Aug ’26: Garden guests

The breeze coming in the windows the other day was way too pleasant to ignore, so I took my peanut-butter sandwich and iced coffee to the garden — “just for a few minutes” — rather than eating at my desk. An hour or more later (I don’t even know, and this is why I don’t allow myself to go out there midday) after having taken dozens of photos, cross-legged in the grass and gravel, and cooed over numerous tiny flying visitors, I was giving myself a talking-to on the way back in the door. I heard myself literally say, “Karen, you don’t have time for that foolishness today.” Foolishness! Can you even? There’s no question I’ll have harsh words for myself come winter (well earned) about having not spent enough time enjoying the garden while I could, given how much work I’ve done to create it. But I’m proud to say there are plenty of other creatures out there enjoying it, with or without me.

While it’s collectively still got so much growing in to do, I spend every day slightly amazed at how far the future tiny forest has come in the time since the first plants went in the ground — just two years ago this month. It’s all still small enough to not look like much in photos, to humans, across the internet. But to those aforementioned tiny flying visitors, up close and personal, it’s literally a whole new world. This was not a parcel of land they would ever have stopped by before, containing not a single plant besides turf grass — no nectar, no perch, no shelter, no reason for them to come. Now, you can sit out there for 10 minutes and see monarchs and swallowtails, numerous moths whose names I don’t know, and dozens of varieties of bees and wasps. Not to mention the chipmunks, bunnies and, yes, the deer. 

I’ve now had two separate deer (or perhaps the same one twice) wander into the back garden while I was present to see it, and it’s such a sight. They look so big in the little garden, and make it look so small. They also make it look exponentially more beautiful, standing there amongst the evergreens and ironweeds, and I can’t help gaping, starry-eyed, at the scene — even though I know they’ll leave a trail of “damage” in their wake.

In less welcome garden visitors, I’ve now seen a slug in upstate NY. I was starting to think they didn’t exist! Can’t say this is a happy discovery.

And then there’s my bunny. I’m sure there’s more than one that frequents the place, but for the past several mornings, one of them has tucked itself into the same spot in my little fern grove (which has been growing like mad). It’s there every morning when I open the window: fern fronds blanketing its back from one direction, sedge from the other. It isn’t doing any harm in the process, and it is indescribably adorable. But I can’t get a photo through the screen, and it flees the second I go out there, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

I also have no pollinator photos — somehow only video, so I’ll put that on IG. And I do have pics of the forest’s progress, but I’m hoping to get some in better light in the coming days, and want to do a post with proper before-and-after pairings. So watch for that soon.

WEATHER
It’s been extremely nice here these past few weeks, causing some plants to slow down (sensing fall is coming) and others to speed up (preferring to grow in milder weather). The magnolia has even decided to bloom again. We’re talking cool mornings and evenings, windows open except in mid-afternoon, and even those afternoon highs hovering just on either side of 80°. In other words, summer weather I can get behind!
Highest high temp: 90º on Aug 6 & 7
Lowest high temp: 77º on Aug 25
Average high temp: 79°
Lowest low temp: 57º on multiple mornings
Highest low temp: 72º on Aug 6 & 7
Rain days: 3, plus some drizzle

GARDEN NOTES
The pleasant weather has also meant several unexpected August days spent planting! I’ve got most of the odds and ends that have been waiting in ‘the nursery’ (i.e., in the shadow of the trash cans) into the dirt, and swapped some other things around—

Planted this month:
• Sowed lettuce and kale seeds as noted in the midseason potager report
• Spring ephemerals! A few new tiny gems for late winter — I’ll post more about this separately.
• A sprig of unidentified goldenrod, in the back hedgerow, along with more switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) and a New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) that have been languishing by the cans, plus trios of little late purple asters (Symphyotrichum patens) and even littler nodding onion (Allium cernuum) from the farmers’ market.
• And a lilac I’ve had in its nursery pot for two years! Finally granted a spot in the ground.

TO-DOs
My mom is coming to visit! I didn’t know if my parents would ever get to see our NY house and garden, but they are coming — and soon. So I want to get the garden as presentable as it’s capable of being. Without doing any actual instant-gratification buying and planting. So I guess I just mean weeding and tidying, finally cleaning up the last of the detritus from the courtyard project that’s still lingering in the driveway.

And I need to sow more leafy greens for successive harvesting until the frost. Fall is already in the air!