Home of the Practically Perfect Pink Phlox and other native plants for pollinators

Friday, July 18, 2008

Can You Visit My Garden Today?



Can you visit my garden today?
Not tomorrow.


Today, when everything is just right.
The sun is peaking through the canopy,
and,

the green looks lush and cool.


Please come up the walk and join me on the porch.
I'll be waiting with tea and if you're hungry maybe a scone...


We can talk about life and gardening, they are so much the same.


Gail

64 comments:

  1. I'd love to walk your garden with you! It looks cool & inviting.

    Re: your previous post, I've seen that Sphinx moth in my garden a lot & managed to get him on film a few years ago. I liked your video of it. I'm not as crazy about the pupa photos though. Yuck.

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  2. Gail, I'd like to sit on your porch and drink tea and watch your bird feeder. You probably get different birds than I do.

    I lived in Tennessee for a while, near Frankewing. It was beautiful there. I still think about moving to Giles County.
    Marnie

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  3. mmd,

    Yes they are rather icky but at the same time, I did want folks to know what to look for in the soil...

    I would love for you to come join me on the porch! Parts of the garden are cool and parts are a jungle!

    gail

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  4. Marnie ,

    We get the usual suspects! Chickadees, cardinals, finches, purple, gold and house, sparrows, wood thrushes are in the shrubs, along with robins, rufous sided towhees, nuthatch, all manner of woodpeckers, tufted titmice, jays, mockingbirds and we have a hawk or two that lives in the neighborhood. Sometimes I see him above circling and calling and in the winter I see him landing in our big canopy trees! Real bird people probably can identify other birds! How about your birds?

    It's fun on the porch...lots of laughter.

    Giles is down the road a bit from us. I think they are having a bad time with drought conditions but I may be wrong!

    gail

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  5. You are so kind, thank you for the invitation. I like my tea 'northern style', unsweetened if you don't mind. And it sure is relaxing to look out across the expanse of green in your garden and talk about life.

    Great minds think alike on these hot summer days, as I invite you to come sit on my porch, too. My next post, a porch chat, is staged and ready to auto-post this evening.

    Carol, May Dreams Gardens

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  6. Carol,

    You'r welcome and rest assured I never serve tea any other way..."beings" that I am a northerner!

    It must be that we need to rest just a bit and enjoy the fruits (or vegetables in your case) of our labors.

    I am enjoying auto posting....very much....I'll be over tonight or tomorrow, I may be out celebrating my birthday.

    I do wish that one or two of you lived a bit closer so we could have a visit on the porch!

    Gail

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  7. Sweet tea please for this southerner. One of these days this is really going to happen. Really.

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  8. I'm a Southerner but I'll take the UNsweet please. Thanks for the invite---only wish I lived close enough to indulge. I love porches, wish I had one. Don't like city living. Your garden looks so lovely & cool. Such a joy to sit on porch & watch the birdies.

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  9. Gail, what a lovely invitation. I know just how you feel... it would be so nice to share an evening with you on your porch... you with your unsweet and me with my (southern)sweet tea.

    Love your garden photo today... your garden is so natural and woodsy... it yields a perfect invitation to sit about and take in the beauty of it...and best of all I always appreciate the 'tender spirit' of your posts.
    Meems@Hoe&Shovel

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  10. Frances,

    Yes, and if you can teleport yourself here whenever I want you to see a perfect bloom or a vignette and if I could hop, skip and jump to your side of Tennessee to see you and your blooms, it would be wonderful!

    We are going to a friends house for take out supper club That's my idea of perfect; parallel eating at its best and we don't have to cook! Everyone gets what they want to eat.

    Gail

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  11. lola,

    Unsweetened tea is on the menu. It is a lovely place to be and the best gift we gave our family and friends. I grew up in the city but we had a porch and all the houses were close together and people interacted with one another! But the best times were visits to family in the country. Those were the good times...running around outside and catching fireflies!

    I bet you have those kind of memories, too.

    gail

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  12. meems,

    I had the nicest visit at marmee's blog, she wrote lovely things about her sister!

    For you I can make sweet tea, although, it has been so long since I sweetened tea someone will have to be the taster to let me know if there is enough sugar. Can there be too much? It is one of the major southern food group foods!

    meems, natural is a kind word to describe what sometimes feels like a wilderness! I thank you for the 'tender spirit'. I like that...it feels right.

    You are welcome here anytime.

    gail

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  13. Hi again, Gail,
    I grew up with heavily sweetened tea because you are right... can it be too sweet? Over the years I've cut way back on the sugar in our tea to a reasonable semi-southern standard... SOOOO I would gladly volunteer to be your taster.

