Well, it’s August. And that means late summer is here because I think aren’t we forever a little bit a kid in our heads realizing this is the last gasp before we go back to school in the fall? It certainly has been a different summer from last summer. We’ve had a lot of blasting heat, but also a lot of rain. Everything has grown exponentially. 

I have been pruning things more than once in a couple of cases. However, now I see azaleas starting to set for next year, so there’s some that I can’t trim that I should have. I have really trimmed back some hydrangeas in a couple of cases because it got so warm so early after the weird cold spring that on some of the lace caps, for example, the flowers aged and browned out more quickly. A couple of hydrangeas have rewarded me like “tough stuff” by starting to bloom again.

I also have had to do another fern culling. I have given out so many ostrich ferns, I have lost count. The sensitive ferns however, I’m just yanking and dumping because they’re like weeds. I gave the ostrich ferns to a friend of mine for one of her landscaping clients. Plants have gotten so expensive this year, and as far as ferns go, I think I should pay it forward and just give them to people if they want them.

The roses have had a pretty good year this year. In spite of all the rain, the diseases have been in check. And the pests too. We had some Japanese beetles, but a lot less than last year. I’m thinking because we had a snowy winter or maybe all those years of putting stuff in the lawn to discourage grubs has helped finally? when we had that long, hot stretch, followed by more than we could handle, it meant in the end that I fed my roses late, but they did OK. Now some are starting to bloom again.

My giant white rugosa rose that I have in a front bed is significantly small smaller than she was. I thought she was all looking big and green and then I took a close-up look at her because I really hadn’t in a good two weeks, and she was being taken over by this horrible evil vine with little triangular leaves that was thorny.  it took quite a while to get that entire vine out of my beautiful rosebush and the vine had strangled some of the bush so now she’s smaller, but the vine is defeated. 

Of course, with all the rain, it has been a summer of evil vines. From wild raspberries to whatever that other prickly thing is that looks like a relative, to wild grape vine, it has been hard keeping up. And the bishop’s weed /gout weed has been the very devil as well. I finally used a bio advanced selective weed killer to knock some of the worst patches out and it didn’t kill the other plants around it. I don’t like to use weed killers, but every once in a while, I just can’t avoid it. and this is a year we have already spent thousands getting poison ivy and other invasives removed.

But the delightful end of summer flowers like the dinner plate hibiscus, and the giant rudbeckia I love, and my husband does not are blooming. And I have a pretty good patch of zinnias going. I also have Crocosima and a couple of patches of Gaillardia or Blanket Flowers. One patch of Gaillardia is sort of a deep red and the other patch is sort of a rust orange. They’re really quite pretty.

I’m now many years into this garden, which was new to me when I plant my first plants in 2012 before we moved in. I love the way it has evolved and grown and I would definitely say it’s layered sometimes to the point of being crowded, so I have moved things around and even given plants away over the years.

However, another part of a long hot summer with lots of rain and waiting for our sixth heat wave next week means I’ve also gotten to the point where it’s like you want to look at the garden some mornings and say “Please take care of yourself now, I am tired.” But then you see an unexpected flower and you hear a bird sing, or a screech owl and the other big owl in the woods at night and you’re all in love again. I will admit that the cat birds, Cardinals, and Carolina Wrens need to stop having babies because they’re all still having clutches.

In the critter category, the foxes are all over. I hear them mostly at night and as dawn is breaking and then they go into hiding for the rest of the day or just out of the sight of me deeper into the woods. I also have a surprising number of bunnies this year and this morning there was a fawn with all its spots curled up under a maple tree in the back. Deer Solution is late spraying this month, so there has been a bit of nibbling.

Fall is coming soon and when she arrives, it will mean the planting of the bulbs. Until then I might actually try to relax and enjoy the garden ….however, if you like to garden, it’s hard to relax because there’s always something to do isn’t there?