Category: Turkey Tracks: My Life in Maine

Turkey Tracks: July 24, 2020

Roxanne Wells’ Gorgeous Garden

Long-time friend Roxanne Wells is a master gardener and a master quilter who mostly designs her own astonishingly wonderful quilts. Unlike my wild gardens here on Howe Hill, on property that is on a hill, Roxanne’s gardens are meticulously planned and tended. I have been in awe of her garden and her quilts for many years now.

We email pretty much daily, and we send pics back and forth—pics mainly of gardens and quilts. The emails cover a wide range of our thinking, ideas, worries, and joys. She is a special friend in my life.

I thought that it would be fun to see pics of how Roxanne’s gardens develop over the summer and to hear how she thinks and plans for how the garden looks as each grouping of plants comes into bloom. Roxanne chooses each plant carefully for the statement it makes in its own blooming season. She thinks about how the garden will look during the WHOLE summer season.

So, I asked her if she would put together a series of pictures that show her garden’s changes over this season so far. The text is also hers from this point.

My Gardens Throughout the Season

Given this large bed is the focus from most of the rooms in the back of the house, it’s the largest of my gardens. I’ve included photos over a span of the growing season to see how this garden changes – sometimes only in a matter of a week or two.  There are no annuals in the gardens.  The closest I come to annuals are the violas which self-seed from year-to-year.

June 13th.  The larger bed with chives, violas, aquilegia (both pink and purple hybrids), and pinks in bloom.  

Three weeks later, on July 4, the pinks and purples on their way out and reds appearing. The reds are from astilbe and asiatic lilies (two different asiatic hybrids in differing heights).

A closer look at the red asiatic lilies: Tall, dark red is the hybrid “Montenegro” and the shorter orange/red is “Matrix.”

Another two weeks—on July 16th—and this is the same bed seen from the far end looking back at the house. Now the pink and purple colors are fading and being replaced by darker and hotter colors that are just beginning to color up. At this time, from this angle, the darker astilbes hold your attention and move your eye along the border of the bed where I have the same hybrid planted in several places.

July 22nd, and only a week later, from the same far end of this large bed. Day-lilies carry the bulk of the colors now, as well as the astilbe and some fuchsia-colored phlox (just beginning to open).

More photos below show closer looks at “vignettes” within the larger bed.

June 22, far end of above bed with Siberian iris (“Midnight Velvet” and “Ranman”), aquilegia (purple hybrid) and achillea “Moonshine.” Pinks are in the lower left.

On July 8th, in this same spot, the above blooms are replaced with pink astilbe and white daisies. The achillea’s yellow blooms remain for many weeks. I like this achillea hybrid (“Moonshine”) for its soft yellow, which compliments many other colors, and the length of its bloom time.

July 4th. This is the center of this large bed. Once again I’ve used the achillea “Moonshine” to facilitate moving the eye from one area of the bed to another, but still maintaining the overall color scheme. However, here the pink color comes from a small, but prolific asiatic lily (“Lollypop”) and a dark pink astilbe—which mimics the darker pink on the edge of the asiatic lilies.

As you follow the center path and look thru this large bed vignette (above), there’s a wetter area where bog plants flourish.

July 8th: The “bog bed”: astilbe, Japanese iris and filipendula.

And behind this bed (just visible at the top right of the above photo) there’s a steep embankment along the back of the garage. This area is a challenge to garden. The area is steep, so needs plants that will hold the soil. And, it is dry, so needs plantings that will tolerate dryness as well. Here I’ve incorporated a mix of hosta (large leafed and with a varied color range to add interest to this otherwise non-blooming area) and a mix of evergreens. There are also barberry to add a touch of red.

My yard has presented a challenge with its wide range of topographies, but also given me an opportunity to “garden with a bit of everything.”

Enjoy! Roxanne

Turkey Tracks: July 11, 2020

Washer/Dryer Woes and Joys

I knew my American washer was on the way to dying. At only eight years old, it was making ominous grinding noises. It’s predecessor, the same maker/size washer, died after eight years.

