Autumn Garden Tour Extravaganza 2010

I had to make my podunk garden sound more impressive. Did that do the trick?



Decided to take a walk through my yard and take some garden pictures this morning, just before sunrise.

Because the name at the top says 'Crystal Coast Gardener' not 'Crystal Coast Liar Who Rambles About Other Shit When She Promised You Gardening'. Right?

I hauled myself out of bed and headed straight out there before I could procrastinate. Usually when I get the notion to take garden pictures, it's midday, and the sun is blazing, and the pictures look like crap.

This time, the pictures still look like crap, but at least there isn't all that annoying glare.

It's five days away from the official start of fall. Time for turkey. Time for pumpkins!



No, not those Pumpkins! Sillies.

These ones!



That's better. :)

My gardens look nice for about 2 seconds in the spring. They look horrible for 4 months in the sweltering summer heat. And then they look good again towards the beginning of fall, and stay that way till Christmas usually.


These are from my back garden.



All of the vincas you see? I didn't plant them. Those things reseed like mofos, they're all offspring from last year's planting. Because I was cheap this year, and they LOVE the heat of the west side of my house, I let a lot of them just grow.



This is the first year I planted purple gomphrena. Those bright globes have been delighting me constantly since springtime. I'll be planting them again next year. Ditto on the salvia.



Osteospermum IS something I plant every year. They fill in the garden nicely. Usually I plant the 'spoon' variety. This year I opted for the white with a purple center.



Moving on through the backyard...


The other thing that has perked up with the cooler temps and the sun not being so high in the sky is my okame cherry tree.

It stayed bald or burnt most of the summer. I planted it in full sun, hoping that it wouldn't be too much for the tree in NC, but it was hard on it. And hard on my water bill. But it's looking better right now. Especially with that beautiful autumn-coloured tree across the cotton-field as a backdrop.



I'm hoping that it will build up some tolerance to the sun as the years pass, if I just water it enough lol. Like my 'Ann' magnolia did.

This is the best year 'Ann' has had, despite the nasty hot temps. I also planted it in too much sun. It got crispy and bald three years in a row.

This year I've barely watered it and it stayed nice throughout the summer. No leaf loss, and it stayed completely green until the last couple of weeks. Had a lot of flowers on it this spring.



You're also looking at my project for next spring.

Here's another view.



I really want to find something that will hide the A/C unit and the gas can. Some sort of latticed screening maybe. That crap is on the south side of my house, and very visible to the road. Bleah.

Also on the south side...

My clematis has squeezed out a second flush of blooms. If you can call two blooms a 'flush'. :)



And my butterfly bush is looking the best it has looked all summer. That thing's kind of been a bitch to take care of. It looks all mangy at the bottom if you let it go.



Finally, the front of my house, which faces east. The only place I have shady enough to plant anything that needs part shade.



My 'DD Blanchard' magnolia is doing well. This is the first year I had to actively water it since I planted it, it was nearly leafless by the end of June. It's bounced back and is now a healthy 9 feet tall. When we planted it four years ago, it was 4 foot 2. We planted it on our first wedding anniversary, so I have a very soft spot in my heart for this tree.



It only had one flower on it at the end of May (when it is supposed to bloom), but I got 5 more last month as a surprise second blooming.



This is my front garden.

My rosebush is all blackspotty, but this is the most leaves and blooms it's had in the fall since I first planted it. Usually it's bald and yellow by now. I'd dig it out, but it's my baby. And it looks so nice in May...



Next to that are my toad lilies. They're just starting to bloom.



Nothing much else is in that garden besides my azalea. I'm planning on planting some stuff in there in the next couple of weeks...some petunias or pansies or something that will last through Christmas.




There is some colour in my front porch garden, although things are starting to look kinda ratty. Which is awesome since it faces the street :P

These pics don't look too bad.





My elephant ears look terrible. Oh well.



My potted coleus looks a little less sexy than it did a couple of months ago, but with a little makeup it would look fine.

The geranium needs a shock to the heart. It's been growing for two years though, maybe it's a little tired.



And I recently bought my first Japanese maple!!

My cheap ass found one on clearance at Lowe's garden center a few weeks ago. I paid a whopping $12 for it. They always leave these things in too much sun (pot calling the kettle black), and they look like crap by the end of August. I gave it some shade and it's popping out a couple of leaves. it's still on my porch because I can't figure out where I'm going to plant it. :(

For some reason the camera wouldn't focus properly on the new leaves unless my feet were in the picture. Sorry.



The 'Red Beauty' holly is sporting some shiny red berries! I highly recommend these.

They have such a nice upright, compact habit. And they were bred to withstand our southeast coastal conditions.



One of my neighbours must have a holly, because this is the only one I have and it still gets berries.

