Ditch Lilies

"We get no respect," said one Hemerocallis fulva (ditch lily) to the next.

Some people cringe at the mention of these orange flowers that commonly grow in roadside ditches in Michigan. Many people know them as Tiger Lilies (though they are not). The mere thought of planting them causes eyebrows to raise and uppity noses to twitch with disdain.

In my garden, ditch lilies have their week of stardom. Just yesterday DH said, "I really love all those orange flowers."  I don't think he's ever mentioned liking any particular flower before.

 All of my ditch lilies came from a few  that I dug from my mom's garden about twenty years ago.  She had gotten hers from my aunt Mary's home in upper Michigan.  So Aunt Mary these are all offspring of your farm house lilies!

Without further commentary, I proudly show you the many areas where I have planted the common ditch lily (if your nose is beginning to twitch, you may want want to hit the X in the right top corner) :)

The Garden Suffers when I go Back to Work

I have completely ignored the garden for the past two days. When I am working, there is nobody to dead head all of the daylilies. I hate when they look like this!

or water the deck containers. This huge barrel of liatris is desperate for water. All of the bud heads should be standing tall toward the sky, not flopping over like this.

Even if I stayed home all day, there is no way I could dead head all of my orange ditch lilies! This is just one area of them:

You can see a few others to the left of this arbor.  I think I will be replacing those with a Ninebark shrub (now that you've all gotten me hooked on Ninebarks! LOL)

 'Tiramisu'  seems to be having a problem. Even though its advertised as more sun tolerant, I think this spot may be a bit too sunny.  I am going to leave it here a bit longer to see if it adjusts. I really need it in this spot because of the color.

When I get home from work today, I will have to go out and water again. It's dreadfully dry here.  I hate when we get a drought!

Hair Allium puts out its Alien Flower

I showed you the hair allium bud a few weeks ago. Here is the allium 'Hair' flower: 

Isn't it wild?  I love it!
The yellow callas in a container that I hid among the flowers are beginning to bloom in the Manhattan lily garden.

These callas are a very bold yellow and I find that they don't play well with other flowers...at least with most other flowers. I have since removed them from this garden. In fact I cut them and brought them inside for a dining room table centerpiece.

The majority of my garden blooms the first two weeks of July. After this flush, it fades fast. So I take a lot of pictures in early July.
I was playing with the two containers of Ninebark that I bought this past weekend, to see if I wanted to buy a couple for the gardens. I liked it in almost every place I tried it, like behind this old milk can full of Guara.

and in back of this area:

I noticed that the astilbe blooming here is different from that in the first picture. It taller and more feathery.  I have no idea what it's called.

That Ninebark is a great backdrop for so many of my flowers.

The Lamb's Ear is blooming:

Lots of daylilies burst open this past weekend.

None of the arbor planters have really taken off yet.  So I guess I will have a few things to look forward to later in the season.

I will also have my hidden containers of canna lilies and dahlias.

  I removed this lychnis coronaria (magenta flower on the right side)

 and replaced it with a container of dark-leafed cannas.  I am a pretty big fan of dark foliage interspersed among all the green.

If you want to see more gardens, you can continue your garden walk over at Jean's Blooming Tuesday. and Garden Floral Thursday.

What are we Doing Working so Hard (AGAIN) in mid-90 Degree Weather?

We decided to dig out the new border early this morning as we won't have much time when go back to work tomorrow.


I was hot and miserable as I shook the soil from three big wheelbarrow loads of grass that we had to remove.

Look how dry it is. We really need rain tonight!

Poor DH is dying, too. We both took a lot of breaks in this shaded area.

After we finished and cleaned up, I decided to go back and buy two dwarf Golden Threadleaf False Cypress shrubs that I bypassed yesterday.  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted them for their compact height (3ft x 3ft max) and their great lime green color.

As we passed a thermometer reading on the way home, we realized why we felt like we were dying in the heat as we worked.  It was 96 degrees!

Thanks to all of you who gave me comments on the ninebark. After listening to all of you, I am feeling pretty confident that they are going to work out nicely.  I will have to leave a lot of space  when planting, but in a couple of years, I think they will fill up the area.  I can't plant until after the contractor gets done. I think he will be finished on Tuesday. He's just waiting for one piece he ordered and then he can finish the steps and railing.

While taking one of my many breaks this morning, I was noticing the colorful view from the white bench toward the gardens.  As soon as the sun went under a cloud, I snapped a picture to show you.

I see I dropped a piece of rope that we were using to lay out the curve of the new border.  Just ignore that. :)   This and next will be the best weeks for my garden.  After next week, it's all downhill.  How sad is that?  So much work for such a short time.

Flowers on Mackinac Island

A horse and carriage topiary on the Grand Hotel grounds:

The island has a flower shop where every wee bit of earth has been put to good use.

Now this is a porch worth getting excited over:

Love this picket fence/arbor!

Perfect garden chairs.

Nice rockery entrance garden:

Look, they used nasturtiums in their containers just like I did this  year.

Even the trash receptacles are covered in flowers (anything will a hat like this one cannot be called a garbage can). :)

What can you Tell Me about the Ninebark Diabolo shrub?

Physocarpus opulifolius 'Diabolo'


I bought two of them today to use when I redo the porch border. I liked the rich reddish-purple leaf color and since they will be planted among mature shrubs, the fast upright growth habit is a big plus. Ninebark Diabolo grows 4 to 8ft tall with a similar spread.  I need something tall and full for this area.

 I thought I would plant the second one on the opposite of the porch, although a bit further forward than this picture shows.