I was bracing for doing something about the washer so I wouldn’t find myself without one at any moment now, when the 19-year-old gas dryer died about 10 days ago. Getting an old Sears product repaired, or even examined, in this rural area was going to be a real problem.

Oh my!

And “Oh My” again when I learned at our local really good appliance store (Kelsey’s) that no one makes either a washer or a dryer that would fit the built in space where the old ones were now going or gone. No one. Everything is either HUGE or little. The middle ground is…gone.

What to do?

I ultimately went with very high-tech European stackables that will sit side by side. They are smaller, but I did not want to have to redo this whole space to accommodate bigger appliances. The washer plugs into the dryer, so the gas feed had to be capped and a new 220-240 outlet had to be installed. (A shout-out here to Rubenstein Electric who, despite being crazy busy once again bailed me out and came to install the new outlet between the old washer/dryer removal and the new installation.)

Here they are:

There are spaces all around them now, but I’ve since taken the tv trays off their stand and slid them into the side spaces. That’s a streamline that works well as the stand of tv trays was a footprint that wasn’t especially visibly pleasing.

AND HOLY COW!

These very high-tech babes are AMAZING!

The washer will take a 17-pound maximum load. That’s a lot of clothes. The dryer needs no vent. It removes moisture from the air and shuttles it into a drain, so it, basically, dries the air rather than just pouring heat into the drum. And it knows when to just…stop…rather than blindly following a timed schedule. Each machine has an amazing array of controls that allow all sorts of washing and drying possibilities.

There is a whole new learning curve involved here. You can see I have both manuals on top of the counter with a pen.

My first four washes/dries came out beautifully. Basically there were no wrinkles in anything, and the clothes were very clean with very little soap used.

I’m happy now.

PS:

I LOVE to hang out wash on my clothes line. But with the brown tail caterpillar hairs still flying around, I don’t think putting sheets, especially, on the outdoor line is a great idea.

BUT, an outdoor line provides a lot of pleasure in many ways, including saving $$$$, as neighbor and friend Marina Schauffler details in this lovely essay—which also talks about European dryer technology.

Hanging Out: Reducing Clothes Dryer Use

Turkey Tracks: July 8, 2019

Nipplewort Wildflower

Remember this bouquet from a few days back?

The tiny yellow flower I couldn’t identify is Nipplewort, or as it is known around here by those who know these things, “Common Nipplewort.” It is in the larger aster family. “Wort” just means “plant” in Europe, so it’s just known as “the nipple plant.” The fancy name is lapsana communis, which means it grows in a “community of other plants.

It is in my New England wildflower book, but what was throwing me was that I could not identify what some were calling leaves on the lower part of the plant that supposedly resemble a “nipple.” I could only see large leaves that were opposed by two tiny leaves. And what kind of “nipple” did the description mean? A nipple like on a baby bottle? A nipple like on a female dog’s belly—elongated and protruding. Or like a human’s nipple that is surrounded with a wider circle?

I finally found what I think is a more plausible explanation on the web site https://www.juliasedibleweeds.com/general/nipplewort. Julia says that this plant is an astringent, so back in the day (or today too I suppose) it “probably helped heal chapped nipples or breast ulcers.”

It is edible. It is used as a salad vegetable in Europe. It has a calming effect. Used in a tea, it can help staunch breast milk when it’s time to stop breast feeding.

There are big leaves at the bottom, which give way at the top to just mostly bare stems with flowers and an occasional slender pointed leaf. The tiny yellow flowers only open in sunshine and close up by mid-afternoon. The seeds do not have “tufts of hairs to help the seeds fly away—they rely on being carried on shoes or by birds eating them.”

So there you have it. It’s an interesting plant, isn’t it? Who knew?

And remember that all plants interact with the world via chemicals they produce. These chemicals can be very strong—for either good or bad, depending on the dose one gets. So, always be careful. Respect plants! Even supposedly benign plants we eat all the time carry chemical packages to which one must pay attention. Eating plants in their own seasons is always a wise choice.