Sunday, May 29, 2016

Why we didn't raise the iris today, and some nice pictures

When the 17 year cicada nymphs emerged seventeen years ago,
a family of fox camped out in our yard.
Parents and kits, spent a week gorging.
No such luck this year, though we have heard the foxes yipping across the road.


A blade of grass, saved by a cicada.


More. I don't need to tend to Solomon's Seal this month.


And, the iris may be planted too deeply until fall.


This is the first round of cicadas.


They're around about a month.


Can you find this one?


Enough! More of Laura's little rose.
I believe it's a kind of tea rose.
No good to pick, but nice to look at.


A tiny moss just moved in. It grows on various old wood structures, like our retaining wall.


I probably shouldn't like chipmunks so.


Aunt Beth, Caroline and Laura, bagging up plants they liberated last weekend, before the cicada invasion.


A sunny day through sheers.


23 comments:

  1. We had our cicadas (or is it cicadae) a couple of years ago. We are good for another 15 years.

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    1. By the way the June bugs are plentiful this year.

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  2. I haven't seen cicadas for years in our backyard. I hope they stay away too!

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  3. Oh gosh, you reminded me of the cicadas. They were in Prescott for a good month; not sure how long down here in Phoenix. I guess we'll find out.

    betty

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  4. I have never seen cicadas. I guess they don't get to the east coast of Canada. So big and a month is such a long time. I love your garden colour though.

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  5. Cicadas are really difficult to spot, but not difficult to hear, obviously. I saw one perched half-way up a white flagpole with the Stars and Stripes on once - it must have skipped the camouflage lessons.

    There is a great Sherlock Holmes film from the 1930s, made in Hollywood. There are two clues about it being a Hollywood production. One is that Watson has a deep tan in a Winter of Victorian London, and the other is that when they leave the house in Baker Street in a dark, London, fog-filled night, a Cicada can be heard, trilling away somewhere close by.

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  6. Oh wow! Your flowers are gorgeous. You have the 17 year cicadas coming out? I remember that in Illinois. It was incredible! We were totally inundated with the red eyed insects! They warned not to let dogs eat too much of them because it was too rich and they could get sick.

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  7. the cicadas started up here the other day, don't know if these are the 17 year ones or just the normal ones we seem to have every year. I love their buzzing. I have a red one, tea rose perhaps, I just call it a heritage rose as a neighbor gave me a cutting off an old bush of hers decades ago. you pick them and within minutes, moments, the petals fall off. I have some amaryllis that I think are planted too deep. three years now and they still haven't bloomed.

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  8. Noisy blighters. Destructive too.
    Love your garden. And envy you the strong arms and backs (and all round suppleness) of your helpers.

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  9. Can you even hear yourself thing with those things?

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  10. hari OM
    I love cicadas - in OZ they appear every year - and are all green. Hope to see some of these soon!!! YAM xx

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  11. This is reality, isn't it? Lol.

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  12. We have cicadas every year too and they stay all summer. Heard our first ones this week.

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  13. I've heard the NE is in for a lot of cicadas this year. Don't you just love moss?

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  14. I love the tour ... and I am glad we don't have 17-year cicadas!

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  15. We don't get those critters where I live. But we have something eating up all the kale leaves and starting on other leaves. Grrr! What is the bagging proces? Maybe I can use it on my kale.

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    1. We split a fair amount of the perennials for Beth to take home. The girls put them in plastic grocery bags for the trip.

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    2. OIC I misunderstood you! I thought the bags were to protect the plants from cicadas, te he.

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  16. We don't get the cicadas here, do they do much damage to plants? We get the woolly bear caterpillars, usually in August, but some have been seen in parts of Adelaide already :( They do a lot of damage.
    I'm fairly sure tea roses are the one that grow a single bloom on a long stem, Laura's is a different kind and looks far lovelier in my opinion.

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  17. This year I must check the best time to divide irises. I think I got it wrong last time, and don't have as many as usual.

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  18. I went out early to deadhead roses. There is a large hatching this morning, all the plants are hanging low from the weight of cicadas. Then, there are masses of the previous hatchings molting. Not for the faint of heart. Seventeen years ago all we had was weeds I never looked at. I came in.

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  19. Those periodic cicadas are truly a pain to deal with.

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