Marigold-a-go-go

Still June 1st here in the inconsistent gardening world.

There were 2 kinds of marigolds: Bonanza Bolero and Janie Tangerine.  

The variate Bonanza Bolero went in the south end of the side yard.  There are two in the gazania patch, and four in the nasturtium patch.

The plain-coloured Janie Tangerine have all gone in north of the chimney.  There is a patch of five between the daylilies and the mystery plants.  

There is even one in the mystery plants

There are 6 around the pickwick patches.  

Including some quite close to being buried in the pickwicks.

Going Gazanias

Continuing the June 1st information:

I put the 12 gazania plants all in the south side of side yard.  

They are between the irises, behind the irises, between the iris and the daffs-and-delphinium by the basement window (that bunch has a couple of marigolds mixed in).  They are in front of the daffodils by the basement window as well.  

Incoming Iris

The iris plants were a gift from my utterly lovely neighbour a couple of doors down.  She has a perennial garden in her fairly shady back yard, and I often feel shame about how little I can get going in the front given the knowledge of her tremendous success.  

At any rate, the irises came in the fall of 2006 and didn't bloom in 2007.  I am nothing if not stubborn (especially when there is the possibility of irises) and so I decided that they'd been traumatized by the move, traumatized by my treatment of them, and therefore they needed a year to recover.  I thought that if they didn't bloom this year, I'd have to face facts, but I'd let 'em be for the time being.

When I was doing the big planting last week, I noticed that there were buds!

It's going to be a far cry from the gorgeous irises we saw at the Jardin des Plantes last month.  Who cares?  The irises took!  Bliss.

Thank YOU, Alfred Hitchcock

Do you know those scenes in horror movies, when some character casually opens a door, or pulls back a curtain, and you know, even as they approach the door/window, that a nasty surprise awaits?  

This morning, I was actually humming as I walked into the bedroom to tickle the cat, curled up on the dresser.  Oh, thought I, I'll just pull back the curtain and let some of that glorious sunshine in.  

Cue scary music.

I can tell you that it was quite a shock to see the dried, shrivelled, one might even say mummified remains of the basil plants.

Oddly enough, one of them seems to have survived the ordeal.  I am soaking all of them in the hopes of turning them into zombies (undead, at least) but I think I am now down to one basil plant.  

On the plus side, I now know how I'll start my gardening horror movie. 

I know I said I was going to do updates before current information.  This one was such a surprise, I had to get it out of my system right away.

Glad handling

I am not exactly giving up-to-date information here.  Eventually, I will get to a real update, but since it's been a coupla weeks I am going to gradually fill in the stuff I did before I left.

As I wrote earlier, I wanted to try growing gladioli, given how lovely they are.  

I planted all of the bulbs on June 1.  

There are 3 glads between the pickwick patches to the north of the chimney.

There are 4 glads behind the 5 marigold patch to the north of the chimney (between the 2008 double daylily and the mystery patch).  

There are 3 of the smaller glads in behind where the big hyacinths were (basically between the chimney delphinum and the daylily).

There are 2 glads next to the mint by the original spot where the daylily was.  There is also a zinnia in that area, closer to the walk.

There are (probably, I didn't write it down immediately and I am now incapable of knowing for sure, but if the math and my other notes are right it's) 5 glads against the wall between the mint and the daylily.

There are 3 glads against the wall behind the daffs between the lavender and the mint.

I did take pictures of the places I put the bulbs, but they're not exciting pictures and they were intended more as an accompaniment to my (inadequate, see above) notetaking than as things to look at later.

Plans and inconsistencies

I have been travelling a lot of late, but I did get the plants in (except the raspberry, which the sweary one is looking after) before I left.  

I was home overnight but I didn't get a chance to see the plants, so I can only take the sweary one's word (it's good, I'm sure) that the marigolds are flourishing in their new home.

There will be some photo-intensive posts later when I have the energy (literally and figuratively; I left my adaptor back at the hotel) giving the full details, but basically the side yard has been filled in for the next little while, I hope.  

I also hope that I'll return to more regular posting shortly.  

Tiptoe through them?

Time for a tulip update, I think:

The tulips on the side are finishing.  The pink ones with white edging have been making their way towards the sidewalk.    One of them has been beheaded.  

The others are still pretty, but definitely looser than they were at their peak.  

In exciting news, there is one in the experimental yard beside the steps in front!  

It looks like there may be another there, too.

That's not as many flowers as bulbs planted, but it's two flowers more than were really expected, especially given how that bit of ground gets treated.