Create a Rain Garden

i  love  my  garden. being planted and plotted with a multitude of green designs...way before global warming....wait..that'd be global change now....
 
good morning all!!!  from sleepless in the moon garden.  rain is on it's way.. eventually

Thanks for the loony tune link- great with my breakfast coffee! I already have a "rain garden"- comes with the territory in North Wales.One of the plants listed as suitable is Jack in the Pulpit ....very rude - not in front of the children, please! It's - not sure if the American term is the same, a flasher! We just had more than a week of no rain, not a cloud in the sky- and no areoplanes either as they are all grounded due to an unpronouncably named volcano erupting clouds of ash in Iceland.(See link on this page) I'm loving it, we have nearby a military aircraft training base who usually do ear-splitting training exercises on fine days. cuukoo1 & me in the garden at strange hours- think it has something to do with the moon & the word lunatic! There is some folk-lore about planting seeds with consideration to the phases of the moon. My rule of thumb is to plant 4- "One for the rook, one for the crow, one to die & one to grow"

Its raining again in NYC, so I guess I really should think about suggesting a rain garden.
My little bat cave apartment has a garden outside.  Creating a rain garden, under the steps that lead to the rest of the building, is a viable concept.  My concern is how much would this cost and what happens to the rain garden if we have a long drought? 

This Spring has been tremendous in Tennessee. The mixture of tulips with the wildflowers is the perfect eyewash for sitting in my favorite Adirondack chair and watching the cats jump for bugs. I have a little creek that catches all the drain off and its banks are lined with Tennesse natural flora. I have an area that catches the run off from the house and that version of my rain garden is surrounded by fresh mint. We use it in iced tea, mint juleps, and my wife's beloved Hemingway style mojitos. Yes, "the same rain that wears down stone, can refresh each of us."

how's about we talk about this rain garden thing in the club car while we have our eggs benedict....it's saturday..

Sounds like a plan to me, CUUKOO. Eggs Benedict again today, yummy!

CUUKOO- I thought it was supposed to rain also, but it's beautiful & breezy- just did a load of towels & blankets & hung them on the line to dry.It is so peaceful to watch them blow & billow.
 
I guess when it does rain I will have a "rain" garden.....
 
Have a wonderful day my night owl friend.....
 
JULIA-- I'm counting on you to have a New York City kind of day. I in turn will have a small town in the south kind of a day for you. Do you like your tea w/ milk or w/out????? I'm hoping the shrimp man is somewhere in town today because I would love to get some shrimp. We shall see.....

The local free-range chickens are eating the sprung plants of Spring, so I think the supply of huevos will be adequate for the insatiable hunger yesterday's topic has created for them....

During the rainy season, my whole front yard might qualify as a good place for a rain garden.
 
We've gone off septic tanks and hooked up to sewers in the Florida Keys - well, we're in the process of doing so. One of my happiest days was hooking up to the sewer line and demolishing the septic tank. Technically I had this done; I'm not qualified to drive nails.
 
Both front and back yards have suffered from the construction so I'm replacing everything with a hardy Zoysia grass. In the dry season it will go dormant, in the rainy season it's beautiful. It's thick and tight, mostly weed free, needs no fertilizer or other chemicals, and stands up to my two Samoyeds.
 
We try to avoid collecting rain because of the mosquitoes and this grass is soft as down to walk on. So, although it may not qualify as a rain garden, it uses all the moisture it gets, prevents puddling, Ibis love to bug hunt in it, and the neighborhood kids love to tumble in it.
 
I love to watch.

Bebe, Julia: wouldn't it be great to trade places for a day or two? I live up in Maine, but love the South (lived there for 8 years), and NYC (my husband commutes to work there). I live in a little ship-building city on the coast.... Does that sound appealing?

BongoBern, my garden is much the same, a few naturalized ferns, hostas and flowers, trees, and a big expanse of grass for the grandkids to romp on, while i supply kite, bats , balls and frisbees. :)

Though it makes me cringe:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457939/

Well it might not be quite the same..... which character are YOU Stoney?

Loved the link to "Garden in the Rain." I forgot how much I liked the song. There's a jazzier version by Diana Krall that's worth listening to. I wish I had a garden.

   
Anyone but the woefully miscast Jack Black.

Stoney: Actors are supposed to stretch in their roles, even Jack Black has to play a human being sometime or other, or the casting directors will think he has no range.

