Thursday, July 28, 2011

Dark Side of Eden


Turkeys...we have plenty of them on this park, but today I'm not talking about the human ones.  Out of nowhere, three hens and sixteen chicks have materialized near the pond area.  The adults are scratching wildly around that large dirt patch, chunks of soil flying in all directions, sashaying their bodies back and forth as they flip dirt on themselves before settling into a nesting type mode on that bug quenching dusty mound with wings outstretched.  The chicks settle in to the same routine after the hens have risen and pecked their food picking way over to the pond.

After a while a few of the chicks rise up and join the hens, but most of those chicks are content to just stay put with wings outstretched in their huddle of bodies on that dusty patch of ground.  The biggest hen moseys over to that display of lovely young bodies, and starts kicking the hell out of the dirt sending the rest of the chicks scattering to the pond.  She settles down to a second dust bath before rejoining the gang.

Eventually they begin pecking their food picking way into the tree covered beyond and become invisible to my eyes.  I'm looking at all those 'weeds' out there.  Most people hate them with a vengeance, but the turkeys need them for the seeds they provide and the insects their green leaves hide.  Turkeys would starve if we had our own way and herbicided all those pesky weeds into oblivion to satisfy our need to have nature wrapped up tidily in a straight jacket of neatness.


Do gardens have a dark side to their personality?  Mine do.  Baby thugs hid in the greens I've planted, silently becoming tomorrow's teenagers of destruction.  Maple, elm, bradford pear, eucalyptus, chinese redbud and japanese/chinese honeysuckle seedlings become six foot monsters before I discover their existence.  Bermuda grass, yellow nutsedge, japanese knotgrass and stiltgrass, and who knows what else, busily tries to smother my natives and non-natives into oblivion; and this is all with the courtesy of mother nature and my lovely neighbors; both whom I have no control over whatsoever, kapoot, zilch, nada nada nada, zero baby zero.

Neighbor to the left has a healthy patch of bermuda grass mingled with another coarser grass on steroids.  Always a day late and a dollar short on the mowing time table, those grasses are trying to set up housekeeping on my grounds and are succeeding quite marvelously much to my horror.  Neighbor to the right has developed an allergy to yard work beginning some years ago, and has become the living manual of all that is so wrong with life among the lazy elite.  He has every known obnoxious entity the world has ever harbored proliferating wildly away in his reserve of dubious origins and questionable motives.

I've even become my own worst enemy and have begun to sink in a losing battle with the eradication of that oh-so-cute native river oats crap that I planted three little tykes of some ten years ago, and now at last count have cut down more than fifty clumps of that baby-faced monster.  I need some time for myself outside of the gardens and have deserted the healthy and gone over to the dark side.  It's spray, baby, spray...kill, kill, kill.  I'm on a mission...I need a life outside of my gardens..so sorry National Wildlife Federation, Audubon, and Wild Ones...my bad.







Japanese Stiltgrass



River Oats



Dwarf Joe Pye Weed 'Gateway'
5 to 6 feet tall






Part of cicada damage where eggs were laid
in the stems of Spicebush - after eggs hatched,
stems are warped and split open



Miss No Name
Was given a piece off a lily bulb
at a Master Gardener Meeting.
Took about seven years for it
to become big enough to bloom.
Love it - whatever it is.



Keeper of the Pond






Beautiful blue dragonfly



Blackhaw Viburnum berries
after the rain



Blackhaw Viburnum berries after a short drought -
they all fell off the tree






Hosta 'Halcyon'
Have to water this baby everyday, or
it refuses to bloom. 



Hairy Sunflower




Giant Coneflower
Rudbeckia maxima
against a 6 foot high fence



Too hot to actually use this deck
for anything but a collect all


Dustin's stamp of approval is lacking on the front yard.
It's leash territory for him, as he is so addicted to
running down the street with his owner
hot on his trail, her arms wildly waving,
yelling 'come back here, you little sh*t!'




Glossy Black Chokeberry
I tried one of these...only a bird could love it.



Clematis i. 'Hendersonii'



Royal Catchfly



After five attempts to get a completely undamaged
85 pound  umbrella stand, I gave up.  The only piece
lacking is a screw tightener replacement, but UPS
keeps insisting on using the straps for handles
even though it is printed on the straps that's a NO NO.
The last shipment for me to just remove a tightener
from the tube and have the rest returned, was actually
missing the tube...it fell out somewhere along the route. 
I'm buying a large bolt from the hardware store,
and will just live with that conversation piece.




