Wanna Tour?

We've had a busy week here at the ol' Quarry.  There's been a lot of visitors over the last four days, some scheduled and some unscheduled, but all of them were wonderful guests.

Yesterday I was out mixing fertilizer and filling my 50-gallon drum with water for the container plants in front of the garage when a little car slowed down on the road and came to a stop.  I glanced up and heard a cheery voice call, "Lovely garden!"

I yelled back, "Thanks.  Did you want to take a tour?"

Melampodium 'Melanie', Rudbeckia 'Indian Summer' and 'Northwind' Panicum

I always ask and try to be careful with the invitations because Believe It Or Not, sometimes cars do pull in our driveway, but they're only looking for a place to turn around and don't want to be taken hostage on a forced garden walk.  That reminds me of something which happened to me a few years back:

My friend Ann had called to let me know that some friends of hers from work were coming out for a garden walk and she said they'd be to our house shortly.  She cautioned me that the group didn't have a lot of time because they were en route to another event, so I was forewarned to make this a quick walk.

About five minutes later, a car pulled in and four very nicely dressed ladies got out.  I came out of the house to greet them, introduced myself and said, "Well, I guess we should get started,"  and heading down the trail in front of the house, I bid them to follow me.   As I ushered them around the gardens they seemed a bit hesitant and quite bewildered, though they were very polite and followed me around dutifully.  As the tour progressed, they kept citing Bible passages and exclaiming how blessed I was to have such pretty flowers.

"This is just like Paradise will be," one of them said, "I am certain of it."

I jokingly remarked, "Well, I was hoping weeds wouldn't be so plentiful in Paradise; I was looking forward to just strolling around and taking it easy Up There."

That comment was met with stunned silence, and a few uneasy looks.  I thought, "Whoa, tough crowd," and headed back slowly to the driveway with them still in tow.

It was at that time another car pulled in with four more nicely dressed ladies.

The driver rolled down her window and said, "Hello!  We're friends of Ann's and we're here for a garden walk. Is it ok if I park here?"

Uh-oh....if these are Ann's friends, then who are these other ladies??

 

That was when I noticed my first group of four ladies were busily getting their pamphlets out, it turns out I had garden-jacked a group of religious ladies and had forcibly taken them on a tour when they weren't here to see a garden..... they were here to Save My Soul.   Oooops.

So now when people show up, I make sure they're not here for any other purpose first.  You'd hate to be my meter reader or my paper delivery person, wouldn't you?  Slow down in front of my house and you are going on a garden walk.  We don't take NO for an answer. 


(We had to rewrite the Handbook of Rules for Quarry Garden Tours lately, and did some editing.  Now we ask appropriate questions first.)

But anyway, the two older ladies who showed up yesterday morning were indeed here to see the garden, though I think one of them had me mixed up with someone else.

"I used to drive by here all the time and admire your wonderful vegetable garden out front," one of them said.  "You had such an amazing plot of tomatoes and sweet corn by the road.  And your pumpkins!  I see you're not growing it this year.  Did you move the vegetable garden somewhere else?" she asked.

?

Once again, things that make you go hmmmmmm.......Ah, well......I DO have a vegetable garden of sorts (if you count 15 tomato plants and two rows of onions)  out back by the windmill this year, and yes, we did move it, but we've never, ever had a vegetable garden out in front by the road, so I don't know who she was talking about, but it wasn't us.  I could tell she was a bit confused, so not wanting to confuse her even  more, I sorta went along with it and said yes, I'd moved my vegetable garden this year.  I just didn't want to upset her since she was so sure we were the house with the big Veggie Garden.  We had a good time looking at the rest of the non-vegetables anyway.

After my two impromptu visitors left, I went back to weeding and pulling out tired flowers.  This is a hard time of year, so many of you wonderful gardeners out there are planting fall plants and I should be, but I haven't got the heart to yank out the things that are still flowering.  Poor planning on my part, but there it is, I'll admit it.

The big, floppy plant in the foreground is Datura.  I've yet to see it bloom, but it has huge purple buds on it.

We had a garden group stop in on Tuesday night, remember the group that was going to have a little wine in the garden?  They were very cordial and seemed to enjoy themselves for an hour or so before leaving to go out to eat.   There was another group that stopped in on Wednesday night, too, and same story, very friendly people.

 The rudbeckias are still hanging on though I pulled out about two garden trailers full last weekend.  As you can tell by the leaves, there is some mildew on these too, but the flowers are still pretty.

 The nasturtiums and moss roses along with the melampodiums are doing their best to hang on with the much cooler weather, too.

Some of the hostas are really looking tough; if I could let the hens have free range of the gardens, many of the slugs would be history.   But this year we've had more walks than usual and I didn't want to take a chance on the Girls scratching out all the mulch and trouncing the annuals in the River Bed, so they've been cooped up until first frost hits.  After everything is dead, they can run where they please, but for now, we have to try to keep everything looking as good as possible, at least until October 1 and the wedding that is scheduled for photography.  It's been getting quite cold out at night, so still having any flowers by the first of October might be a pipe dream, but we'll see.

 The 'Victoria' annual salvia is finally starting to bloom.

We have to get the weed pails and the transit legs out of the Dome before any more wedding photos, too.

 So, tomorrow is Fertilizer Friday, and you know what else?  It's also our wedding anniversary.  As an anniversary present to each other, we bought another little wrought iron table and chair set from an antique store a few weeks ago.  It needs paint, but what it needs more than paint is a building with a roof overhead.  So we've been hard at work, trying to make this happen before another year is over.  I don't think we'll finish before winter, but we'll give it a try.  Poor Carl took two days off of work this week to celebrate and what do I tell him I want to do?

 

Happy 33rd Anniversary, Carl!  Sorry my idea of celebrating is whacking rocks with a hammer, but we gotta get this silly project done.

It's no reflection on my feelings for you.

I'm looking forward to another 33 years (and more, if we're lucky) of fun in the sun with Carl and the rocks around here.

And if you wander down our backroad sometime and I spot you driving along slowly, just floor it when you get even with my driveway.  I can't run as fast as I used to, so you should be safe from a Garden-Jacking.