Bloom-N-Pie Days 2012

Yesterday bright and early,  I got up, fixed my cup of coffee, ate a doughnut hole, entered my destination into the navigation app on my Droid, got in my truck and headed to Hayden Alabama to attend the 10th annual Bloom-N-Pie Days at the home of Harold and DeLois Dunn. Last year I took the Mini Cooper and was severely limited in the number of plants I could bring home, so this year I had the foresight to go in my truck. I planned to be there as soon as they opened so I would have first shot at purchasing some fantastic daylilies and hydrangeas which the Dunn's have in abundance. It would also give me a chance to catch up with Mrs. Dunn and her son Clay with whom I had become friends last summer.  I was so pleased that they remembered me and commented that they hoped I was coming this year.  Mrs. Dunn showed me some of her new raised beds that she was very excited about and how much easier they were to tend compared to the regular beds. She also stated that she should have had the event last week as a lot of the daylilies had already bloomed out. Everything has bloomed earlier this year. All the same, there were tons of daylilies in full bloom to dazzle the eye.

DeLois and one of her prized daylilies.

 

As usual the selection of daylilies was mind boggling, and I was like a kid in a candy store, I could have bought a truck load, but Cynthia warned me not to go "crazy" and I have learned to heed her advice.
I did come home with five new daylilies that really caught my eye.  Alabama Jubilee, Carribbean Frank League, Spanish Fandango, Mauna Loa, and Pink Peppermint.

Mauna Loa

 

Spanish Fandango

 

Alabama Jubilee

Pink Peppermint

Caribbean Frank League

 
  I could have bought more and I will before the summer is over as I routinely see Mrs. Dunn and Clay at the Farmer's Market in Trussville.  I have tons of room for daylilies at the new house, but I have to remember to put the "horse before the cart" and put some thought and effort into the beds before buying the plants, which I am far too often guilty of doing. 


In addition to the great daylilies I purchased, I also came home with a "Blushing Bride ", and two "All Summer Beauty" hydrangea and a special surprise, a "Golden Raintree". 

"This year's treasures"

Utility wagons are provided to load up your plants.

Already a crowd at 9:30 am (opened at 9)

Rows and rows of daylilies. Potted daylilies in foreground.

'Golden Raintree" 

Needless to say I could not leave without purchasing some of the Dunn's famous fried pies to take home. I took home an assortment of apple, peach, chocolate, pecan, and coconut creme.


DeLois and husband Harold have sold their fried pies at the pie cottage at Homestead Hollow in Springville for over 20 years and hundreds each year at the Bloom-N-Pie Days and also at the Blount County Covered Bridge Festival in October. 


It was great seeing DeLois and Clay again and I am very excited about my new purchases and how I plan to use them in my garden. I look forward to visiting with them at the local Farmer's market in the coming weeks and adding to my growing daylily collection.


Dunn's Daylily garden is open daily from June 11th through June 30th. Please call ahead.
2395 Skyball Road, Hayden, AL .  (205)429-2392

Maiden Flight

The baby barn swallows have left the nest and taken their maiden flight. Mom (center)watches as baby comes in for landing. We have another clutch of eggs in another nest on the other end of the porch.  More babies on the way!

Wordless Wednesday

"Genesis" In the beginning........

The past few months has been spent removing sod, amending soil, digging holes and planting plants, both old and new in the new landscape.  When we moved in the overall landscape theme was green on green on green, which in itself was not bad considering the natural beauty of the surrounding vistas. I am reminded of pastoral scenes from England and areas of the United States I have visited and of the landscape architects such as Fredrick Law Omsted who embraced the 'genius of a place". Omsted wanted his designs to stay true to the character of their natural surrounds. He referred to "the genius of a place," a belief that every site has ecologically and spiritually unique qualities.  His goal was to "access the genius" and let it infuse all design decisions. 


While Omsted was opposed to any type of ornamentation that distracted from the natural surroundings or brought attention to "individual elements".  Olmsted believed the goal wasn’t to make viewers see his work. It was to make them unaware of it. To him, the art was to conceal art. And the way to do this was to remove distractions and demands on the conscious mind. Viewers weren’t supposed to examine or analyze parts of the scene. They were supposed to be unaware of everything that was working. Unfortunately, while I appreciate the lesson he is trying to impart, I am afraid in this respect, I fail miserably. While I hope to preserve as much as possible the beautiful vistas that I enjoy daily, I also want to put my "own stamp" in the landscape. I realize that over time things will change, plants will be removed and discarded, others will be incorporated, hardscapes will be installed or altered and questions asked, "what in the hell were you thinking" immediately comes to mind. The great thing about landscaping and gardening it that it is an ever evolving process. Nothing is "set in stone" so to speak. 


Most of my efforts so far have been directed towards the back yard/pool area.  I have removed a ton of sod literally to make beds for the new plants. This is the back porch area before......

  


and now......

                
                          then.... 

                         now.......

The new arbor at dusk ... See Buddha in the background!

