Confessions of a planter

Slight overlap of blogs here.

Cat: Why do plan' them eef you cort them down again?

Me: Because they need dead-heading.

Cat: Doan' ged no ideas abou' dead-headeen' me, Ok?

Me: Hm...

Cat: I weell zeep my leeps. You woan' heear me say nada.

Me: I'll believe that when I don't hear you.

Cat: ...

A comment by Colleen reminded me that I portray my terrace through, ah...rose-tinted glasses. It's conscious, of course.

Aphids aren't cute. Even though it's not easy being green. What do I do with them? I run two fingers up the stem and squash them. Green blood everywhere.

Blackspot. My fault. I didn't clear up all the dead leaves from last year, which were greatly afflicted by blackspot, and so that's probably why it hit the roses almost as soon as their leaves had unfurled. I pick off the dead leaves, but honestly, it doesn't help. It affects my climbing Iceberg the most and I think the plant is stressed and wants a new, bigger pot.

Nothing to say about the thyme. I just put the picture there to make me feel better. Last year I loved my catnip, this year I love the thyme.

The catnip is not doing what it did last year, and I know why. I just don't want to tell. It starts with M and ends with O and I won't do it again, but...I feel like a junkie gone cold turkey.

The pink agastache, just beginning. Interestingly, it smells like peppermint, not anise, like the blue ones. And I just found a recipe for hyssop (agastache)-poached peaches in the Herb Farm Cookbook, by Jerry Traunfeld. Now I need blue hyssop. I'll steal one from the Median, where they are Huge.

Now something odd. I sowed verbena seeds and what did I get? Lambs' quarters. I swear the seeds were incorrectly packaged.

They are in an overstuffed pot of thyme, rose, cosmos (from seed), volunteer bronze fennel.

This mint over-wintered in the gravel. And I planted some more after buying it in a bunch from a deli for $1 and letting it root in water for a week.

Sage is new and off to a slow start because I keep eating it. It's also beautiful mixed with perennials in an unfashionable border.

The last of the Icebergs. Quieter than Mohicans but just as sad when they fall in the night.

So there is a lot going on. Dying, growing, popping up, keeling over.

So much more interesting and rewarding than a couch at $200/hour. How much are shrinks going for nowadays?