Stopping to Smell the Peonies

The various peony bushes called me to task for only showing them mostly in bud. They begged to have me show more pics of them now that they are in full bloom, vain beauties that they are.

Not only did I oblige, but I drew up a lawn chair, had a jar of iced tea with basswood honey and admired them heartily.

Another round of thunderstorms on the way made me want to appreciate them before the rain drove their pretty faces into the soil.

I believe this is the Shirley Temple. It looks like an enormous cabbage rose.

Red Magic has just come into bloom, well worth waiting for.

The recent rains made it imperative that I mow today, but I was transfixed and refused to budge.

Some of my many peony bouquets in the house had wilted. Putting them around the tomato plants for mulch freed up the vases for fresh blooms. I got as many of the at-risk peonies into vases as I could. What gorgeous flowers; no wonder they are a bit vain.

Does this seem excessive for dinner decor for one person? I didn't think so.

Really Grand

Probably entirely due to me making the second rain barrel, the spring rains showed up. Five inches poured down on all my new plantings, washing some lovely soil away.

For the first time this year, the Grand River got out of its banks. It crested and went back down, but these rain cycles seem to quickly repeat themselves.  All that water has to go someplace, and some goes up.

The fields on the other side of the river had lots of standing water, not quite a big lake. The lazy river cuts across, finding the shorter route, as rivers are wont to do.

Beau and I couldn't get down to the river at our place, on account of the river being backed up across the path. There is too much poison ivy in the woods to go another way. We often walk down the road to the bridge, which is the sissy way to see the river. Sometimes, a vehicle passes by.

Chilly and rainy days are making the tomato plants look really miserable. More rain is on tap for the days ahead. I'm emptying the excess rain into the old cistern, giving it both barrels.

Location, location, location.

After I got settled here, in 2009, I ordered five fancy peony bushes. They are Shirley Temple, Festiva Maxima, Bouchela, Edulis Superba and Red Magic, surely enough peonies to last forever. They have grown huge. They are ready to burst into bloom.

Later, I discovered a few puny ones here and there, planted in all the wrong places. I no longer had need of more peonies. However, I became like my friend Judy who found stray cats irresistible, until she had given a home to seventeen of them.

Several spindly specimens were found languishing down in the deep shade between two outbuildings. There, they only had enough sunshine to keep body and soul together, never blooming. Despite the fact that peonies supposedly don't like to be transplanted, they seemed to beg me to get them out of that bad neighborhood. This is one that I missed.

With no formal first-aid training, I started CPR, Crowded Peony Rescue. I dug them up. They didn't even complain when I accidentally broke some of their fragile roots in the process. I gave them a sunny location, on the south side of the house. Although I doubted if they would amount to much, these three by the front porch have turned into beautiful shrubs.

The former owner was known for planting things extremely close together. I rescued some peonies that were growing inches from big trees, also in the shade. Ones like this one were clinging to a tiny bit of soil and dear life. My splendid Hellebore is right at home; the peony is not.

One was growing in the same space as an overpowering  Rugosa rose. When the rose died back, the peony put on a surprising amount of growth and is now quite respectable. It can hold its own with the other four peonies along the cow fence. Miss Iris the naughty cat is seen in the grass, and Beau is sniffing something near the rain barrel.

A home was found inside the garden fence for these two, with a splendid view of the chicken coop. They especially appreciated it after being stuck in the gloomy alley for most of their lives.

At last count, I have fifteen big blooming peony bushes. Rich, rich, rich, beyond my wildest dreams. When I get to seventeen, I'll stop.

Increasing My Rainfall

My usual heavy spring rains were late showing up this year. I made this second rain barrel a couple of weeks ago. It gets the runoff from half of the front roof. However, it has to rain for that to happen.

Finally, some serious clouds appeared. Best of all, I could rest from all my digging in the dirt. Disappointingly, there was less than a quarter of an inch of rain. So it was a big surprise for me to find the 55 gallon barrel completely full. I couldn't have been happier if I had good sense.

The rain wasn't enough to deeply wet the soil, but I hooked up hoses and watered new plants and the garden with it. Everybody got a nice drink of pure rain water. Because the other barrel has less roof to catch the rain from the workshop, it only collected 30 gallons. Even so, from such a scant rainfall, I had plenty of water.

It's not the money savings at all, although it will help a little on the water bill. I'm big on not wasting water. I have rural water here, which is usually reliable and affordable.

When I go down to the river and watch all that water flowing by, I think of those poor souls in California who would love to have it. The Grand River flows into the Missouri River and it joins the Mississippi and then finally loses its usefulness when it mixes with salt water in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite repeated suggestions from me, it refuses to be diverted to California. They could surely use it, if they didn't mind brown silty water in all those swimming pools.

The very next day, as I was gloating over my water catchment, one of the gully-washer rains came through. Nature has a way of making gardening a barrel of fun.