The bottle tree ......"haint it cool" 

 The yard birds ....

Things are starting to take shape. I am excited in that I have some new plants in the landscape. These include: Drift knockout roses (peach, coral) and I plan on getting a few Apricot ones when I can find them. Purple pixie weeping Lorapetulum. "White Out" knockout roses, which are really not knockouts but were developed by the same breeder of the knockout roses. A chartreuse buddleia named "Evil Ways". I have 20 green velvet boxwoods outlining the back porch bed with four "Snowflake Hydrangeas inside the bed and a lady banksia rose that I plan to train up the porch columns. I also have a "Pinkie Winky" hydrangea and some cast iron plants. 

Today, I weeded some of the beds, cleared off another area next to the deck and moved about 30+ hostas in pots to a new location under some maple trees as some were getting a little "sunburned". 

I planted a beautiful Japanese Maple "Shidare" in the area left of the hostas shown above. I plan on planting some hydrangeas or maybe some azaleas or camelias in the area previously occupied by the hostas. 

     " In the beginning David created his garden.  Now the garden was previously formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the pool, and David's spirit was hovering over the landscape. And David said, "Let there be plants, and there were plants. David saw that the plants were good, and he separated the plants from their pots. David planted the plants in the light of day, and rested in the darkness of night. And there was evening, and there was morning- the first day." 

"Buddha has come home"

Recently we moved Buddha from our old house to his new home at "Southern Oaks".  The move was much easier than I anticipated and he arrived with little fanfare to his new resting place in the future garden which was previously a pasture.  I must admit he seems a lot smaller in his new home, but more in scale with his surroundings.  Good Karma!

 Speaking of Karma, we had a contract on our old house and garden nine days after it was listed and we closed on the sale this past Wednesday.  The young couple buying the house said they loved the house and the gardens and looked forward to making it their home.  We were happy to see our home go to such a great couple.  I had taken quite a few of my plants from the garden without changing the look and lushness of the garden.  Most of these plants were heirloom plants given to me by friends and relatives and I could not bear to part with them. 

I have not posted in quite awhile as we have been extremely busy trying to get everything moved and situated in the new house. We also had to move Cynthia's parents things from the lake and get them settled in their new quarters.  We have finally finished painting, installing appliances, repairing, and arranging inside, so I have been devoting most of my free time to the outside.  After we moved in one of the first things I bought was a tractor.  I found a Kubota locally that had everything I needed, a front-end loader,  bush hog, and a box blade. The front-end loader and bush hog have already been a life saver. 

The past couple of weeks I have been busy trying to establish new flower beds as there were none to speak of on the property. I rented a sod cutter and went to work. While I do not have anything against glass, I have much more than I need or want. I look forward to diminishing some of it for flower beds and plants.

                                                                         

                                                                        

   

                                                                  

Things are slowly but surely coming together. Dealing with the red clay soil has been challenging, requiring several truck loads of compost and topsoil in order to give the new plants a fighting chance. It will take awhile before the plants become acclimated to the new conditions. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I started this post on April 2nd,  but actually finished it on Apr. 30th.  I will update the progress made so far later this week.

A New Year, A New Beginning

For some time now Cynthia and I  have wanted to find a house with a little acreage so that we could have a larger vegetable garden and have a place for a chicken coop and some chickens. A couple of years ago we found a place that we planned on buying but because of various problems and restrictions it just didn't work out. We had all but given up on pursuing our dream and resolved ourselves to remain in our current home and develop the back yard which had been the dogs domain for all these years, and create a new home for  the giant "Buddha" head I purchased several months ago. ( See earlier post ).

My wife's father's health has declined dramatically in the past year and he recently developed diabetes requiring daily blood sugar monitoring and Insulin injections. Cynthia retired last year so that she would be available to help her parents because of her father's declining health and to relieve some of the health care burden from her mother.  Because they are both elderly, 88 and 85 respectively,  we had decided that if we could find the right place we would move and have her parents move in with us so that we could help care for both of them.  Recently Cynthia's dad had to stay three weeks in a nursing home for physical therapy and it was very apparent that he would not choose to live there if at all possible.

About a month ago, our daughter Mary Kathryn and I were on our way to a chicken meeting at the "Old Fart's Farm" ( no, I am not kidding) in Springville and saw a "For Sale" sign in front of a house that I have admired for years.  We both could not believe that it was for sale and Mary Kathryn immediately tried to look it up on her telephone to find out the sales price, but was unable to find it.   Later, I found the listing and discovered that is was a foreclosure sale and that it would be sold "as is" and the listing price was far below the appraised value for the house and the five acres that came with it.  I was in shock and immediately told Cynthia that we had to go look at this house. We called our Real Estate agent and asked her to arrange for us to look at the house and property. We were all blown away with the size of the house and the property. It is situated on a knoll in the middle of a horse farm with pastures all around it. The house was structurally sound but was in need of some "TLC" which could be done fairly cheaply. The only major expense we could foresee was to replace all the old windows which were in terrible condition with new energy efficient vinyl windows.

