Deadheading and a Surprise - August 25, 2019 @goldenoakfarm

When I finally got out to the gardens around 9AM on Sunday morning, I set to work cleaning out the weeds under the dill and hollyhock volunteers. I used lots of my new plant stakes to prop them up.

Then I moved onto the next time consuming job of deadheading. Plantain was first and then yarrow. But as I came down the side of the yarrow by the echinacea, I couldn’t get in there. The echinacea had filled the walkway.

I had only done the one side and filled this tote with it and the deadheads. It was getting hotter than they said it would so I finished the yarrow and went inside to put the echinacea in the dehydrators. This tote nearly filled both, just 1 empty tray. No shortage of echinacea this winter…

From the 2 dehydrators I got 2 ½ gallons and ⅔ of a quart of leaves and flowers.

Momma Turkey and the 3 turkets have been inspecting the cellar every night. I found one of her feathers this morning.

One of the clivias in the roundtop window is flowering, yet again. It also has a sprout coming off the side. If you look low on the left you can just see it.

And finally some sad news. I went out this morning to help move the coop. Bitty Bird was struggling to stay warm. It had been in the 40’s last night and with few feathers and no body mass, she got real cold. I held her inside my sweatshirt for a while, but I had to get back to work.

If she’s struggling with 40’s, she will never survive -25F we get each winter. So we’ve decided to put her down, probably today as tonight is to be even colder. On Wednesday we cull for the layers, and after 2 days of being far too cold, the stress of that chaos will probably be too much. So today it is. She’s going to be buried on the sandhill with all the other pets.

LATE BREAKING NEWS!

Night-blooming Cereus (Epiphyllum oxypetalum)

This may not look like much but it is a big deal to me! I have had this ugly old plant since March 2006 when I got it from Freecycle. I had been delighted to get it.

I had been working as a volunteer in the gardens at Wisteriahurst and in their conservatory they had one. It only flowers once a year, between 10PM and midnight and the flower is gone by morning. It was to flower one night at Wisteriahurst, but I was too sick to go see it.

So when I got this plant shortly after, I thought perhaps I’d get to see it. Well, after 13 years I’d given up long since. My husband was leaving to go see to Bitty and called up, had I seen the white flower by the front door? So I grabbed the camera and went to see what he was talking about.

I was astounded to see the spent flower hanging from the plant. This is what it would have looked like, late last night:

There are actually 2 plants there, so there’s a chance I might see another one. But I checked the first plant and there’s no other bud on it, I could see. So I think that’s it for this year.

No gardening today, just laundry, bills and an appointment. Might load the dehydrators in the afternoon…

Source: Cereus flower: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Night_Blooming_Cereus_Blossom. jpg

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