Small Victories on the Cottage Garden Front

It's good to have some success plans for the garden.  Sometimes, plants don't come out the victor in these skirmishes with invasive grasses, hot winds and little rain.

My idea for moving some of the husky types to the front Cottage Garden is coming along.  First of all, I dug up the Shasta Daisy that was hogging the space next to the Diana, Princess of Wales Rose.  The book said to gently pull the roots apart.  The book always says that, because people who write gardening advice are sadists.  All of the root masses I've come across, with the exception of irises,  make a Gordian Knot seem easy.  So I did what I usually do, and cut the plant with a shovel.  I planted the four pieces at various spots in the thick mat of grass and they have thrived and bloomed.  Amazing.  Next year, they will triumph over even more grass.

To the right and back is the recently sheared sage plant of some enormous proportions. Beyond that is the gone-to-seed coreopsis.

Out back, the rose thanked me by putting on quite a display and even now is into a second flush of bloom.

Back to the Cottage Garden.  The Coreopsis plants were their rambunctious selves, sprawling over everything around them.  Talk about elbows on the table.  I let them go to seed.  They are such rowdies that even tossing the pulled-up stalks starts a new patch, as was evidenced by some near the porch where I threw some last year.  I really love these guys.  They are so cheery.

The sage plant was an idea the former owners had.  I hack it back after it blooms but I think there's no getting rid of it, since it's too close to the house for explosives.  I don't really use that much sage.  We did try it as a steeped tea and it wasn't too bad, with lemon and sugar.  The bees and even tiny butterflies were all over it, having a feast.

After starting some datura seeds much too early and babying them along, I found dozens of volunteers where I had them last year.  I transplanted a few and they have made better growth than my pitiful specimens.  They have had a bit of a struggle but I've carried bowls of water to them.  The bowls have dirt in the water from rinsing veggies.  I don't want the dirt down the drains and so carry it to the daturas.

Due to the semi-drought, I haven't had to mow these last few weeks, which gave the chicory the opportunity to bloom.  They aren't really a candidate for the cottage garden because they  bloom beautifully in the mornings and look like stickery weeds in the afternoons.  Here, they are growing in the driveway, where they pester people getting out of their cars.  They are seen all along the roads here in summer, coming back even stronger after being mowed.  Unlike me, they like the dry rocky conditions.

Next, I will move some of the daylilies, seen above.  They are another plant that can hold its own against grasses.  Last fall, I dug up one beautiful yellow one and got 14 plants along the garden fence, using my hatchet technique with the shovel.  The fencing I added to the barbed wire to keep cows from munching on my side; they love daylilies.

Now, I'm turning my attention to the vegetable garden, where I'm discovering that a watched tomato doesn't turn red.