have recorded, so this post for is for you Carol. Thank you for encouraging me to return to writing to tell stories--as you refer to your own writings. 

A Sign of the Times: While the weather prognosticators have not declared that Colorado is in a drought, it certainly seems so. We finally had rain Friday, a nice substantial rain the perked up the lawn and made the vegetable garden look worth saving. There is another sort of drought not nature made and that is the availability of domestic or treated water. Here in Northern Colorado cities are charging exorbitant amounts for city water. Many lawns in town have turned to weeds because it is so expensive to water them. For us, in addition to our city water, we also have access to agricultural well water that we use to water the lawn and the pastures. The flower beds and vegetable garden are on city water with timers to avoid over watering

But that's not all, along with the hefty water fee, electric power is even higher. Each month our power company sends us a statement of how much power we've used compared to our neighbors who live on city lots with small lawns. Our water used compared to our subdivision neighbors looks shameful; however, it takes power to run the pump to irrigate our 2 acre hay field and the acre+ grazing pasture, an lawn--not to mention the pump that filters our lily pond, so, yes, we use a lot of power to run the pump that drives the sprinkler system. While the desired plants falter with the lack of rain that provides natural nutrients, the weed population thrives, getting more voracious every year. 

Still joy can be found in the garden, so let's visit the time capsule and venture through the summer. 

Ponding update: The last post detailed the removing the giant clump of water lily in center of pond. I repotted smaller pieces in Walmart storage baskets. The Head Gardener ordered canvas fiber-like baskets that I used to repot 10 lilies.  The pond is probably 80% covered now with lily pads.

One of these three seems to be permanently rooted in the bottom of the pond. Part of the original, it seems to be staying put.

These storage baskets worked well for larger hunks of the fibrous lily tubers.

The fish are happy. I have one Koi, a shy fella who appears only to eat. Too bad because he is pretty.

All of the repotted plants have bloomed,  all white, all the same--but wait! is that a pink one I see? I think she was too crowded and lost in the mucky mass of the white lily and became dormant. Alone and separated out now, she thrives. 

The water lily transplant was a success. I nearly cried when, as shown in the last post, the lily was literally ripped into pieces, but each transplanted piece has successfully bloomed.

To the Garden: Check out the May post to see how the Head Gardener and Heather. With the beds complete, it was time to start filling them.

We purchased a dozen ever-bearing strawberry plants, which didn't quite fill the bed. There's room now for them send out their runners and fill in the gaps. I look forward to bowls full of sweet, home grown strawberries.

 

Zinnias are one of favorite cutting flowers, so I planted up all the left over packets that I have collected over the years and my special ones from a wonderful gardener--expensive ones. You can read more about Floret  at this link. I found Erin's garden first on Magnolia network and fell in love with her gardening passion and her story about how she and her husband started their flower  business. She won me over and I purchased two packs of her zinnias. I'll have more to write later about my success with her seeds.

It took a week before they began to sprout. The first to bloom were my lime green zinnias--a bit disappointing because the green is not as rich as the seed packet shows.

The peppers and weeds are thriving.

Mid summer: The strawberries keep growing.

The white trash bags hold the Canadian thistles that I finally pulled. Such ugly plants that we can't seem to get control of.

One strawberry plant has started to produce. Can't wait to see what next year brings.

Z for Zinnia: The long wait for blooms is over, but disappointing. In the past, the plants have grown waist high and were prolific bloomers. With the sturdy weed crop, we weeded the zinnia rows and I gave them a timed release fertilizer that I probably should had put down earlier. Given the extreme hot, dry days and lack of rain, the zinnias have struggled.

Individually they photograph nicely.

She looks more lime green in the photograph.

I picked a bouquet of the wild sunflowers and asparagus that has gone to seed.

These two are Floret and not as gorgeous as the web site shows. I hoping that as the plants mature, so will the blooms. We've upped the water and hopefully will have more rain next week, which will help. Still they really are lovely flowers and last long in the vase.

My second bouquet is a bundle of pretty flowers. I love the little mounded ones--can't tell you what they are, but they are sweet.

To achieve this effect, I use my iPhone camera set on Portrait with stage light, giving the black ground. Experiment to see what cool results you might achieve. 

And so the sun sets on another Garden Spot post, though I have to confess that this photo was taken several day ago when the sun set was filtered through a cloudy haze created from two wild fires in the foothills west of us, one on the way to Estes Park and the west above Longmont. The fires are now out, but sadly attributed to man-made.

Thanks so much for stopping by. It's been my pleasure.

Ann