That is a complete lie. Ms. N and I both have this bug in our gardens and have no idea what it is. Friend? Foe? She found the insects on her hydrangea. I found them buzzing around the bottom leaves of the hollyhocks (which are being overtaken by weevils and rust, blast it!).  Note to self: find a good insect identifier on the Internets.

The weather was hot and intermittently rainy this past weekend. What a great time to visit nurseries! Oy, a big mistake. I was doing so well until the last stop and then purchased several new plants. All perennials were 25% off though! I have this same problem during cold months here, but it involves yarn instead of plants. This was the haul:

• Autumn Bride Coral Bell (Heuchera villosa) which I grabbed accidentally when reaching for the Key Lime
• Little Lantern Ligularia
• Joystick Red Thrift, Sea Pink (Armeria pseudarmeria)
• Alexander Loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata)
• Golden Male Fern (Dryopteris affinis)
• Limerock Ruby Coreopsis
• Thriller Lady’s  Mantle (Alchemilla mollis)

I did purchase a Jack Frost (Brunnera macrophylla) for Mom G’s garden. She had her eye on them during our 2010 Nursery Crawl, but the price tag kept her from purchasing one. Also, I found a fantastic nursery when I begin to tackle integrating flowering shrubs into the Lot.

The beans and cucumbers in our veggie beds are doing well. The beans have unfurled their arms and are beginning to climb up the twine strung between the top of the support and the soil level of the bed. The  cucumber are also ready to climb. I began work on a type of cradle I found a sketch of in Patricia Lanza’s Lasagna Gardening. I am reusing lengths of twine that were binding together bales of hay. To secure the ropes together, I looked up some knots and decided on the Sheetbend knot I found here. Hopefully I can finish the cradle this week and post a photo.

As a last note, the June 2010 issue of Wired has a fantastic article about gardening. Don’t Call It Gardening – The Wired Guide to Domestic Terraforming by Dominique Browning almost caused me to shoot cereal out of my nose this morning. It is definitely worth a read, especially for those gardeners that have a hefty does of Geek in their blood.