a day in the life of...

This is Vivid Rose - isn't this a gorgeous peony?

Vivid Rose again - it's my only true pink peony. I had two others many years ago - Sarah Bernhardt and another one - but they had tall, floppy stems - and just when they would be loaded with huge, fragrant, pink blooms, the stems would bend and all the blooms would be lying on the ground. I lost patience and gave them away. I have kicked myself many times since. But I still have Vivid Rose - and it's a gorgeous peony.


I think this one is called Samba - but when I tried to find it on some peony related websites, I couldn't. So I could be mistaken. The color is really hard to photograph - but this is close to the true color - so here you are!


William Baffin. You will be seeing many photos of Baffin - it's a huge rose bush and is covered with buds. When it's in full bloom, it is pretty awesome. I have only had one good bloom per year with this rose, even though it's listed as a repeat bloomer. But you'll see it has so many blooms the first time, I kind of have to cut it some slack.
Baffin again - it's a very hot pink - almost too hot really - but I love this rose and the way it performs in cold climates.

Miss Tess - keeping cool in the grass.

Kobie - Mark woke him up to take this photo. He likes his sleep time.

This is a corner of the lakeshore garden. We inherited an old rusty wheelbarrow when we bought this house. A few years ago I stuck it in this corner and put pots of flowers in it. It was almost impossible to keep the containers watered without dragging a hose through the garden or scrambling over the rock riprapping. A couple years ago I put these iron pumpkins in it for a fall display and decided since they don't require quite as much watering, they would get to stay year round. I am thinking the cement block can probably go - it's just not adding the look I was hoping for :) (The wood in the upper left corner is a wren house. All three bird houses have sticks and other nesting materials in them - but I haven't seen a lot of activity around any of them.)

This is the good news, bad news photo. The good news: the lake water is warm enough for swimming! The bad news: the lake water is warm enough to get in and start pulling seaweed.

I spent a couple hours this afternoon in the lake with a small windsurfer board (without sail etc). I pulled the seaweed and put it on the surf board and then hauled the full loads to the dock. Tomorrow I'll get to haul all the weeds up to the compost pile. Once we start this, the fun just doesn't end! We clear all around our dock and a path out to where the boat traffic is so I can swim without touching weeds. I hate having weeds grab me when I swim. There are a ton of weeds, so I have a lot of work ahead of me.

More goods news: the seaweed makes the best compost for my gardens. Makes it all (almost) worthwhile.

While I was playing in the lake, Mark took some photos of the gardens. This is what I call the river birch garden. It has the fairy, river birch clump, and a mix of shade and sun lovers. Right now about the only thing blooming is spiderwort. This area always seems very restful to me.

This is the west lake garden: gazebo, about half my roses, armillary, etc. It's mostly hot, full day sun. Right now the bloomers are the roses, bearded iris, siberian iris, spiderwort, mountain bluet (just winding down), catmint, clematis on the gazebo, and a couple perennial geraniums. The bare spots on the right side are a new space I prepped last fall. This year I just have a couple things I bought at the Arb sale and a bunch of dahlias. Next fall, I'll probably plant it out when I dig up the dahlias.

The dahlias and mini glads I planted are starting to come up. I've never had either before this year, so that should be fun.