Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? 

our favorite rebel, Kathleen has proposed we post pictures of why our gardens are such a wreck. 

At the moment, here in the beginning of the growing season, my gardens are looking fairly decent.  After the long and harsh winter, anything green looks good.

Give it time.

As the summer wears on and on and on and the dog days are upon me the gardens will not look so verdant.  They will take on a seen-better-days look. 

Ever get so drunk at a party, wake up in some strange place the next morning and have to find your way home? 

No? 

me neither.  But anyway, that’s how the gardens will look come August.  Like someone who drank too much the night before and now the harsh light of 11:00 a.m. is shining.  And that smudgy mascara that looked so smoky and sexy the night before is making you look like a train wreck now.

what?  oh, yeah —- why my gardens will look like shit before you know it …..

Exhibit A and Exhibit B

besides all the neglect that I heap upon the plants, these two will make sure that everything goes to hell in a hand basket.  On hot and humid days Exhibit A likes nothing better than to lay in a bed of hosta.  Forget the cool brick patio, the air conditioning indoors.  Nothing says arctic blast for Lucy like a nice clump of hosta.  Hosta which will never recover and will spend the rest of the season looking like a giant unmade bed.

Then there is Exhibit B.  Although we have not been through a summer season with Mr. Poe, if we follow his trajectory we can see where it will lead.  Mr. Poe finds the best spot to empty his bladder is in the pachysandra.  I am just happy he’s doing the nasty outdoors.  I can imagine that the pachysandra will not feel the same way about it that I do.

I don’t have a slug problem as much as I have a pug problem.  shall I try sprinkling salt on them?

We are all aware of our LYS – our local shop and the need to promote it.  Not only do these stores offer yarns and notions, they offer something that online ordering cannot — support.  A friendly face (hopefully!) that is willing to help with knitting questions. 

Such neighborhood shops are not limited to yarn.  Shocking, I know!  How about your local hardware store?  Do you even have one left or has Home Depot driven them out?

Today I would like to introduce you to a gem in my neighborhood.  If you live on Long Island, this place is worth a visit.  It is Fox Hollow Farm, a family run nursery/farm.  If you take a look at their website, you will see that they are not a garden center.  It is a family run farm that propogates most, if not all, of what they sell with an emphasis on hosta and daylily varieties. The family home is on the grounds and you are free to tour the gardens.

I first became aware of this place when I took the Master Gardening program and met the matriarch of this family, Dinah Foglia.  She is an unwavering supporter of the MG Program and is involved in all of their volunteer activities.  She is also a wealth of knowledge – especially when it comes to shade plants.

Much to my shame, it has been a number of years since I have been involved with the MG efforts – somehow family and other volunteering activities got in the way.  I stopped by Fox Hollow Farm the other day and had a nice visit with Dinah.  She didn’t exactly remember me, but was happy to show me around and share her delight with her plants.  On the left is a picture of Dinah’s sequoia – she planted it 50 years ago.  On the right is a sequoia transplant she gave me. 

This is one of my favorite parts of gardening – the sharing and history.  In one of my gardens I have daffodils and lily-of-the-valley that came from my parent’s backyard.  My mother got her original plants from her own mother’s yard. 

Hopefully someday, I will be able to share a transplant and tell someone the story of how a sequoia arrived in my yard.

Kathleen and I went to a knitting group on Friday.  This group meets every Friday night at one of two libraries. (both of these libraries have coffee bars ~ how nice is that?)  I had a great time, lots of the women there are also in the spinning guild and some are even fellow bloggers! 

Kathleen presented me with a pair of lovely, beaded pulse warmers.  If you have been reading her site, you know that she has been hard at work knitting these things – she is probably wishing she knew a few one-armed bloggers!  The pulse warmers are gorgeous!  As I told Norma, they are magic. 

Kathleen has been making quite a lot of these and has brought them to many of our knitting get togethers.  A few weeks ago, I slipped one on.  The first thing out of my mouth was ‘This makes my wrist feel better’.  Please note that my wrist wasn’t hurting in the first place.  Something about the softness of the yarn and the firmness around your wrist ….. it’s magic!

Onto other topics, are we still posting a daily flower shot?  I believe that these floral photos have given some of my readers the wrong impression.  Some of you think that my gardens are fabulous.  That is the beauty of the small little picture.  You only see what I want you to see.

If you had a widescreen perspective of my yard, you would see gardens overflowing – massacres taking place as one flower takes over an entire area, crowding out its neighbors while I sit by and let it happen.   If something isn’t done soon I will have nothing but daylilies and black-eyed Susans.  Not to mention the things that I let go because I am not sure if they are weeds or not.  My gardens are unruly and undisciplined — like those bratty kids you see out and about.  The ones that make your palms itch.

So here is a picture of potted geraniums.  I bought the vine support at Home Depot and have a sweet potato vine along with some morning glory seedlings tucked in there as well.  Home Depot is not selling the hat.

Why yes, I churned out another fruit cap.  My cousin’s wife had their first baby!  Throughout the pregnancy I had convinced myself it would be a girl and was looking forward to knitting Miss Dashwood.  Luckily I didn’t cast on!  This weekend I made what has to be my fifth pumpkin hat.  What is a knitter to do when she has the perfect pattern – fairly easy, fairly quick and adorable?

some recently potted annuals – but the real reason I am posting this picture is to show off my new statuary.  I love cement objects!