One of the problems (more for you than me) is that when I blog as infrequently as I have been these past few months, you get a lot of pictures and text all in one fell swoop. Sorry, but beautiful things have been happening around here (tasty ones too) that keep me away and so I have to tell you and show you before next month's onslaught (we have a couple trips coming up plus the dahlias are experiencing explosive growth so early in the season!). Look at that cactus in the adorable green pot above. I am not a desert person; I think the desert is incredibly beautiful and I enjoy visiting desert areas but I wouldn't choose to live in the desert because I have this thing about trees, the color green and snow and four seasons, etc, however, I am very, very fond of cacti and succulents. And that pot! It's actually hand made in Italy, in the town of Impruneta, Tuscany where they say the best pots are made for the trade (something about that Tuscan clay) - I was just reading an article all about them in a gardening magazine and they are quite pricey. Well, lucky me, I went to Home Goods the other day searching for a pillow cover my daughter sent me to find and there this lone pot was, the exact brand and kind I had been reading about and it was on clearance for $30 bucks! And freeze resistant. Could it be because the bright green color didn't appeal to the masses as much as other colors so it was relegated to Home Goods and the sale table? I snatched it up and then found a perfect cactus for it at a local nursery and now it sits so enticingly in the pool garden. Below are some other flowering pots putting on their summer show in my July garden.
Here are lovelies in the various borders right now:
That tall yellow pole looking plant above is mullein/verbascum, a biennial. I didn't plant it - a bird or the wind did but I am glad to host it!
This egg yolk colored day lily looks wonderful in front of chartreuse Aralia.
The tomatoes, peppers and basil in the tanks are happy.
Look at the nasturtiums!
Now, see the grass in the two pics below? It's growing at a neighbor's down the street and I am not sure what kind it is but it is so soft and waves gently in the breeze. I need to investigate …..
The four pics below are from the Yellow House yard.
Annabelle Hydrangea.
The lawn at the Yellow House is terribly dried out and crisp - we are in a drought here in southern New Hampshire. Even parts of our yard in Rye, in spite of my frequent watering, is quite brown. I planted a ring of little princess spirea around the dogwood tree many years ago and it looks great even with neglect and lack of water.
Now, I have another Before and After to show you - we had this shrub border underneath the living room windows, front of the house - we both hated it! Three huge rhodies and azaleas that bloomed about 5 minutes and took up a 13 foot by 20 foot area and blocked some of the windows. I don't know why I felt like we had to live with them forever because they were there and so mature and large but one day Dan said that he couldn't stand them anymore and that we needed to rip them out and recreate the whole area - yes! I decided that time had to be right away once the seed was planted in my head so I spent a couple weeks putting together a design plan and choosing shrubs that I've been dreaming about and in 24 hours it all came together. Our dear friend Richard who lives nearby came over a couple days ago and pulled them all out with his backhoe - and so cleanly since the roots are fairly shallow, that he could take them and plant them on his or his dad's property. With the shrubs gone, we (yes Dan too - he very carefully and slowly) added a couple yards of super loam, I played musical plants to get the layout right, dug a bunch of holes, planted, and then we mulched it all like frosting a cake. Here it is!
Above and below - the Before. Blah. I added the Lady's mantle in front for a bit of color and contrast last year when I didn't know what else to do with the area and they will remain.
Here's Richard going for number one - I'm dancing with excitement and anticipation as I watch!
Number two is trickier, larger and deeper roots but it and the last come out just as cleanly - yay!
The empty plot at day's end. I go to bed and dream about the fun I will have the following day!
Here it is! I planted a Japanese maple in the center with the nick name "painted fingernails" that will top out at 8 by 4 feet but can be kept smaller. I will keep it and all the other shrubs well pruned and maintained over the years as they mature. Here is a list of what I put in there for you plant freaks like me: Tiny Wine Physocarpus, Gold Thread Cypress, three different colored and sized barberry in the Sunjoy series; Tangelo, Citrus and Cinnamon, Eternal Fragrance Daphne, Green Mountain Box standard (see that ball on a stick?), Black Lace Sambucus, Cool Splash dwarf Honeysuckle, Prelude Jap Pieris, and a dwarf blue spruce. There will be constant color, texture, flowers, and fragrance. And as fillers for this year, I put in a few Brown Eyed Susans. And of course a pot.
Contemplating and moving plants around.
So much fun!!!! The bandana was worn to protect my day before done at the salon hair.
Easiest digging I have done on this entire property. Because the vacating shrubs left huge holes and I filled them with new loam, the soil was like chocolate cake.
Now for food!
I made a very large and deep dish cherry/blueberry pie in a spring form pan for a July 4th BBQ we attended at the Soucy's (daughter and son-in-law) along with a whole bunch of other family and friends. This pie required three batches of filling (I made two sour cherry and one blueberry and layered them - I did this because I ran out of cherries). Dan asked me to make "yummies" out of the leftover pie dough so I rolled the scraps out and spread his strawberry freezer jam over it, rolled it up, cut them up and sprinkled on cinnamon and sugar and baked them. I brought these, Bouchons, and homemade chocolate peanut butter frozen yogurt along with the pie to the BBQ.
The filling flooded a bit, not as loose as it looks here - next time I will know to increase the thickener in such a tall crust with so much volume. It was delicious and I am excited to try it again.
Lots of strawberry jam was made a couple weeks ago. We got ours at Tendercrop Farm in Newbury MA. Dan made freezer jam and I made old fashioned cooked on the stove top bottled jam.
A little cake I made for my wonderful friend Kasi who had a birthday.
And the promised recipe for Bouchons. Pronounced boo shone (which is French for cork) - accent over the boo. These are so fabulous, dense and chocolately!
I found these silicone molds on Amazon. Spray/grease and flour them before filling. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. This batch makes about 22 Bouchons.
3 sticks unsalted butter
3 eggs
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1 cup natural cocoa
1 tsp salt
1 cup bitter sweet chocolate chips or chopped chocolate
Melt the butter in the microwave and set aside while you beat the eggs, vanilla and sugar together for 3 minutes on high so that they get thick and pale. While they are mixing, combine cocoa, flour and salt in a small bowl. When the eggs/sugar are ready, add the dry mix and and butter in thirds, alternating each and just mix to combine. Stir in the chocolate chips. Fill each mold 2/3s full. Bake 20 minutes. Cool completely before you remove them from the molds - they will fall out easily as you turn the molds upside down. Decadent! I've been making these weekly for over a month and just giving them away (and eating a few).
Dirt stained fingernail season.
One more look at the cactus and pot!
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