The Garden Mid-August

We were away on the weekend and although we had a nice time, I am glad to be home. 

I have missed Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, but even though a day late, I want to share with you all that has been blooming in the garden. 

August has been kind to the garden and had brought with it lots of rain and cooler days. I find that with the change in temperature, I am more willing to venture out in the garden to catch up on weeding and deadheading. 

The garden hasn't changed terrifically in the last few weeks. Many flowers have soldiered on through the  last hot, humid weeks of July and continue to bloom nicely in mid-August. There are a few new stars in the garden as well. 

I have been collecting different varieties of phlox for years. They take awhile to mature, particularly in the more shaded areas of the garden. Finally, this year they have started to come into their own.

Phlox in the front garden

Phlox paniculata 'Eva Cullum'

Some of the Echinacea is now starting to look a bit scruffy. The butterflies don't seem to mind though.

Disappointingly, there are only a few daylilies still in flower. Next year I would like to 

add a few more late blooming varieties.

'Frans Hals'

A mix of Brown-eyed Susan, Phlox paniculata 'Eva Cullum' and Phlox paniculata 'Laura Bright Eyes'

This is my favourite Helenium.

The Tiger Lilies have been beautiful, but have now have reached the final, top tier of flower buds. 

These 'False Mallow' flowers have also reached the final, top tier of buds. Now they will set seed.

Looking into the distance, you can see my 'Pee Gee' hydrangea by the front door that has 

come into full flower. The Phlox seen here is Phlox paniculata 'Laura Bright Eyes'.

Do I ever get tired of photographing my hydrangea? It appears not.

The way the light catches on the small white flowers never fails to fascinate me. They can look completely different at various times of day.

As you can see, the garden is not all a crazy mix of bright colors. The shaded back garden has a more subtle palette of muted tones.'Oakleaf' hygrangea 

The large hosta by the arbor continues to bloom.

Dogwood berries add small dots of color.

And look what we have here, a few ripe cherry tomatoes! 

The bunnies have gotten just about everything else in the vegetable garden. The other day, I turned around and there was a little bunny munching on zucchini leaves while watching me weed. The cute little devil wasn't afraid at all. 

Do you think he is even grateful that I have been keeping him so well fed?

At this moment, the stars of the back garden are the phlox.

Phlox paniculata 'Laura'

Phlox 'Miss Elie'

I look forward to seeing what has been blooming in your garden.

A Rose Covered Cottage, Waterdown Ontario

Known locally as the "Griffin Stone Cottage," this Regency styled stone cottage in Waterdown, Ontario was built sometime between 1840 and 1849. The property was originally owned by Ebenezer Griffin, often referred to as the "father" of the small town of Waterdown. Ebenezer and his brother Absalom established a small industrial empire along Grindstone Creek with the establishment of a flour mill, ashery, carding mill, sawmill, and general store.

If there was a recipe for a cottage garden, I think romantic flowers like roses, hollyhocks, delphinium and lavender would definitely be on the list of ingredients. Such a recipe would also call for a dash of colorful annuals to fill in window boxes and containers. Finally to add a bit of spice, a cottage garden recipe would suggest that you stir in of few whimsical touches such as a birdbath, a classical statue or a decorative stone bench.

In the town of Waterdown, Ontario, Sharon Roberts and her husband have mixed up a pretty courtyard garden at the front of their historic cottage. A wrought iron fence with posts toped with decorative acorns frames the small front yard beautifully. The courtyard is intersected with flagstone paths and filled with a combination of roses, annuals and perennials.

When we happened upon Griffin Cottage in late June, the climbing rose that covers the front of the small stone house was just finishing flowering. 

Tiny pink 'Fairy' roses were blooming all along the fence.

Delphinium 

Lavender was growing just inside the wrought iron gate.

A climbing hydrangea covers the side of the cottage on the left. The charming gate to the back garden can be seen in the photograph on the right.

Red begonias hang in baskets by the side door.

Nasturtiums

A small water feature hangs on the stone wall of the cottage near the back gate.

Pale yellow hollyhocks grace the side of the house.Today, I am going to link up to Fertilizer Friday at Tootsie Time. To see other great gardens please click the link.

Getting to Know a New Enemy

They have finally arrived in my garden! 

I spotted the first one in the roses by the picket fence. I gasped in horror! There, resting comfortably on the pink petals of my rose, was one of those retched Japanese beetles. 

How did he get here, I wondered? Did he come in on some plant I purchased? Was he the only one or could there more? 

After I knocked the beetle to the ground and ruthlessly crushed it, I went to check the other roses along the picket fence. None, thank God! I breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed the beetle might have been alone. 

Then I remembered the John Cabot Explorer Series roses at the back gate...

Sure enough, there were beetles hiding in every rose cluster! I tried to knock a few of them to the ground, but they took flight. I had no idea the damn things could fly! 

I need help from those of you who have been fighting this invasion force for sometime. What do I do to control Japanese beetles?

At least their appetite seems to be limited (so far) to my roses.

