Animal Sightings

Had two interesting animal sightings lately. Lucy‘s favorite place to explore is the back corner of our property - the wilderness area. It‘s wet ~ after the heavy rains it‘s actually swampy. It's full of grasses and wildflowers and wild plants. Good cover for animals and it has homes for field mice and other small critters for the larger ones to hunt. We get deer that come through from the woods and cornfields behind us. When we first moved here, there were often pheasants in the fall, although I haven‘t heard them for a few years now.

One day we walked around the corner and I thought what is that big, gray blob? Then I saw the long neck and the head and realized it was a blue heron. I was surprised - although it‘s wet, there's no pond and definitely no fish. It moved from the open area to the back of the high plants, so you really couldn't see it unless you were looking. It stayed for a few hours and we were getting concerned that it might be hurt. But it flew away quite effortlessly, so I guess it was just hanging out and resting. I've never been so close to a heron before - it was HUGE!

Lucy would like to go out in the morning when it's still dark, but I make her wait until it’s at least brightening. One morning when we rounded the corner I saw a red fox trotting through the grassy open area to the back, thick area which leads to the woods. I heard a fox passing through the yard one morning when it was still dark-it sounded like a high-pitched dog bark. It must have been moving fast because I heard one loud bark and then two, getting fainter as it was moving off. It certainly woke up Lucy and I put her out in the yard with the light on, but it was long gone by then. It does explain why we're seeing very few rabbits in the last month or so.

One year a red fox had babies underneath our shed. Boy, were they cute! They'd come out at dusk and play, chasing each other and wrestling - just like a litter of puppies. Maybe this one is the offspring of one of those pups.

A Tale of Two Seasons II

It was a strange growing season-almost like two different seasons. "A Tale of Two Seasons“ we could call it.

In the spring, I remember the daffodils fading fast because we got a blast of hot weather early. The lilacs bloomed in April and the peonies bloomed at Mother's Day, which I don‘t ever remember happening before. All the spring bloomers were lush with the warm weather and the good groundwater from all the melting snow.

Then came mid-summer and the ridiculous temperatures (including 106) and very dry conditions. We water the gardens infrequently since we have a well and concentrate on the potted plants. The basils and mints wilted, but revived after the occasional big rains. Mid-season flowers like coneflower and black-eyed Susan didn‘t bloom A as fully and a lot of my annuals were just stunted. Drought tolerant herbs didn’t mind a bit-my gray santolina was beautiful!

The late season plants were really affected too. It took well into September for hyacinth bean vine to develop beans and its peak seemed to be in October.

Ditto for pineapple sage-full bloom in October, and the plant only got about half as tall as usual.







One of the prettiest fall bloomers-Mexican bush sage with its arching, fuzzy purple flowers also didn't bloom till October and was sparse compared to most years.

Things that did well despite the weather - blue flax, borage, calendula, Joe Pye weed,love-lies-bleeding, plumbago, verbena, yarrow, Jupiter's beard and perennial salvias.

Things that didn't do well - cosmos, four o'clocks, heliotrope, gem marigolds (although they came back in the fall) nasturtiums, statice, pincushion flower and swamp milkweed.

I was mighty impressed with a new ornamental, oregano-kent beauty, this year. This one is for flowers rather than flavor. They're papery, so they dry well. Start off green and turn pinky-purple. Used them a lot in arrangements-pretty neutral filler.

Hot summer results

More fallout from the hot, dry summer. Our moonflower vine (annual, fragrant, night-blooming morning glory) hasn‘t bloomed in awhile. It certainly blooms better during wet seasons. Our record for blooms This in one evening is 24, and that was definitely in a wet year. This year, it bloomed occasionally, but then shut down during the extended dry spell. This isn't unusual-many plants bloom less or not at all during times of stress. It helps the roots of the plant to survive until conditions improve. I do water the moonflower every day, but it is very hard to duplicate the effect of a soaking rain even if you water every day. The longer the dry spell, the harder it is to get plants to respond. How that we've had some rain, hopefully things will improve.

I did notice some cilantro that reseeded itself in the garden. It grows well early in the season when it's relatively cool. Once the hot weather cones, it bolts like lettuce does. Of course, this year with the weather being very hot and coming early, the cilantro season was short. l always advise people to let some of plants second flower, then seed. The seed falls and you usually get a crop later in the season when it cools off again. My reseeding was sporadic probably due to the dryness.

One plant that loved the dry season is gomphrena or globe amaranth. It produces clover-like flowers that are papery and dry well. Colors are a mix of purple, pink and white or red. The plants get quite shrubby in one season and are very productive. My red ones got off to a slow start because something bit off the stalks early in the season. But they‘re producing well now and the mixed colors have loads of flowers. Many of the papery flowers that dry well seen to tolerate drought pretty well. Gray foliaged plants are also drought tolerant. Gray santolina has been wonderfully happy this year-catmint, too.

Greenhouse and shop are open Tuesday-Saturday 9am-5pm. We‘re getting to the end of perennial planting season. The shop has plenty of non-plant herbal products available.

Garden Questions

People ask good questions to which I sometimes do not have an answer. A common one is, when you plant 2 or 3 or 5 of the same plant in an area and only one dies, what happened? I have an example in my garden now. I have three Greek columnar basils planted along the edge in one square of our four square garden. Greek basil is a very nice, upright, bushy form that grows into a small shrub in a season. My line makes a basil 'hedge' in the garden. The plant has great flavor so it's useful in the kitchen, and it has an upright habit that requires no pinching to branch out and it sets few flowers. The two end plants are fine and the middle one is very wilted. That's a pretty easy answer - with the very dry weather, the end plants have taken the soil moisture away from the middle one and once it did rain, the middle one perked Up again, so that was a good guess.