I'm starting to move in the autumn plants as well.

Orange mums.


Gaillardia. They look kinda sad though.



Being a gardener, you would think that spring would be my favourite season.

Not so! I love fall. I love the leaves turning. The cooler temps are refreshing after the heat of the summer. I love eating all the delicious food.

And in MY house, we get two thanksgivings. One in October for the Canadian, and one in November for the American.

This song makes me feel fall-y.

What Are You Listening To? Wednesday

Swedish punk.



Because sometimes I just feel like screaming and jumping up and down.

And being all Swedish and stuff. Like The Hives.




The band has great showmanship. They've changed their style in the last couple of years, I like this older stuff better.

An interview with Howlin' Pelle Almqvist. He's much better at jumping around onstage than he is in an interview.



I think he kinda looks like a young Malcolm McDowell in 'A Clockwork Orange'.

How Artists Channel Their Anger

An incident happened to me last weekend at work that made me pretty upset.

I really do love my job most days. I'm a pretty damn good salesperson, and I pride myself in keeping my cool when dealing with difficult customers and frustrating situations.

BUT.

Never piss off an artist. They will creatively eviscerate you in very satisfying and cathartic (not safe for work) works of fiction.




If you leave your condoms stuffed between the books or leave your fake nails in the children's department, I will laugh about it. Because it keeps my stomach ulcers from getting worse.

It was received very well by my bookselling friends on Facebook, and I thought the rest of you might like a laugh. (especially Rainforest Gardener, since you're a bookselling homey)

The medium for this bit of fun was stolen from Idiot Gardener, who made a very amusing movie about his horrible customer service experience (he was the customer).

I Don't Hate Babies

Let's just get that clear right now.


But...


My name is Kyna, and I am a Baby Avoider.

It's hard work avoiding babies. They'll come at you when you least expect it.

You'll be walking down a dark alley...and they drop on you from behind like ninjas!



And don't be so quick to open your front door when the bell rings. There are zombie babies trying to get inside and eat your Baby Avoiding brains!



You can run, but you can't hide. They'll even bombard your house with baby shower invitations!!



They come at me on Facebook in the form of ultrasound profile photos. They come at me at work in triple-wide strollers. They come at me in restaurants when I'm putting on my lobster-bib, getting ready to enjoy a nice meal. And in that situation, they usually come at me screaming and crying.

Jacksonville, North Carolina is Babytown, USA. No one does unprotected sex like this town!





Our store manager's wife had a baby a couple of months ago. He brought his kid in with him on his day off yesterday. Our assistant manager and a bookseller (both are dudes) were at customer service.

I was, of course, hiding around the corner behind a nearby bookshelf.

I felt like I was in an alternate universe.

I was listening to those three grown men cooing over this baby like it was a hot summer day, and the baby was a 12-pack of icy cold beer.

I couldn't help myself, I stuck my head around the corner and said, "You three are worse than a bunch of women!"

My manager just smiled villainously and held out the baby. "You wanna hold him? He just pooped!"

Bastard.

My manager, I mean. Not the baby. His parents are married.

You know what babies are good for?



No, Fat Bastard, babies are NOT for eating.

But they sure are fun because you can put weird costumes on them purely for your entertainment!

Look at this kid...he doesn't look very happy in his Roo costume, but I guarantee it put a smile on his parents' faces!



I think that the costume makers should have left Roo's face off of the headpiece. It looks like Roo just ate that baby, and is having trouble digesting. O_O

And do you know what's even MORE weird?

The fact that people like dressing their babies up as food.

Do you know how hard it was to find a picture on the internet of a baby dressed as a ninja? I thought there would be tons, but there weren't. There are more squirrels dressed as ninjas on the internet than babies.

But find a baby dressed as a hamburger?

Check.



A thanksgiving turkey?

Check.



Babies...the other, other white meat.

A lobster in a pot? (Someone put this baby in a pot, people...call the authorities!)




And my personal favourite. I think I almost peed myself I laughed so hard...

Someone dressed their baby up as pasta...WITH meatballs.



See? I don't hate babies. I'm going to a double baby shower on Sunday. Of my own volition!

I even enjoyed buying their baby shower presents. I love buying anyone presents. Seeing people smile makes me happy. I just wish the party didn't involve awkward games. I mentioned that in a past post, which I'm too lazy to find and link to.

Since I've only been to a couple of baby showers (I think 2 before this), I was absolutely HORRIFIED to learn about the Poopy Diaper Game.

Diapers are filled with melted chocolate bars, making it look just like a shitty diaper. The players have to guess what kind of chocolate bar fills the diaper by how it looks and how it smells.

Oh. My. Freaking. God.

I want to throw up just thinking about it. I'm going to have to sit that one out with a glass of wine. Sorry, girls.