    If/when I get back up to Marmee's I'll be trying to fit in a visit to you and your 'natural wilderness' -- you are right around the corner... and it would be such a pleasure to actually meet you.
    Have a great weekend.
    Meems

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  14. Gail- Wouldn't that be fun? I'm not a tea drinker, (could be just because I've never had any good enough to want to drink a second time) maybe I'll bring some lemonade.

    I know just how you feel, some days are perfect for a chat on the porch. Well, if I had a porch... Not today up here, the second you step outside you're dripping with sweat. UGH. Talk about your rainy weeks too. I must be getting forced to take a break from shed work this week. I've been working on genealogy stuff this week, getting nowhere fast!

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  15. meems,

    I will look forward to making less sweet southern tea!

    Have a sweet weekend!

    gail

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  16. Cinj,

    It's a southern thing I think! Lemonade is good too and now there are fruit teas at many of our typical southern restaurants. It's tea with fruit juices...very tasty and addictive! I'll have some of that please!

    It's hot all over the country but here...we need rain!

    Stay cool and have some tasty lemonade!

    gail

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  17. What a lovely scene. I'd love to stroll your garden with you.

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  18. Happy Birthday Gail! I hope you're enjoying it.

    Such a lovely invitation - I'd love to come! I'll take mine un-sweet please, and oh, I'd love a scone!

    The green looks lush, cool, inviting, and enchanting. I love the textures.

    What a lovely neighborhood it would be if we all lived close enough to stop by, sit a spell, and talk about life and gardening.

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  19. Gail, I would love to walk in your garden and visit on your porch. Sigh. I love porches as much as I love gardens, I think. I'm a southerner, but I'll take tea however you are offering it. I would love to meet everyone, chat, enjoy our tea and watch the birds. Sounds so nice.

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  20. Happy Birthday, Gail - I could bring cupcakes with candles and in the absence of coffee I'll settle for unsweetened tea. Austin's latitude may be the most Southern of the state capitals, but order tea in a restaurant and it comes unsugared thank heavens.

    I hope you get some visits from real gardeners soon - they are a tonic for the spirit!

    Annie at the Transplantable Rose

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  21. Thanks for the invite and like Frances-any day now! Sweet tea for me please!

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  22. I think that is one of the nicest invitations you can get. To visit someone's garden and have tea. Thank you for the invitation.

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  23. Hi Gail, and happy birthday! I have one of those coming up soon (I'm a 'clumped' Leo), but you won't know when that is. If I told you, I'd have to ... lol.

    I see your Coral Bells are blooming ... ours haven't yet, but then, we don't really grow them for the blooms, mostly the foliage.

    As for the tea, I love entirely unsweetened sun tea on occasion, but the Southern quantities of sugar really send me packing. But I'm not much of a fan of tea (give me my 2 cups of coffee a day and I'm fine), but with all the Monarda you have, maybe you should try 'Oswego Tea.' I'd give that a try at least once, and after all the years we've been growing it, that is definitely a pot meet kettle comment, LOL! I suppose we should try it when it starts drying out later this summer/fall.

    Going to collect Prairie Mallow seeds for you this weekend, as they're now on the wane and ready for their pruning.

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  24. Happy birthday Gail!

    Thanks for the lovely invite and hold the sugar for my cuppa please. It's getting quite crowded in here with all those visiting garden bloggers but the more the merrier, don't you think?

    I love it when things come together and , if only for a short while, the garden is perfect. What Bliss! ;-)

    Mmmmmmm, those scones look scrumptious, did you bake them yourself?

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  25. Thank you for the invitation; I hope I'm not too late! This is the time of year for sitting back a little and just enjoying the garden, isn't it? Besides, it's much too hot to work very hard right now. Your garden looks very cool and relaxing.

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  26. Happy Birthday, Gail, and what a lovely way to spend it--on the porch, with friends, admiring your garden. I wish you cool weather and new blossoms--my white phlox is out, will have to post on it soon. Best, Cosmo

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  27. cam,

    Is it cam or dp on cam's sign in! Thank you!

    gail

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  28. gardengirl,

    Yes it would be wonderful to be able pop over to see you and have a chat and a stroll around the garden! I am going to be in Chicago in August! We are meeting our son and his gf there! I am negotiating with the family to see if I have free time to meet Mr McGregor's Daughter! Are you nearby? Is Rose?

    Unsweetened tea it is!

    Gail

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  29. Kim,

    I almost always serve hot tea to visitors! But it's hot out there so we can have something cool to drink. After 30 plus years here I am still a midwesterner but I have picked up some southern behaviors...iced tea being one of them!