The baby bunnies, on the other hand, don't seem to be nearly as selective. I crossed paths with this little fellow just the other evening. He did not seem to be afraid of me, but rather regarded me with frank curiosity.

On to other garden news. In the front beds, the Tigers are showing off their summer spots.

The Brown-Eyed-Susans shining are in all their late summer glory.

Providing a counterpoint to the bright orange Tigers, are the paler cantaloupe colored daylilies and a number of varieties of phlox.

I have to say, that I am disappointed with my Asiatic lilies this year. The white ones in front garden are beautiful, but the pink lilies in the back garden have failed to put in an appearance.

Here is my favourite Yarrow.

Most striking of the perrenials in the front garden is this Rudbeckia. The plant easily 

has to be as tall as I am. (5'4")

This shot gives you some idea of scale. (That is an old well in the background.)

The combination of a late spring and a hot, dry July has meant that my Pee Gee (paniculata 'P.G. compacta) and Oakleaf hydrangeas (hydrangea quercifolia) are somewhat delayed in flowering. 

Unfortunately, the recent host of problems are not limited to the front garden. We store our garbage and food waste compost in an enclosed storage area at the gate to the back garden. The doors to the storage area always remains closed and yet some nocturnal creature has been managing to squeeze its way in each evening and tear everything to shreds. 

Yesterday, I found that one of the biodegradable bags of food compost had been lifted out of its locked green bin and spread all over the ground. What a smelly mess! 

I suspect there is a clever racoon at work. How he is getting in there is still a mystery. We have checked for holes or some sort of gap. There is none.

When I went to check on my tomatoes, I found the biggest slugs I have ever seen in my life. They have been feasting on my tomatoes. I swear they were over an inch long and fat as can be! 

Do I remember rightly? Can you drown them in shallow dishes of beer or is that some other insect pest?

I want to end on a more positive note. 

I had written in one of my last posts that my hostas had finished blooming. I had forgotten all about a few of the late bloomers. 

The hosta pictured here is easily the biggest perennial in the yard (about 3 feet in every direction). The blooms are huge and glisten with water droplets from yesterday's rainfall. 

Along with the slugs, bugs, racoon and rabbits has come some much needed rain!

Today I am going to link  to Cottage Floral Thursday at Fishtail Cottage.  Tomorrow, I will link up to

Fertilizer Friday at Tootsie Time. I will also be linking to the Creative Exchange on Monday.

 To see other great posts, simply click the links.

A Natural Curiosity

I don't know why I had never noticed them before; there were after all, hundreds, or even a thousand of them. Perhaps it was because, for once, I was in the passenger seat of the car. Without having anything on the road to demand my attention, I was at leisure to look out across the Hamilton harbour. As I looked out over the water, the sight of so many birds in the air, on the water and nesting in trees was arresting. 

I have seen plenty of gulls in my days, having grown up in Nova Scotia. The focus of my attention was rather the black birds sitting atop huge nests that filled the skeletal branches of several small dead trees. On a small man-made jetty that extended out into the harbour there were numerous colonies of these almost sinister looking birds. 

Even more bizarre was the industrial backdrop for the large flocks of birds. 

On the right you can see Hamilton, Ontario is pretty much in the center of the North American Continent. On the right you can see that Hamilton is in the crook of Lake Ontario.

Hamilton is an industrial city, known for years as "Steel Town". Its deep harbour is notorious for its polluted waters. In recent years, the city has made efforts to clean up its reputation and its harbour, but as you can see from my pictures, the first view you get of the city as you cross the Skyway Bridge is still one of billowing smoke stakes and dark piles of coal.

How strange it is that so many birds thrive in this industrial setting! (I am not sure that I would want to subsist on fish caught in the Hamilton harbour.)

The black birds are actually double-crested cormorants. These sociable birds are the only fish-eating species commonly seen in bodies of fresh water. Nesting cormorants generally lay three to four light blue eggs which they incubate by wrapping in their webbed feet.

Considered "nuisance" birds, they have been persecuted for generations and were almost wiped out by the middle of the 20th century. Since the banning of DDT in the late 1960's however, their numbers have bounced back tremendously.

There are many reasons for the cormorants apparent lack of popularity. Large populations are seen to compete with commercial and sports fishermen. Their acidic excrement is reputed to have caused the death of trees all along the shores of the Great Lakes.

And then there is the issue of smell. Just imagine the stink that would arise from the droppings of hundreds and hundreds of birds! When we stopped to take some pictures, the stench of the ground littered with excrement, feathers and dead baby gulls was certainly an assault to the nose.

As creatures go, cormorants don't have great visual appeal. They certainly don't have the cute, cuddly allure of animals like the panda. In the air and on the water, they take on a bit of grace, but on the land they have all the awkward charms of the dodo bird (and we know what happened to the dodo).

In city of Hamilton, the cormorant population is the subject of some controversy in which the cormorants  have probably fewer friends than adversaries. There is talk of submerging nesting sites, like Farr Island, to control the population.  

As caretakers of our little planet third from the sun, it seems we are choosy about what animals and birds we respect and value.