At least King Kong and a T-Rex didn't appear...... ;)

jmr, I'm going to look that up on iTunes! I'll bet someone near you will share their garden....they're so much better shared! Even if they're just a bucket of tomato plants on a fire-escape!

Thanks for the tip JaxZ. Never thought of a shared Garden. No problem with the rain. Here's the Diana Krall version of Garden in the Rain:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXBCqyOF_G0&feature=related

jmr! W O W, that is one sultry song! It's going to be raining when my husband arrives home from work later this week; may have to meet him in the garden in, um, my trench coat.... ;)

cuukoo1 - Splendid idea, there could be an ozone infusing lightning storm on one side of the train and an infinite series of interlocking rainbows on the other..... peace out

Story about garden sharing: I have a very large garden & did a deal with two local gay guys that they could use space there in exchange for supplying me with vegetables. When I called an ambulance for my partner, who was having a mental health crisis, the ambulance man, trying to assess him, asked "What's been going on today?" my man replied " The fairies had a bonfire at the top of the garden." True, but who am I to argue? The ambulance man wrote "Expressing delusional ideation" in his notebook - my (now ex )man is fine if he remembers to take his medication.

All I can say is STRANGE, I don't get it.

Korthal you have a dot on your map very near me in Maine. did you live here at one time? Do you have a vacation home? You'll have to head the Sepia Train up here so I can deliver on that lobstah for everyone!

JAX Z:
No I have family up there. I'm in Ocean City Maryland. On the delmarva peninsula.
But you could send me lobsters. The price here is high.

We're going to have to find a middle-ground meeting place (or have it where whomever would be willing to take on directing it lives) for a Sepia Train get together. Wouldn't that be great? Then I can get my husband to help cary down 40lbs or so of lobster.... :)

I'm not quite sure how to do it by mail! I always hand-carry them (it's fun to watch passengers faces when they hear them rustling around in the overheads....).

That gives me a chuckle.
My friends hate hearing them in the pot. But they do love the stuffed lobster I serve.
I carry Maryland crab meat on my trips but there is no rustling around as they are picked. It's a Maryland thing.
Jumbo lump Maryland crab meat.
It goes with me on most of my trips since my son in Ct. and my Mom in Ill. can't get what I have.
The best crabs come from the Choptank River.
Maybe we could make a trade.

That sounds like a very brilliant idea. Since we both have an ample supply we can trade at our convenience!
We'd do that with lobster (carying it cooked and shelled) if we could but it really doesn't taste as good if it's not eaten right out of the seaweed steamer. Since your folks are here I can't teach you about lobster, but you can teach me about crab, I don't know much except that I like it! We'll have a tutorial. Anyone else interested? Where shall we meet?

Well Korthal, if you're still here, and we seem to be alone, can you explain how the map on our "eyedentity" section works? I'm embarrassed to admit I haven't been able to figure it out. :P

Ah well, empty, cavernous room.... I should paint it chartreuse and see if anyone notices. No, I'm too tired, I'll just move this chair over there............ and that sofa kitty-corner over here.

*click*

{[turning the light off}}

(turning the light back on)
 
I love that song...that's about all I have to say about gardens in the rain today, but that song link is a treasure. 
 
 

OUCH!    who moved that chair?

PARK4 ~ Thanks for leaving the light on...
There were so many robins in my yard today!
"Robin in the rain,
Such a saucy fellow.
Robin in the rain,
Mind your socks of yellow.
Running in the garden on your nimble feet,
Digging for your dinner with your long strong beak.
Robin in the rain,
You don't mind the weather
Showers always make you gay.
Bet the worms are wishing you would stay at home,
Robin on a rainy day -- don't get your feet wet,
Robin on a rainy day!"

I'm a big fan of Diana Krall, however, I prefer her renditions of "East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)" from "The Very Best of Diana Krall" 2007 and "I Was Doing Alright" from "From This Moment On" 2006...but that's just me...singing along with her in my car...

If April showers bring May flowers, what do Mayflowers bring?
Pilgrims, of course!

Kindlee, I can't believe you actually said that... but I'm glad you did or I would have.
 
We have robins here, this spring.  Which is a Big Deal because in the 7 prior years that we lived here, there were no robins.  I never lived in a place where the sight of a robin in the springtime wasn't something to remark on -- but none here, so the only remark was "Where'd the robins go?"  It took 7 years, but they've appeared, several of them. 
 
Which is, quite simply, remarkable.
 