Here is a close-up of the leaf color:

This shrub has a smallish white flower in late spring/early summer, but the flowers look to be insignificant. They remind me of spirea flowers. Imagine my surprise when I read that it is related to genus Spiraea! 

I bought it only for its spectacular leaf color.  After googling it, I found another characteristic that appeals to me -- it has exfoliating bark in the winter-- apparently quite a few layers as the name "ninebark" comes from this characteristic.    I noticed evidence of this at the bottom of the shrub:

Of course, the purple foliage covers this all summer, but once the leaves drop, it will add winter interest.

I have not yet planted these and can still return them if any of you can give me a good reason to.  Do you have this shrub?  Do you like it?  I am eager for any help you can give me!  I read that it is native to Missouri -- Patti, do you grow this one?

I was out early this morning pruning my yew hedge on the side of the garage.  I just use my Felco pruners and it takes about an hour to remove any new spring growth and reduce its girth. I wish I could reduce my girth in such a short time!

After it was done, I cleaned up the skinny "garage garden" behind me.  Earlier this spring I hit it with Round Up because it was full of stuff I no longer wanted.  Now I need to come up with a new planting in this area.  I wonder if zinnias would grow here?  I would love a nice strip of colorful zinnias. I wonder if the hedge blocks too much sun..................this area has a ton of Star of Bethlehem bulbs...I sprayed the flowers with Round Up, but I suspect the bulbs with flourish next spring.  I swear, NOTHING kills that flower.

DH needs to get out the rarely used Christmas gift (power washer)  from 10 years ago and clean the sidewalk!

So I have had a busy Saturday. Earlier I splashed some new-to-me Sweet Baby Ray's Steakhouse marinade on a pair of supermarket-special T-Bone steaks which DH will be grilling for dinner. I am now heading out to the deck to sip wine and relax a bit before dinner. 

I hope you are all having a great Saturday!

Another Check Mark off My Bucket List on an Island full of Chocolate Fudge & Horse Manure

It all began with another boat ride (well, after a two-hour car drive).  I swear I have been on the water so much this week, I should be growing a mermaid fin!

We boarded an 83-ft./150-person ferry like this one and after an enjoyable sixteen minute ride


 we walked down the dock and on to Mackinac Island, Michigan.

I know many of you have heard of this island. For those who have not, its main claim to fame is that no motor vehicles are allowed on the island.  Its second claim to fame is  the Grand Hotel followed closely by its fudge. There is a fudge shop on every corner.

You get from point A to point B on foot, horse or bicycle.

 Hence, the sweet smell of horse manure and chocolate fudge that wafts through one's nostrils as you step off the dock and onto Main street of downtown Mackinac Island.

Can you even imagine having everything done by horses? This appears to be the equivalent to our  UPS delivery trucks!

We chose to begin our tour of the island with a two-hour narrated carriage ride pulled by Beau and Cory and narrated by Ashleen:

I am only showing you the end of our two-hour tour as that is where my bucket list check mark comes in to play. Here we are approaching the Grand Hotel where we opted to end our tour and walk back to the downtown area after we toured this magnificent hotel:

See the arrow? That is the Cupola Bar smack dab at the top of the Grand Hotel. But before we get there, we need to walk up the red-carpeted steps of the Grand--right after we pay $10 per person for the privilege....yes, you cannot walk into the Grand until you pay $10 (unless you are staying overnight there-- in which case you would be picked up at the dock by a very grand-looking carriage and black top-hatted driver who would drop you off right at the steps, like these ladies:

The cost for one night at the Grand is something like $350.00 and up.

So the $20 we paid to get into the building seemed very reasonable.

That's me on the porch -- I am the one who matches the awnings!

The Grand Hotel boasts the longest wooden white porch in the world at 660 feet and the entire  660 feet is filled with red geranium planters.

 It is also known for the dozens of white rockers that line the long porch.

No trip to the Grand is complete until you have sat in one of those rockers.

I am the one in yellow sitting in the rocker...no idea who the couple in the front of me is....DH is not that great as a photographer--most people would wait until they had passed before taking the pic.  He says that lady looks a lot like me--I had not noticed, but I think he's right! LOL.


After a short time in the rocker we went into the hotel. What a grand old lobby!

But the place I wanted to go was the Cupola Bar.  That's my bucket list entry--go to the top of the Grand Hotel and have a drink.  So we took the elevator up four floors...I ordered a glass of wine and DH had a beer (another $20 w/tip).

Ah, but the view was spectacular!

Does this pool look familiar to anyone?

It is the Ester Williams heated 500,000-gallon, 220-foot long serpentine-shaped pool. The pool was built and is named for the actress Esther Williams who starred in the 1947 movie, “This Time For Keeps”, portions of which were filmed on Mackinac Island and at the Grand Hotel.   According to our tour guide, Ester Williams did not even swim in this pool that was built for the movie.  It was too cold for her, so they built an exact duplicate pool in Florida and she did the swimming scenes there!

As we were leaving, I snapped this great view of the Mackinac Bridge from the Grand Hotel Porch:

While reading this have any of you wondered why the streets of Mackinac Island are not full or horse poop?  Well, Mackinac Island employs quite a few pooper scoopers.....HUMAN pooper scoopers... on bicycle, like this man:

Yup, as soon as the horses do their duty, someone is right behind them, sweeping it up.  Now there is a job for those who like to work outdoors!

I had a wonderful two days away from home, but I was excited to get back to see how far the new porch had progressed.

Very soon I will have my own white front porch, albeit 652 feet shorter than the Grand! 

Thank you all for your kind comments during the past two days.  I had posts set to go, but could not answer any because I was not home and I did not want to announce that I would be gone.  I hope you all understand.