I have returned!

Posted on January 1, 2023 by John Kevin Hickey

Howdy All.  I know it has been a while since my last post but, as you are aware, life can get hectic sometimes.

I’ll be honest, during my recent sabbatical I seriously pondered closing down the MrVintageMan blog.  My primary goal, when I first started this blog, was to improve my writing skills with an eye toward becoming a novelist or a freelance journalist.  I’ve always had a dream of becoming a published writer.

But as time has gone by, I’ve come to realize that while I love the idea of being a writer, I do not have enough desire to put in the time or effort of actually becoming a writer. 

Nevertheless, I have decided to continue with this blog because I feel that I still have pearls of wisdom to impart and, more importantly, pearls of wisdom to be gained from others.

Growing old with dignity

Getting older isn’t easy; in fact, as has been said by others wiser than me, “growing old ain’t for wimps”.  The About this site statement at the top right corner of this blog says, “Finding purpose and happiness on the downhill side of life”.  While I have written about traveling, gardening, fitness, books and more, I do not feel like I have addressed why and how these things can add purpose and happiness to the autumn years of life.

So, I aim to correct this.  I won’t be making drastic changes to the way I write, but I am going to try and wrap my writing in and around the theme of “finding purpose and happiness on the downhill side of life”.  Wish me luck

Simplifying

That being said, you may notice that this blog is not quite as cluttered as it was.  I’ve removed most of the pages from the top of the blog, and I have removed a few widgets from the side.  Hopefully, this cleaner layout will make reading this blog easier and more enjoyable.

Look forward to hearing feedback.

In the meantime, you can expect to have more consistent posts from here on out.

In the meantime, I wish you all a Happy New Year!

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Summer of our gardening discontent

Posted on August 1, 2022 by John Kevin Hickey

A gardener is one who attempts to achieve a vision in defiance of nature. And nature likes to throw out roadblocks and obstacles to remind the gardener just who is in charge. Every year there are challenges that the gardener must overcome. And every year it is something different.

Last year the Vintage Garden was attacked by caterpillars. The year before that it was hordes of ravenously hungry bunnies. This year has seen a series of whammies making life in the Vintage Garden a cycle of hair-pulling frustration.

A wet and cold winter gave way to a very hot and very dry summer. We went seven weeks without measurable moisture here at the Vintage homestead. I had to apply supplemental water twice to the borders over the course of June and July, or else even the drought tolerant plants would have suffered.

Then the heatwave that hammered large parts of the country made its presence known here. Temperatures in the high 90s and low 100s for several weeks throughout most of July made for a miserable garden and an even more miserable gardener.

Oh, and MrsVintage and I both came down with Covid at the same time.

Fortunately, things are starting to look up. The temperatures have dropped down closer to the seasonal average. In fact, we had several days below the average, as much as 10 degrees below the average!

We have also received 2 1/2 inches of rain in the past week or so. True, 1 1/2 inches of that rain came during a 30-minute deluge, with winds that ripped branches from trees and rainfall so heavy that it overwhelmed the storm drains causing flash floods nearby. But rain is rain, and I’ll happily take it however it comes.

Additionally, Mrs. Vintage and I have recovered from Covid.

A plague of locusts

The latest insult to injury, though, is that we have been swarmed by locusts. Ok, they’re not really locust, just grasshoppers. But I have never seen so many grasshoppers here at the Vintage Garden. There are thousands of them! And they are devastating everything in their path.

I don’t know if there are so many because of the heat and drought, or if they just happened to discover the Vintage casa and decided to partake of the vegetable smorgasbord set before them.

Below is a closeup of one the little bastards.

To give you an idea of the devastation, most years the trellis in the picture below is covered by hops and clematis vines. When covered, it looks beautiful, and the lush vines help keep the front room cool by blocking the sun’s rays.

The grasshoppers devoured the upper portions of the vines, and it looked so awful, that MrsVintage went out and cut the vines down by 2/3rds.

Sad, isn’t it?

We could spray bug killer to get rid of the grasshoppers, but such sprays are indiscriminate. Sure, they’ll kill the grasshoppers, but they’ll also kill bees, ladybugs, praying mantises, worms and microscopic organisms leaving the garden more like a bug version of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Those sprays aren’t too healthy for humans either.

So, we’ve resorted to using a homemade spray of water, apple cider vinegar and dish soap in hopes it will repel the greedy little buggers (pun intended). Time will tell.

If anybody has any suggestions for getting rid of grasshoppers that doesn’t involve the bug version of VX gas, I am all ears.