 

RY: god help us but I think we think we share the same brain.  Sometimes.  I came back here with the intention to write "Eli, don't stub your toes on that chair," but it appears your already did.
 
Share the same brain.  Now there's a thought.  Scary thought. 
 
(Knock it off RY, I'm in your mind, and I think what you're thinking might be illegal.  Definitely immoral, probably illegal.  Stop that!)
 
 
I'm leaving the light on for any evening wanderers.  Sort of like that Tom Bodett fella who goes on about Motel 6:  "We'll leave the light on for you."  We don't want any more stubbed toes or things that go bump in the dark...

JAX Z:
I don't quite understand the map thing either but on your map there will be orange dots that indicate you have pictures from that location when you put a location on the photos that you upload. I think.
Most of the time mine is in the ocean but can be manipulated to find the east coast and other places I've been. Play with it.

PARK4:  I think that Custom was begun by Hera, who put a lamp in her window each nite so that her lover, Leander ... would have a guide-on to swim toward, as he made his way across the Bay each nite to join her in conubial bliss ....... Legend has it that one nite, while she was kvetching with the Pizza Delivery Boy at the front door, the wind blew out her lamp, Leander became confused and swam up and back trying to find her patio steps, got tired at length, and drowned ....... The Papers said that when he was found the next morning, two doors away, floating face down ... he had one hand gripped to the Gunnels of a neighbor's watercraft named, "Hell's Punt" ....... 

PARK PARK--- get out of the dark..... The robins must have been drawn to your magnetic personality & now they will never leave!!!!
 
KINDLEE--- That joke was so funny & so unexpected- I laughed out loud!
I came to Diana Krall late  & she is incredible. Not only is she fabulously talented on the piano, but her voice is liquid velvet. Watching her it all seems so effortless. And her incredible beauty--- seems a tad unfair, but good on her!  Jonathan Schwartz playes her alot on the Sinatra station. 
 

With all this talk of lobster and crab meat, the siren songs of Diana Krall and the lights flickering off and on...not to mention the furniture being moved about...I find myself mysteriously floating on the ceiling. Could someone please pull me down...?

Damn the torpedoes...full speed ahead.

Ahh...rudder amidships...steady as she goes.

I'm sorry...wrong crowd...I thought the sailors were in town tonight. Never mind...

IVAN--- If the pizza delivery boy was Italian, I can understand her kvetching.....
 
Especially if he had tumbling black curls & a Roman nose.....

Hells fire Bebe ....... Pizza isn't even Italian ....... The Pizza Boy was a Turk, and you know that things between the Greeks and the Turks have not always been Roses, in spite of curly locks or Noses .......

hazel leese,
 Imagining an accent and reading of the event 'at the top of the garden' had me smiling but "Expressing delusional ideation" made me laugh out loud.

Evidently, your EMTs are psych majors whereas ours seem to have attended uncle's college: in a bit of a panic after I called with slurred speech and wobbliness, my wife and daughter called an ambulance and raced home.

Not the worst idea since I don't care to ride with either of them even when they are not rattled.

I was seated on the low stone impatiens planter alongside the house head hanging when one of the ambulance guys inquired: "How we doin' Sir?"

I guess I just shrugged or something.

"Here," he said, "squeeze my finger."

"You're kidding-- right?"



 

Park4,

Years ago, after moving our old house (it was sold to us for one dollar) out here, we were without night crawlers for years owing to the compaction of the soil by heavy backfilling equipment.

No worms, no robins but they have always been about in heavy numbers and their snooty upward pointing beaks and peculiar reverse eyeliner notwithstanding, I
admire their work ethic.

They are the last to sing away the old day in the deep gloaming and the first to sing in the new... today at 4:00AM

On a related topic, we were beset all last spring, summer and into the fall by a deranged red wing blackbird who clung to the vines outside the center double-hung window in the middle of the nine-foot window seat bay and hammered at the glass.

This spring he returned and it was even more disturbing and harder to ignore.

I went out with a ladder and tools and removed all of the vines from that area... it got worse.

He took to either launching himself from a nearby bird feeder bracket or clinging to the cross member and pounding on the glass while crapping on the screen.

If a friend, neighbor or family member had come around with that problem, it would have been a simple matter of finding out when they were going to be away and stopping by to solve it.

I can't really say why it took as long as it did but, on wednesday last, after exhausting all of the preventive measures we could imagine including a flashing strobe-type light that really sent him into state of high-dudgeon, he was sent to his reward and peace and quiet once again rule.