On Friday evening and Sunday morning we had some rather severe – though short – bursts of rain. An inch of rain within 15 minutes on both occasions, and obviously even our drained lawn couldn’t handle this much water in such a short time. It all drains away eventually, but it has left the garden looking somewhat sad.
The goatsbeard has flopped over, the climbing rosa multiflora has broken the temporary trellis I built for it after some heavy rain knocked it over a week ago, and of course there are The Puddles…
-Or should I say “The Puddle” in singular? It seems the rain has turned the whole area into a unified stretch of water, which is clearly not the plan.
The trouble is all due to the fact that I haven’t finished the area around The Puddles; where the turf has been dug away the soil level is a good 2-3 inches lower than the surrounding lawn, so obviously it will be prone to flooding until I build up the soil level again. As in all my borders I want the soil level to be at least an inch above the lawn so all flooding will occur on the lawn and not in the flower beds.
Still, the water will drain away eventually, and at least nobody can say that the plants haven’t been well watered in after I planted them.
Anyway, although flooded at the moment, The Puddles are doing their job:
Today I counted 6 blue dragonflies and one red one. Personally I think they are even prettier than butterflies, so I am thrilled to have them attending my tiny waterscape. I’ve seen them in the forest around here before, but never in our garden, so I count this as a success!
Sure, there are also slugs eating away at the iris, hostas and asters (I seem to have created a slug buffet by accident; the astrantia is the only plant they don’t molest), but they would be there with or without The Puddles. And I have water beetles, common pond skaters, hoverflies and loads of other great insects visiting already, so I’m really pleased with the biodiversity this element has added to the garden.
It has been a wet and cold spring and summer so far, but for some reason my dahlias have decided to start blooming. Nothing profuse, mind you, but still… Considering that they are really not meant to bloom around here before August, they are definitely early. So far I have one bloom – an Arabian Night tuber that I overwintered in our attic – but there are also blooms underway from some of the dahlias I grew from seed, so it all looks very promising.
Even this one flower is, I think, worth the trouble of lifting the tubers, bringing them back to Copenhagen and overwintering them in the attic. When I leave tonight or tomorrow morning I will pick this flower and bring it back to the Flâneur Husband; one should never forget to bring flowers to one’s loved ones, even if it’s just a single flower from time to time.
Nice dragonfly! You certainly had a lot of rain. We’ve had rain too and it is not enhancing the roses or (yes) the frothy goatsbeard blooms. But the green is nice. That dahlia is spectacular color, well-named and so early. I’m glad you were there at a time to notice its bloom.
Catching up on a couple of posts here– so sorry about your dad. I’m glad the gardens are comforting you.
Goatsbeard does seem to soak up the rain and make the flowers excessively heavy. Still, they rise again pretty quickly once the rain stops, so now they look exuberant and lush again.
I love the nearly-black colour of this dahlia; it is so deliciously sensuous to look at, and it might well be the sexiest flower in my garden. High maintenance, yes, but sexy. (Isn’t that always the way it is?)
As for my Dad… Well, it’s tough. Still, one has to pull through and think of the present, and the garden is a great help in that respect. Some things go on, like weeds and grass and flowers – and the occasional dragonfly!
It sounds like you’re having a similar summer to us here in the UK. We had torrential thunderstorms on Thursday which flooded out our shed. The fertiliser sat in a cardboard box ended up all over the floor and now my shed stinks!! Although we got off lightly, with much more extensive flooding in my native north east. Wow you must be so chuffed with all that wildlife coming to your ponds. I love dragonflies and damselflies too, fascinating and beautiful creatures. One of my dahlias has just started to flower too.
Our thunderstorm Friday was actually the remains of the one that hit the UK on Thursday… Thankfully we’ve never had any flooding reach the house, and that will probably only happen if there is a really wild high tide in the fjord so the dike is breached. (This happened 30 years ago but hasn’t happened since, so considering that the dike has been enlarged I suspect it’s not very likely at all.)
I’m so please The Puddles are doing what I wanted them to do so far. I just hope I can get some larger wildlife in there as well; some frogs or a toad would be brilliant!
I love your Blue Darner. I am like you, I like the dragonflies more than butterflies because it is more a treat when they visit the garden because it is more rarely an occasion. One good thing for a wet garden anyway. When I moved here we had a backyard with 6 inches of standing water. It killed a tree (the only plant in the yard) that was planted. I dug the whole yard up and put in drain tile. We have an underground stream under this property, so when it flooded, we were flooded.
I do hope they will continue to visit… I spent half an hour watching them this morning, and that kind of entertainment is definitely among the most de-stressing that exist.
Our drain was installed last spring and since then we haven’t had any real flooding. Some water on the lawn (or in new flower beds where a lazy gardener hasn’t gotten around to back-filling them with soil after removing the turf) but nothing like the first summer here when we had several hundred square meters under several inches of water for a few weeks…
love your puddles and so nice to see dragonflies do too…they visit my pond all the time…I almost forgot about my dahlias…with the lack of rain they are slow to grow here….
I’d prefer to keep the water inside my Puddles, rather than around them… But it is lovely to see the little critters are enjoying them, and it makes all the hard work worth while.
And the dahlias will be a real treat, I think, when they finally start showing off for real.
Hi this is in response to your comment on Helen’s post about strawberries. Yes in Italy we usually serve strawberries by slicing them or cutting them in half, adding a sprinkle of sugar then lemon juice; leave them for 15 – 30 minutes before serving. Strawberries are also great with black pepper (but not at the same time as the lemon) I don’t think that’s an Italian idea.
they are rarely served with cream here, which is considered to kill the flavour. Christina
I’ve never really been into strawberries with cream; it somehow seems too rich for the freshness of the strawberries. I grew up eating them with milk instead, which lets the strawberries “shine through” better, I think.
When buying less-than-brilliant strawberries (usually out of the very brief season of the best sorts grown in Denmark) I normally marinate them in either orange or lemon juice for a little bit before eating; somehow the acidity seems to make the strawberries taste more like strawberries. I use the same trick when making strawberry jam.
Soren, Goatsbeard blooms, like peonies, seem to be some kind of signal for heavy rain. After years of having my goatsbeard flop over as soon as they started to bloom, I started staking them. My plant gets very large — about 7′ (more than 2 meters) high; when I first put out my giant bamboo stakes in spring, they look like an eyesore, but by the time the plant blooms, the stakes are completely surrounded by growth and no longer visible — and I can look out after the thunderstorm we’re having right now and know that the goatsbeard plumes will still be floating above the garden rather than lying on the ground.
They rise again quickly, though, so if it wasn’t for the fact that they flop down over the peonies I probably wouldn’t do much about it, but next year I’m staking!
Mine only grew to 5′ this year, but they were only planted last year (a small clump moved from the Flâneur husband’s grandmother’s garden), so hopefully next year they will be even taller. (And in more need of staking!)