As I write, my Boston Terrier is farting incessantly at my feet. Or maybe it's my lab. She's resting at my feet as well. The culprit: fertilizer. My dogs decided 10-10-10 fertilizer is delectable. You might remember that in my last post I mentioned my daylily seedlings appeared to have stalled in their growth. I decided fertilizer and more watering might be the answer. So yesterday I spent the day spreading fertilizer carefully in the daylily seedling beds. My dogs watched me intently. I just thought they wanted to hang out near me because they love me so much. Apparently, however, they were watching and waiting for me to leave, so they could get into the garden and lick up all the fertilizer I had just put down.
It smells so badly in this room that I have opened all the windows to let out the noxiousness, but my dogs are outpacing the air circulation in this room. I cannot describe how foul the smell is. It's literally burning my nostrils. Ernie, the terrier, keeps letting out little, wet toots, and then turning to look at his butt, puzzled, as if questioning who is creating this constant and funny noise. The smell does not appear to bother him, or the other dogs. They are quite happy snoozing in this fertilizer-farting hell that is my dining room.
Call the vet! Is that what you are thinking? I know, I'm a terrible dog owner, but they (and I) are just going to have to suffer until this has passed through them. I'm assured by poison control that they will not die from the ingestion. They will just fart, poop black poops, maybe barf, drool a bit and drink a lot of water. In any case, my dogs, especially the lab and the sharpei, appear to have iron constitutions. My sharpei ate half a bottle of iron tablets a few weeks ago and showed no signs of discomfort -- just kept on moving and barking as always. We actually thought it was the lab who had eaten the tablets, and so we tried to induce vomiting in her by giving her 3 tsps of hydrogen peroxide. She didn't even bat an eyelash. No vomiting at all. She also has eaten two full bags of Hershey kisses in the past with no ill effect. It's quite astonishing. I could go on and on with stories about what my dogs have eaten that should have killed them but miraculously, did not.
But back to gardening!
I finally have some blooming flowers! I'm in the north, so no blooming daylilies yet, but the lupine, iris and peony look quite nice.
I'm not sure I like these hot pink peony, but they are dramatic-- I will say that.
The garden below needs some rethinking. It will look quite lovely in three weeks, but I clearly didn't think about late May flowering when I designed it. As I moved things around last fall, I remember thinking that I could just put some annuals out front to provide color in May. I do have annuals out front, but I grew them from seed and they are not yet blooming. Sigh. Maybe I will give in and pick up a few six packs of petunias at Shaw's.
Speaking of Shaw's...
Do you suppose it's a risk to buy plants at supermarkets in terms of insecticide exposure? I mean, how do I know whether they have been treated with neonicotinoids or not? I'm truly obsessed with bringing pollinators to my garden, and naturally I fear killing them off once they come.
A consequence of being insecticide free is that I cannot control evil creatures like Gypsy Moth caterpillars. They have destroyed my cherry tree and they are fast destroying my roses. Does anyone have any experience with this? I would like nothing more than to kill them all in some incredibly cruel and painful way, burn them alive, blast them with poison, squeeze the green slimey caterpillar guts out of each one of them, but I don't know how to do so without affecting the plants--and hence my pollinators. In the picture below you can witness my defoliated cherry tree. So sad.
On another note, you will notice that there are stripes of gray on our house. We are going to paint it this summer, and we are deciding on a gray. Feel free to weigh in. I'm undecided.
Here is yet another question I have for this audience:
When you plant a new daylily and it immediately puts out scapes, do you allow the flowers to bloom, or cut the scape? I fear the plant being too taxed if it flowers. Is this unreasonable?
In other news, I continue to work on my butterfly garden. Unfortunately it doesn't look any better than the last time I wrote and posted a picture.
You can see we still have to clean up the mess of dead trees that my husband cut down so I could plant this garden. I read Gyspy Moths love to make their nests in dead wood. They are probably making nests in the mess as I write. argh.
I think I mentioned that in order to make this garden I have done a lot of digging / excavating. The pine needle layer is six inches deep, and so I have to dig and add soil repeatedly so I can actually plant. I've determined that in the past this area was definitely treated as a trash heap. I have found so many bizarre things. Here's a list:
Not so bizarre:
- plastic plant labels
- the head of a large spade
- rusty nails and screws
- piles of rocks
- an old wooden trellis, rotting beneath the earth
- old soda and beer cans
- old patio stones
- bricks
VERY BIZARRE:
- a Barbie doll's arm
- a decorative hair barrette
- the remains of a swingset
- pieces of artist clay
- shards of actual pottery
- a piece of a dog leash
- a marble
and...
drumroll....
you really will not believe this...
- a jock strap.
I actually didn't even understand what it was until I showed it to my husband, who laughed, and then told me.
As I finish writing this I am watching a squirrel perform an incredible act of body contoration and strength in order to get seed from our bird feeder. I would shoo him away, except I'm so impressed by his prowess that I will allow him his fill. Truth be told, I like squirrels. They are funny, probably soft, although I have never actually pet one, and they are both incredibly smart and strong (witness the bird feeder display) and also incredibly stupid (roadkill... when will they learn?) Kind of like dogs. Hence, I like them.
All right, time to stop procrastinating and to start gardening!