I wish I could fast forward my life 15 years, when my friends are not having any more kids, and they're complaining to me about their unruly, surly teenagers giving them grief.

I'll still be sitting there, sipping my glass of wine, planning my trip across Europe whilst they're worrying about paying for college tuition and their kids' car insurance. But I'll look sympathetic of course!



But at very nearly 30 years old (oh how I hate to hear the sound of that number...I've still got 8 months to go), friends having kids is the reality. Being a woman is a super-double-secret-whammy.

Before all of my pregnant/child raising friends click that little 'x' in the upper right hand corner of this post in disgust, let me say that I am truly happy for you. Your kids are very cute, and I've left nice comments on their photos when I didn't feel obligated to. I'm very happy for you about your pregnancies, especially those of you who have had a hard time having children. I promise I'm not a total McDouche.



I just miss all of the antics and carefree-ness of being younger. I miss the days when my friends and I traded stories of all the crazy shit that went on during Gaelic football tournaments. I miss the fun my schoolmates and I had during drama productions. I miss going out dancing with my buddies till 2am. Most of those buddies have babies or are thinking about having babies. Or maybe even making babies.


And I'm bitter about it. All my friends are moving on to grown-up things, and I don't wanna. :)

Makes me think of the song, "I'm An Adult Now" by a Canadian band called The Pursuit of Happiness.




Everyone has to grow up sometime. Someone tell my brain that, because it still feels like it's 20. And it doesn't want any babies.

What Are You Listening to? Wednesday

Chuck has lived a lot of places in his lifetime.

He was born in Rhode Island. Then he lived in Hartford, Connecticut. Spent most of his childhood in West Springfield, Massachusetts. And when he was a young teenager, his family moved to Cleveland.

Chuck loved Cleveland. He's still friends with buddies he met 30 years ago. Chuck only spent a couple of years there before he joined the Marines and moved to North Carolina, but the city really made an impression on him.

He even cheers for the Browns and the Indians. Even though they suck.

*cough*


This is a photo of Chuck when he was about 15 years old, 1976-ish. His sister Laura is on the left, and his friend Dave Anderson is playing the guitar on the vintage 70's couch and Chuck is clutching his "Houses of the Holy" record.



Chuck was a hot 15-year-old, wasn't he?

I would totally be arrested if I was a teacher. Good thing I never became a teacher.



I had the pleasure of meeting his friend Dave the first year I lived here in NC.

Dave "Symphony Boy" Anderson is the principal bass player in the Louisiana Philharmonic in New Orleans.



When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, his house in New Orleans was completely flooded, all his family's belongings trashed.

Dave's wife is a harpist in the orchestra, she lost 5 harps in the storm. They were both on the road at that time, Dave was playing in Kansas City. His wife had just enough time to get back to New Orleans, rescue the pets, and one harp.

They were displaced for a year. Dave found temporary work with an orchestra in Minnesota, while his wife and kids stayed in Durham, NC.

In June of 2006, they invited us to a goodbye party in Durham. They were finally returning to New Orleans, and starting over. Chuck had just gone through his last round of chemo. We didn't have a lot of money at that time, and Chuck felt guilty about going even though we live only two hours away. I convinced him to go, since he hadn't seen Dave in years, and I'd heard so much about him that I wanted to meet him.

These are some of the pictures:

Dave and his wife were nice enough to let us sleep at their house for the night in Durham, after the party. This is the harp Dave's wife saved, in the living room of that house. I was very struck by this instrument...it was HUGE in this little room. Talk about impressed!




A pic with Dave, me, and a dude that played in the North Carolina Symphony. I think his name was...Lenny? And he was from....Latvia? I think. We got to see him play in a special performance by the symphony at a park here in Jacksonville, NC. Very cool.




This pic is my favourite. I think it's very striking. With Chuck's bald chemo head and that crazy looking bass...I think that part of that bass (the neck?) was from one that Dave had that was wrecked in Katrina, and he made it over.

LOVE that bass. Cool is the word.



Dave is a very eclectic musician. Definitely classically trained. His dad was a bass trombonist in the Cleveland Orchestra.

Dave is a composer, both of classical pieces and jazz pieces.

This is video of one of the LPO performances they did. They were playing Verdi, but they snuck in some Stanley Clarke (a jazz musician) fingering as a private musician joke...Dave is the one straight down on the end...he's wearing a cap in most of the other pictures I posted, I was afraid you wouldn't recognize him ;)




Edith, I think that even you might have liked that video!

He also did an NPR interview a couple of years ago, and you can see what he sounds like. He's very down to earth. He talks about his 210 year old bass, and his experience with Hurricane Katrina. It's a long interview, so no pressure to listen. But it's neat...

http://www.jockamofeenanay.com/communitygumbo/audio/0711/cg_daveanderson_lpo_071103_64k.mp3



I just love how he marries classical with jazz. And I'm not even a huge fan of jazz! He was known for playing with the symphony, and afterwards going to the jazz clubs and playing in his tux.

