A sweet thing gone bad

If you scratch around year after year in the same old plot, you know those changing of the guard times in your garden: spring bulbs and iris do their thing, and then look ratty as they give way to peonies and roses. The peonies last about a heartbeat, and the roses keep trying through the summer, but never again as glorious as June. So you get into a summer routine of deadheading, staking, weeding, watering and anticipating what comes next. I wouldn't say gardening becomes relaxing, but chores are not as rigorous as spring or fall. I have tomatoes and herbs in pots, and if I grew more vegetables I guess I'd be starting to harvest. But around here we end with the big fragrant lilies. I'm also getting into fancy dahlias, and their flowers take you right into fall. I've been in a "black" plant stage for a while, and have a dahlia called "Baghdad Nights" or something like that. I remember this because I bought it MANY years ago when the Iraq war started and it sounded so subversive I had to have it.

It feels good to be home, and the temperature in Seattle is about 30 degrees cooler than yesterday. We have lovely next-door neighbors who come by to water, bring in mail, check on things when we're gone. I guess the 4th of July (illegal) fireworks in our neighborhood were especially horrible, and there were many fires around Seattle. Thank you Diane!! In the Methow Valley we did not see or hear one firework-- people must have some common sense over there.

Leaving town for a long weekend should not make much difference, until you come back and see the all the small changes in your garden. You also realize your method of gardening is dinking around-- doing little things everyday, as opposed to the major intervention style of gardening.

Oh yes, about this picture-- it is charming, but it happened while my back was turned. The innocent sounding plant "Baby Tears" turns out to an incredibly invasive ground cover. (Remember the Hummingbird Vine?) A few years ago I thought "Baby Tears" would look pretty between the stepping stones in the big flower bed. It immediately spread to choke out everything in its path. As I scraped it off with my Japanese hoe, I must have flung the clumps along the fence border where it now grows under everything, thick and green as an Irish carpet. The other day I noticed it was also growing in the grass around the base of the compost bin, where bits must have fallen off when I threw it out. It thrives without water and a hard freeze turns it to black mush, but the root mat comes right back in the spring. Did I actually spend good money for this plant? Beware Tim and Sam.
Here's an article that says it all:

http://www.gardenershelp.com/How-To-Kill-Babys-Tears.php