    You can help me name the birds!

    gail

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  30. Annie,

    It would be a delight to have more gardenbloggers nearby. I wanted to see Pam on her way home, but we were unavailable during her traveling through Nashville. I should have given her my address and they could have stopped by and rested on the porch, although it was in the 90s then! Frances lives just far enough away that we have to plan in advance, we talk about it but haven't set the date! Soon there will be no flowers, August is dry and brown at Clay and Limestone!

    See there is so much one can talk about...and we haven't gotten around to flowers yet! I, too prefer coffee and would be glad to serve it to you, the cupcakes would be perfect, too! Thank you for the birthday wishes.

    Gail

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  31. Tina,

    Yes, let's get together before all the bloom is off the rose over here!

    gail

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  32. I miss those lush July and Aug gardens. Down here everything wilts about 2 pm. About half the plants have stopped flowering. They'll pick up again in Sept. For now they are content just to make it through another toasty day.

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  33. Cosmos,

    Thank you and I look forward to a post on your white phlox! Have you been over to Mr McGregor's recent post on Nicky phlox? You'll like it too.

    Gail

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  34. Herself/Linda,

    By the end of July a good portion of this garden will be gone...I will still have green in the shade but the flowers will disappear until fall bloom shows up. Only gardens that get watered a lot have blooms in August! July and August are naturally droughty periods in Nashville! Can't wait to see your September blooms...btw, I am enjoying your posts the pesticide alternatives has been great!


    Gail

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  35. IVG,

    Happy Birthday to you! I have a few Leo birthday friends...very confident folks, if you buy into astrology.

    Yeah, for seeds coming my way! You are a very thoughtful friend. My brain is on freeze right now...but was I saving seeds for you? TN coneflower? I wish I could dig one up and send it...but for the tap root I could!


    Educate me! Tell me the hows, whens, ifs and wheres (on the plant) I should be deadheading monarda? Thank you very much!

    Now come on...tell me your birthday, you know, just whisper it my cyber ear, I won't tell anyone else!

    gail

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  36. eve,

    I can't think of anything nicer than time in a friend's garden...I can wander around a garden a dozen times and see more with each pass through. Do you know what I mean? There are always vignettes that delight.

    My garden isn't a well groomed, well mannered garden, although I do appreciate them, too...It's an eclectic garden!

    Glad you stopped by...the tea comes unsweeted or sweet...

    Gail

    gail

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  37. ye,

    It's like that in a garden sometimes it is just so and that is when you want everyone over...tomorrow is too late! Fleeting perfection?

    Scones...I am thinking about making them...a fiend has a wonderful recipe...they are just right, a crumbly mixture of sugar and flour, not too much of either...perfect just slightly cooled! But the Chocolate Whopper cookie my husband makes are to die for! They might be available, too.

    Thank you for the birthday wishes.

    gail

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  38. Rose,

    It's never too late for birthday wishes! Thank you! and it's not to late to join the party on the porch, either!

    I am going to be in Chicago the weekend of Aug 8...are you nearby? If I can negotiate with family for some time...wouldn't it be fun to meet up..MMD and I are talking about that and I mentioned this to gardengal (above) But Illinois is one big state!

    Gail

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  39. Ah, nothing like porch sittin!

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  40. Oh my gosh Gail, it would be wonderful to meet you! MMD lives northwest of me, probably an hour or so away. I'm not sure how far south Rose is - I hope not too far for a day trip.

    August is open for me except for working on weekdays. So far I have no evening or weekend commitments next month. Here's hoping you're successful negotiating a bit a time from the family so we can all meet!

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  41. What a beautiful view, so cool and serene. Wish it could be more than a cybervisit ... looking out my windows, it's a very sunny day and I can see plants begging for attention from the Head Gardener and her hose. Guess I need to boot her from the computer & send her out to her chores!

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  42. skeeter,

    Sometimes it's too hot even for the porch...summers in the south are hot, as you know! Here's wishing a little rain falls on all our gardens really soon.

    Gail

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  43. Cindy,

    There is an illusion of coolness when looking out a window. It feels so cool inside and looks so inviting out there... then stepping outside into heat and humidity is a shocker! I had to dig up some plants, construction coming, and they remain in a state of holding until summer cools off a bit or we have a week of rain! Hah! Hah!

    See you.
    Gail

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  44. Linda,

    I will talk with son and see what I can work out! Won't this be fun...

    gail

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  45. Hi Gail,
    I'll make sure to include planting instructions for the mallow seeds, but basically, just decide where you want them and plant them in the fall after the ground has cooled. Preferably a sunny place with average or even poorish soil is just fine. I've got several things I want to send you, and Eryngium is one, but that's going to be a while yet, because it's still in its gun-metal blue glory right now.