On the plus side, I haven’t seen any of the furry, four-legged locusts (bunnies) around much this year. I’ll take that as a win.

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Spring in the garden: observations and a retrospective

Posted on June 21, 2022 by John Kevin Hickey

Spring of 2022 is now in the history books, for today is the first day of summer. I’ve decided to welcome the arrival of summer by taking a look back at the show the garden put on over the spring months.

What a show it was!

But before we get to the pictures of the show, please bear with me as I post a few rambling observations of said garden.

Death in the garden

Plants, like all living organisms, sometimes die. Some die from old age, some die from disease, and some die for no apparent reason at all. C’est la vie.

Winter can sometimes be especially brutal on the garden.

Here along Colorado’s Front Range, we had slightly weirder than usual weather during autumn & winter. Autumn was very warm and dry, a pattern that continued well into December. I was seriously worried that we wouldn’t get any snow at all. Then January arrived, and we got hit by snow every 8 days or less for two months straight!

Taking that into consideration, I am fairly pleased at how few plants of my plants perished over the colder months. By my tally I only lost two ornamental grasses, one butterfly weed (not really a weed), several blanket flowers, and one ‘Ironweed’. The last one doesn’t surprise me much. I planted it in mid-autumn, and I don’t think it had a chance to get established in time for the cold weather.

At one with nature.

A pair of robins had a nest somewhere in or near the VintageGarden. I never actually saw the nest or the chicks, but I know there was one nearby because the parents were extremely aggressive, almost suicidal, at chasing away possible threats.

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

I watched them swoop and dive at a hawk and until it finally flew away. A cat in my neighborhood likes to perch on my fence so it can survey its kingdom. These robins relentlessly divebombed it until it slunk away in shame.

Plus, they were pure hell on the squirrels, which amused MrsVintage and I to no end.

Yet they never attacked me once. Were they able somehow to sense my benevolence? I would be out in the yard watering or pulling weeds, and they completely ignored me. I would lounge in my hammock or in a chair on the patio, and the robins would get surprisingly close to me. Not pigeons eating popcorn at my feet close, but they would sometimes get to within 10 feet of me.

Not an earth-shattering observation. I just thought it was interesting.

On with the show

Today may be the first official day of summer, but here at the Vintage domicile, the temperatures have been in mid-summer mode for the past three weeks. You might be thinking that the early onset of hot temperatures must’ve diminished the garden display, but you would be wrong. The spring garden was a smash hit!

‘Princess Irene’ tulips and the sky-blue flowers of false forget-me-not (Brunnera) provide a study in contrasts of color and form.
Blue columbines and irises in stately harmony
Chocolate flower in bloom, so named because the flowers give off a chocolate aroma. Either I need more of these plants clustered together, or else the fragrance is muted, because I certainly didn’t notice a chocolate aroma. The daisy-like flowers are a cheerful sight though.
More blue harmony, except in a deeper hue. ‘Grand Mesa’ penstemon and an un-named iris hold sway in the birdbath garden.
Different angle of the scene above, but I actually took this picture to show the orange flower in the foreground. That’s a California poppy. I sowed California poppy seeds last spring, and I was quite disappointed when not a single one germinated. Imagine my surprise when I saw this one in bloom this spring. Several more have germinated, including in areas where I know I didn’t put them. Hmm.
The old veggie garden is filling in quite nicely, don’t you think? ‘Coronation Gold’ yarrows, Jupiter’s beards, ‘May Night’ salvias and catmints all mingling together happily.
A late spring snowstorm flattened MrsVintage’s peony, even though I have it in a hoop. The flowers are all setting bloom on the ground. The plant itself is ok, just a weird display this year.
I’m attempting to grow tomatoes in buckets again this year. So far, so good.

Plant sick bay

I’ve had to rescue a few plants, such as this tiny variegated feather reed grass, that have not been doing well where I initially planted them. I’ve been putting them in places where I can keep an eye on them and nurse them back to health. Hopefully, they will all recover and next year I will be able to put them in locations more conducive for them.

Speaking of rescuing, two of my shrubs were nearly destroyed by rabbits last year. I put hardware cloth around both shrubs in early spring this year, and so far it looks like they may stage a comeback.

‘Tor’ spirea is bouncing back nicely
This ‘Low-mound’ black chokeberry is also recovering, but at a slower rate.

The two tubes of hardware cloth are a little distracting, but what can you do? Rodents are going to…rodent, I guess. I will probably keep the hardware cloth around them all the way until next spring. Hopefully by then the shrubs will have grown large enough so that the damn rabbits won’t bother them anymore.

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