And, he's one of the nicest, smiliest people I've ever met. I'm very glad we had the experience in Durham.

This last video is one of the song 'Skinny', by Alex Bevan. The video is some silly thing made up by some dude on Youtube, it's the only way I could find the song in it's original studio form. But the song is really cool. I love the lyrics, the guy in the song(not the video) is totally Chuck....

"I'm a skinny little boy, from Cleveland, Ohio...come to chase your women, and drink your beer..."





It's worth a listen. Hope you enjoyed my little bio about Dave.

They Got Little Cars That Go Beep, Beep, Beep

Recently The Idiot Gardener wrote about how he was laughed at in the pub for mentioning that he had been sowing vegetable seed so late in the season.

Usually, I'm not above pointing and laughing at the silly things my friends do. Especially when we're out having a pint.

But...

I usually plant sunflowers every year. This year, I had decided not to.

Wayyyyy back, when I started this blog in January, I wrote a post called A Vegetable Garden's Lament. It chronicled the destruction of our former veggie garden. A garden that was crap, really.

We were planning a new one! We were thinking big!

Sadly, I had delusions of grandeur. Much like a schizophrenic. Maybe next time I'll wear a foil hat...




The above vision did not come to fruition (I hate the word fruition, why would I use it?)

I thought, what's the point of planting sunflowers this year? The former garden had all grown over into lawn (and I use that term loosely, our lawn is just a tightly grown clusterfuck of weeds). I would have to get out the shovel and break ground once again to make even the smallest of gardens.

April passed. May passed. June...

SUNFLOWERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They sprang to mind, and they haunted my dreams.

"Whhhyy didn't yoooou plaaant meeeee?"



I woke up in a cold sweat. Had I missed my window for planting?

I raced down to the garden center. Found a packet of seeds. Looked at the planting times for my area of the United States.

"March-June"

Yes! I wasn't too late!

I spent all afternoon digging a small sunflower garden in the second week of June. In the HOTTEST part of the summer. Like an idiot. Or should I say, like an Idiot?

They bloomed last week!


Aren't they....!


Short?





I mean *cough* I MEANT them to be this way! You've heard of Russian Mammoth sunflowers? These are....um....Canadian Pygmy sunflowers!!

Yeah.

Ok, fine. You got me. I admit it. I planted my Mammoths way to late and I got these stubby little excuses for sunflowers.

But aren't they kind of pretty if I photograph them the right way?



That's better.

They kind of make me think of that song "Short People" by Randy Newman, which is what the post title is from...



Short sunflowers ain't got no reason to live....


...but I like 'em.

Blog Feature Friday ~ Greenhorn In The Garden

So.


Hurricane Earl.


*crickets*


Hurricane Earl = LAME.

Yesterday I went down to Emerald Isle beach to check out the surfers, I mean the waves, at about 11:30am. They weren't destructive or anything, but they were kinda kickin'.


More surfers were sitting on their boards watching the waves than were actually surfing. This one kept striding back and forth with his board, trying to look studly.



The seagull in the foreground of this shot was PISSED OFF with me for some reason. I thought he was gonna peck my eyes out. He was squawking like I owed him money.

I tried really hard to make my eyes not look like old, stinky shrimp...I think I succeeded.



I was fooling with the settings on my camera and got this silly shot...(but I kind of like it anyway...)



Earl was really a disappointment. Barely got any rain or wind. At least we didn't board up our windows or anything. Chuck and I went and ate lunch at The Bogue House and we saw that some people in Carteret County were doing just that.

Cape Hatteras got quite a bit of weather though. One of our local news reporters got pounded by a wave on air...hilarious.

This is my attempt at making Earl look more scary and less lame.



Didn't work.

You know what's NOT lame???

My buddy Turling's gardening blog Greenhorn In The Garden!

Great sense of humour. Always has a project going. He's a proud family man and a football hooligan.

The post that really sucked me into his blog was "We Are Gardeners. We Are Not Savages."

And then I loved the guy! Ssh, don't tell Chuck!



As a person who likes to mix her passion about gardening with her other interests, how could I not like the one about gardening and baseball? And you get to see a picture of the author!

Lately, Turling's been leaving more and more time in between posts. Most would assume he was caught up in the everyday adventure of real life, like this guy.



Not me. I think he's a lazy bastard!

Turling, you must pay attention to your family less, and regale us with your gardening forays more often! Your children will forgive you once they're old enough to realize what a star you are in the blogosphere.

Go read Turling's blog. The last post was one of the most creative I've seen in a long time.