Ink & Penstemon

There’s moss forming between the flagstone. It’s easy to spot under the maple canopy in the long sunlight of 3:00 p.m. It’s quieter outside now since kids are sequestered again inside school walls with the soft-toned electric bells ringing. I wonder why they don’t bother with the metal ones anymore?

The bigtooth maples on the mountains are already turning—at the end of August!—two weeks early. The nearby orchard stand is open early, too. That means I’ll be peeling mountains of soft, ripe fruit amid hot steam and glass for days on end. The thought makes me slump. Canning has become a trend again, but I wonder when people experience the hot sticky work of it if they will persist in doing it year after year. Part of the reason I’ve persisted is for some tough-gal-credibility. I may not scrub my laundry on a board in a stream, or slaughter my own pigs and chickens, but I can tomatoes I grew from seed. From seed!

Still, I like to put the process off as long as possible. When I have intimidating jobs ahead of me, I often avoid them by doing another intimidating job instead. In this case, I spent late August  redirecting a path in the side yard. The L.A. I hired to help with the flagstone patio did a massing study of the property for me and made some recommendations, one of which was to put a curve on a straight path through the south borders. I was skeptical, but, she was right about the patio suggestions, so I jumped in. It’s hard to get a curve that doesn’t feel unnatural. Laying things out with hoses never works so I went out and invested in more painted aluminum edging. It bends in long arcs, but only to a point, so it contains any sudden over-enthusiasm for border squiggling. I think the long sweep the metal yielded is rather good.

And, this project nailed it; I’m done with concrete stepping stones. Only close-set flagstone for me from now on. Why grass instead of gravel and creeping plants? The grass ties the front patch to the back patch and it’s under trees, so there would be too much leaf litter for gravel anything.

On a final note, if you find yourself in a torrential rainstorm on a Saturday, go to your nearest independent garden center, ASAP. There are deals to be had. 

This 60 gallon water jar was originally marked at around $500. I didn’t pay anywhere near that much. Heh. My neighbor with a pond gave me the water plants for free. After a few days, when the plants settle into a nice nitrogen cycle, she may give me a couple of Shubunkins to put in there for a few weeks. When a freeze comes, I’ll take them back to her to overwinter in her pond. A trip to the big-box store brought me to two discounted Phygelius x rectus ‘Cherry Ripe’ that will fill in around the base.

Good things come to those who procrasinate.