Blue Star Threadleaf



Belladonna Lily
I'm in love!
Beautiful pinks with golden and bluish highlights.
Fat strap leaves in the spring disappear,
then the flower stems shoot up later in summer
two feet tall,
and produce these deadly sweet blooms.





















July 28, 2010
Birth of my little baby
Perfection...More or Less
and
the beginning of
my descent
into
blogging
addiction 
most sublime
with my first post
Thank you, Tracy,
my first follower
outside of family...
although,
 I do sort of think
 of her as distant family.
She encouraged,
plugged my blog,
wonderful comments
 left and right,
she's a sweetie!
Thank you all
for reading
 whatever I throw at you...
normal,
near-normal,
abnormal...
you're awfully good sports.
And
to all of my friends
who post more than once a week,
you're killing me...
it's like running a marathon
 trying to keep up
 with all your posts,
lol.
Love you all.




16 comments:

  1. The flowers are absolutely gorgeous!

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  2. Thank you for finding me so I can find you! Love this little blog post. Beautiful and entertaining! I am now a follower. :)

    Shirley @ The Gardening Life

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  3. How fun to see wild turkeys and their babies!
    I hear on some of those weeds. I's surrounded by bermuda..both sides and back. It keeps creeping under, thru, over (one neighbor doesn't believe in mowing??) I gave in and now spray, spray, spray, but I feel guilty, guilty, guilty! LOL
    Your flowers are gorgeous. Lovin' the Bella Donna Lily too, such a delicate shade of pink.
    It's been so hot here that we arn't using our deck either..except for a "throw it outside" holding area. I'm impressed, you can see your deck floor! LOL
    Wishing a great weekend and keep cool! Tell Dustin it's too hot to run so he has to be good!
    Happy Blogerversary!!!
    xoxox
    *hugs*deb

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  4. Fab pictures as usual.

    You can't win 'em all . . . sometimes we all have to resort to the dark side! Mother Nature WILL have her way!

    You wait til I tell The Girls that someone's blogging about Turkey's dustbathing in the local park! You can bet they'll want to hotfoot it down to a public area for further admiration!

    Hugs, Sandra

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  5. Congrat's on your one year in blog land you have created a beautiful blog.
    Hope you have a great weekend.
    hugs from Savannah, Cherry

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  6. I feel like that from time to time...chuck gardening and spend more time doing some other things. I might just take myself up on it one day. Have a good weekend!

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  7. Love that stone path!!! And don't feel guilty. We all do the best that we can do.

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  8. Your stone keeper is awesome. That clematis and choke berries are interesting.

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  9. Haha! Someone once told me weeds were just plants no one wanted in a pointless effort to make me appreciate them. Didn't work - actually, NOTHING works like the spray gun!!

    Have a great weekend!

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  10. Clipped - funny how we both have neighbor problems...love the keeper of the pond. Wonder if it would keep the canine poo bandit out of my yard? :)

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  11. Great post, enjoyed reading about your battle with the weeds, I have the same thing going on here, and many of them were things I planted before I knew I was going to make so much work for myself.

    Your stone path is wonderful, I have a great fondness for rocks, they don't need watering or mulching or tending in any way. Your Keeper of the Pond is really neat, too!

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  12. Congratulations and happy blog anniversary! Love your belladonna lily.

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  13. You sure made me smile with this post! I laughed aloud at the Time 2 Get a Life clock! I think we share a love of nature (though admittedly, I am not a fan of bugs of any kind; they just give me the willies).

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  14. chickweed threatens my gardens...and I kind of feel fortunate not to have things such as turkeys..lol
    What a pretty you did share this week!
    Once again I am just loving the tour of all the gardens that have linked in to my little party! I am so excited to visit each and every post...they are all so inspiring and I am NEVER disappointed! The creative gardens and colorful displays that I am lucky to see are inspirations that I would never have found had I not found each of the gardeners I see online! Thank you so much for sharing your garden with my Friday Flaunt this week...I do hope you will link in again soon!
    (¯`v´¯)
    `*.¸.*´Glenda/Tootsie
    ¸.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
    (¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•.

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  15. Ooh, no one dare mess with that pond! I just put up a pic today at my blog of our new cat! Just thought you'd appreciate it, my fellow cat lover. :)

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  16. I so love your blog and your posts and your garden! I mowed today... we just have grass and a few flowers, at some point if the deck is ever finished, we will landscape the front, for now it is ugly builder bushes.

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