But often, the plants are the same sort, they‘re in the same type of soil and receiving the same cultural conditions. If it's not a disease or insect problem, a soil analysis may indicate a reason. But I generally tell folks, plants are like people - some are stronger than others. Being the same species does not mean the plants are exactly the Same.


If you're interested in drying hydrangea flowers, now is prime time. They should be starting to dry on the stem - not papery dry, but you feel them, you can notice some moisture is leaving the bloom. I cut mine, strip off the leaves, stand them in a vase and put the vase in a closet (or anywhere away from light.) Some people recommend putting a little water in the vase, but I never found this necessary. They dry in about a week or ten days if it‘s not humid. Newer blooms which replaced flowers I out earlier in the season are still full of moisture, so I'll check them in a couple weeks.
These later blooms really keep their blue color nicely.

A Visitor

My niece from New Jersey visited recently. She's doing graduate work at Rutgers and visits occasionally. Her family (my sister & brother-in-law) live in Canada so it‘s hard to go home weekends to visit. She gets a break and some home cooking here. I made chicken Caprese - chicken breasts topped with tomato, basil, mozzarella and wrapped in bacon - what's not to like? She was impressed that the chicken was so moist. I use an old restaurant trick - soak the chicken in milk all day before draining and cooking. You‘re supposed to use buttermilk, and I do if I have it on hand for a particular recipe. otherwise, I use just regular low-fat milk and that works fine. Often, I'll add mustard, salt & pepper and herbs for added flavor.

She also went hone with a basil and a lavender plant. She lives in an apartment but has a small outdoor space and missed having some plants. She loves to go to the thrift store in Mount Joy run by the MCC. Loads of bargains there.

I‘m slowly making the transition from summer to fall. I enjoy the moderating weather - lower humidity and even on warm days, it's cool start in the morning. I grew up in Mt. Gretna, so the end of summer was always bittersweet. Summer was the big season and it was fading. I'm old enough that the idea of starting school before Labor Day is strange to me.

All my seasons seem to overlap in some ways. I‘ve already placed orders for starter plants for next spring. And I‘m doing a lot of work in the shop, so it will be ready for the holidays. Also working on the fall newsletter and will soon start ordering seeds for the spring. All this while summer slowly fades.

Finish up large harvests (up to one third) on woody stemmed perennials like thyme, sage, thyme and rosemary (borderline hardy). Since they don't die back, the remaining foliage provides some protection for the crown of the plant over Winter.

Butterfly Frenzy!

I'm glad I had a witness or it might have been one of those hard to believe experiences. John and I were taking Lucy for a Walk. We walked around the greenhouse, between the greenhouse flowerbed and the bee & butterfly garden behind the second greenhouse and we walked right into a cloud of butterflies.

There were literally hundreds of them - they seemed to be fluttering between the two butterfly bushes in those two gardens. I've never seen so many together at once. The vast majority were the small whites and yellows (sulfers) and fritillaries, but there were also some swallowtails and a few skippers. It was a lovely summer sight and I'm glad to see that butterflies made a resurgence this year. I know you‘ll see more on sunny days so there‘s one benefit of all the sunny, dry weather this season.

The other thing lots of butterflies means is more rescues from the greenhouse. They fly in, cannot find their way out and have to be released. (not so smart, don‘t have this problem with bees) I know they only live a month or so, so I hated the thought of them trapped in there fluttering against the walls. So I check periodically, capture and release them. The big ones are much easier to catch. One day I walked in and there were about 15 congregated along the front wall!

The sweet autumn Clematis on the pergola is in full, fragrant bloom. It always reminds me of a flowery, white cloud. It is full of bumblebees busily working. Another plant loaded with bumblebees and butterflies now is sedum. If you have 'Autumn Joy' (reddish) or *Brilliant* (pinkish) Check them out. Loads of bees and a good variety of butterflies.

I‘m getting a good second crop of lavender, am still drying euphorbia (snow on the mountain) along with statice, gomphrena, and celosia. Although frost is still a while away, I'm starting to remove annuals that have suffered through the dry weather. Some just look beat.

Transitioning into Fall

Although we haven't reached the official start of fall, I'm enjoying the transition. Some days are sunny, but not humid. You can feel the freshness in the air. When I take Lucy out for her early morning walk, it feels cool and sometimes even chilly. After feeling hot for so long, feeling chilly feels great. And I love sleeping with the windows open instead of the AC running. Even when we have hot days, you know it's not going to last for weeks at a time.

Fall is an excellent time to plant perennials. Planting now allows plants to become established, giving them a head start over plants put in during the spring season. Often, fall provides more reliable rainfall, which cuts down on watering requirements. We do offer larger sizes of a few perennial varieties in the fall, plus we have a few leftover half-price small perennial herbs and flowers for sale. Planting up until about mid October gives plants enough time to become established before cold weather sets in.

My other fall transition is switching from plants and greenhouse/garden work to preparing the shop for the fall and holiday seasons. I craft for the shop, prepare potpourri, harvest and dry flowers and bulk herbs and prepare orders for the wonderful, handmade products we offer.

Most of our products come from Maryanne and Tina, aka The Twisted Sisters, who supply us with handmade soaps, spritzes, oils, lip balms, lotion sticks, salt scrubs and Maryanne's beaded jewelry. We have a few other vendors who produce herbal teas, cat treats, goat's milk lotion, bubble bath, etc. Nearly all our herbal products are produced in small batches by home-based businesses.

Many people think we close or cut back hours drastically after the spring season. We are actually open five days a week, Tuesday-Saturday 9am-5pm through December. We have plants for sale during the fall and of course, lots of products for sale in the shop. So there's still plenty to see when you visit.