We submitted a contract to the listing agent the following Monday and were told that he was expecting multiple offers on the property and that it might come down to the highest bidder.  We waited with anticipation for several days and to our surprise none of the other offers were forthcoming and we were notified on Thursday that the bank had accepted our offer and that if we still wanted it, it was ours!
We could not believe our good fortune. The events and circumstances in the whole process just seemed to fall into place. We truly believe that we had God's blessing in this venture. An answer to both what we wanted and what we needed in order to assist Cynthia's parents. The house is large enough ( 5300 sq. ft.) so that we can move about without getting in each other's way and still preserve our privacy.

We closed on the property Dec. 15th  and officially moved in on Tuesday Dec. 20th.  We have been moving boxes, clothes, yard art and planters today for the past two weeks.  The only remaining items to move are the basement/garage and in the attic.  We hope to finish moving everything else in the next week or so.  I  plan on moving quite a few of my plants from the old house, but will probably wait until after the first of the year. Except for a few foundation plants and some trees, the new property is a blank slate that I look forward to developing it in the coming years.

So it is with great pleasure that I present to you our new home and future garden "Southern Oaks".

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

"Le poulet de cuivre noir maran"

 Recently my daughter Mary Kathryn and I took a trip to Newnan Georgia to purchase a group of "Black Copper Marans" consisting of a rooster, two hens, and two pullets ( a pullet is a female chicken less than one year of age).   Black Copper Marans  are one of the rarest breeds of chicken in the United States. It is a fascinating breed of laying chicken; producing one of the darkest chocolate-brown eggs known. It is one of the rarest breeds in this country due to the import ban on fowl in the US. They are quite common in France.

Black Copper Marans eggs are prized by French chefs. They are also the favorite egg of James Bond. Using them for eating in the United States is almost unheard of, as they are so rare and prized. A three-egg omlet would cost more than $30. wholesale.

One of the difficulties faced by breeders of the Black Copper Marans in the US is the lack of genetic diversity. Much of the breeding stock left in this country 10 years ago was of the English variety; with smooth, unfeathered legs. The French standard calls for lightly feathered legs. There are only a few breeders that have been able to produce Marans stock that comes close to the French standard.   Fortunately, we are now the proud owners of the Wade Jeane line of Black Copper Marans. Below, is a picture of "Frick" our rooster, and yes he had a brother named "Frack".  

                                                            '"Frick and his harem"

                                                     Adult  hen, note feathering on legs.

The deepness of color of these eggs is measured in France by the “Marans Scale”. It is a scale from 1 to 9, with Marans coloring starting at 4, and Black Copper Marans coloring starting at 5. Here is the scale:

In this illustration, a standard Large White egg is used as #1. You can easily see that the Black Copper Marans standard is much larger, and has a slightly less oval (more round) shape.

The French standard for bird size is also fairly large. U.S. genetics have some catching up to do. The French standard calls for an 8 lb rooster and a 6.5 lb hen. That’s a pretty big bird. This would probably be best accomplished with keeping the largest roosters on your hens, but not worrying about hen size unless it is visibly smaller than her mates.

We are very excited about our new "flock". Mary Kathryn has had chickens for about a year and a half and has really done her homework on the raising and caring of chickens. She raised a dozen mixed breed chicks from three days old to maturity. Half turned out to be roosters and were placed in other homes. Her hens have laid consistently for the past year and the eggs are really delicious. The Marans are not laying at the current time since they have just finished molting, but should start laying again in another month or so. 

In the coming year we hope to start hatching some eggs and increasing our flock. We also plan to add a few Blue Copper Marans as well.

On the gardening front, not much happening. I have finally stopped harvesting the okra and letting the rest go to seed for next year. I have been really happy with the "Little Lucy" variety and plan to plant more next year.  I have recently installed another raised bed and using the "Lasagna " gardening process for building the raised bed.  I have decided not to have a fall garden but plan to have an early spring garden next year. 

Recently I noticed my brugmansia plant was loaded with blooms. Yesterday, I took this picture in it's full glory.

Also blooming is the Helianthus angustifolius or Swamp sunflower. A Narrow-leaved sunflower is a perennial to 6 ft (0.6 m) tall with a much branched stem and rough, sandpapery leaves 3-6 in (7.6-15.2 cm) long but only a half inch (1.3 cm) wide. The happy yellow flowers, 2-3 in (5.1-7.6 cm) across, are borne profusely in late summer and autumn. Rays are golden yellow and discs are reddish brown or purplish.  

While most of these plants are typically 4-6 feet tall. I did have one that is approximately 10 feet.

Swamp sunflower with Black and Blue Salvia and Cosmopolitan ornamental grass.

The knockout roses are in full bloom again along with the plumbago.

Finally, I found this little guy at the mail box the other day. I haven't seen a praying mantis in years until this year and have seen two this summer.  They are truly unique creatures.