    We've experimented with deadheading Monarda before, and sometimes you can coax them into a fall re-bloom, but it's not certain. We just let them go these days once they're done because there's always too much other stuff demanding time and effort and with the masses of it we have, it would be a full day's job to deadhead it! But give it a try if you like, it certainly won't hurt!

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  46. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

    Hope I'm not too late.

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  47. IVG,,

    ...the monarda has made such a big impact in this garden (watering has also helped...oh the guilt!) ...I will miss it dearly when it goes! I might cut a plant back and see if one can rebloom.

    You are being very generous. There is some rule out there...not mine, that thanking a gardener for a gift of flowers or seeds makes the plant instantly wither and die, but I have never known a thank you to be used as a curse! Thank you.

    gail

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  48. lola,

    Never, too late...it was just yesterday! Thank you!

    gail

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  49. Gail, as usual, I am late. But I hope not too late to enjoy a stroll through your garden. It looks lovely.
    I have been explaining to my favorite blogs that after being busy for a week, I lost internet for a week! I've missed everybody sooo much. Thanks for your concern and I promise to get up to speed soon.

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  50. Gail,
    I'd never heard that particular curse before, lol. I tend to think more that a sharing of one garden to another is a more positive synergy of spreading life and beauty around more profusely. But that's just the way I think, lol.

    BTW, I tried out my video tonight and the results are now up at my place. I think you'll like this ... 2:30 of the big thunderstorms that came through here earlier. I almost dedicated it to you, lol.

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  51. Gail,
    yes, yes, yes - actually these words made unexpected career in Poland abt 2 years ago, when our prime minister after leaving the room just after negotiations with EU, were the first words he said to journalist. You can imagine what started after. He was just very sweet and PR oriented guy :)

    Anyway, I would be very glad to visit you and have a chat and tea at the porch....

    Kiss...

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  52. Gail after all your visitors is there any tea and a scone left for me .. strawberry jam would be perfect ! LOL
    Joy .. love the video clip .. I didn't know Blogger had that format .. I have to see about doing one myself some day ! great job : )

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  53. Beckie,

    hello, it's good to know you're back...internet problems...so irritating...it's like the phone going out when we were kids and wanted to talk with our friends!

    Missed you and will hop over to your blog to catch up!

    Gail

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  54. ivg,

    Well, I may have overstated the curse for the effect!

    I have one question? ...How did I miss the last three posts? The wolves' story is a good one and I hope they continue to have protected status...

    I loved the rain storm video...I could almost smell the wet ground!

    Phlox...we are going to have to work on your conflicted relationship with phlox! ...I must learn to embed subliminal messages (phlox is good) in my posts and comments to your posts (ivg loves phlox).

    Gail

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  55. ewa,

    That is too funny a story...yes, please come to the porch party...evryone wants to meet you!

    gail

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  56. joy,

    I made more than enough and I will make sure there is some strawberry jam just for you!

    Gail

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  57. I was here Gail!!! It is lovely and the tea is perfect. I loved the textures and color. I see lots of purple and yellow. I see all different shades of green. It's very relaxing. Thank you.

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  58. Well I sure am late as I am just getting caught up after Tina's visit but I sure would love to be there on the porch. Tea....sweet. unsweetened, hot or cold....Thanks but I will pass. Now if you have a Pepsi or hot coffee I will take that with pleasure. Scones....love them with rasins in them and good butter. However I think just time on your porch with all the wild flowers, birds and your company would be time well spent.

    Hope your birthday was the best ever with many more to come.

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  59. anna,

    I've missed you and am so glad you came by! Your house and gardens are looking fabulous.... I wanted to ask you if you have tried the Proven Winners Hydrangea...all of a sudden I blanked on the name...it is a good looking one! I will by today.

    Gail

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  60. Jean,

    I haven't been by Tina's today...I have had to take my computer to the apple store to see how ill he is...he needs an archive and install treatment! But I will make sure your beverage of choice is here and I can add raisins to the scones and of course there will be butter! Soft room temperature sweet butter.

    Gail

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  61. Gosh I am behind the times. I missed out on the garden party. Your picture sure is luring. You could easily get me with a nice cup of tea though. Maybe next time.

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  62. Gail, I have 4 of their hydrangeas. I think you are talking about the Limelight though. It's the most popular. They just sent me one--and they also gave me a Little Lamb and Pinky Winky. I'm testing the new O9 Let's Dance Starlight. So yes---I've got lots. Thank you for welcoming me back.

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"Insects are the little things that run the world." Dr. E O Wilson