Despite the weeks when we don't make it up to water the gardens as often as we should and despite a bumper crop of Japanese beetles descending upon the plants this year, the gardens of Oak Hill are especially beautiful. The vegetable garden promises a good crop and the roses have never been so lovely.

Hostas Huge and Healthy

The oldest hosta bed at Oak Hill is looking amazing this year what with the large amount of rain that fell in June and given that they range in age of between three and seven years in age. In fact, many have had to be moved and some I have been able to divide already. This first bed is mingled with astilbes and wormwood, along with some fast fading bleeding hearts. With the pine needle mulch and the size of the hostas, weeds are finding it increasingly difficult to compete for space... yipeee! A large amount of the hostas in this bed are from the gardens of Herb Hidu of Sheepscot and given my love for the larger species, it is dominated with Blue Angel, Krossa Regal, Elegans, Sagae and Sum and Substance, although many other varieties have found their home in this bed as well.

Well, My "Sheep" is Missing Its Head
One of my great pleasures at the Lodge is to give the grandkids tractor rides. What I really want is a Gator, but since that is a bit out of budget for now, Patti found a tractor for me that her friend Jack was getting rid of as the mower deck had rusted off. It is a Husquvarna, oldie but a goodie, and it didn't take me long to paint it from orange to white. My intent is to make a trailor pulling sheep...afterall, what eats grass better than a sheep! This will also no doubt, keep Eric off of my tractor! This past weekend I cut the head for it, but didn't want to attach it until I add its leather ears, so have brought it home to do so. Meanwhile, it serves well without its head to whisk the children through all the garden paths, making stops at all the little outbuildings.

Bugs Beware!
You are about to be foiled! The Lodge is soon to have a new screenhouse thanks to Jess and Pete. They had hauled a trailer packed with what once was a screen porch on the side of their house before their new addition was added, in a huge crate all the way to Maine for us. The original design was three sided, but we were to construct a four sided structure, which meant a lot of planning what would fit where and whether the plan could be completed with the screen panels and railings provided. Armed with graph paper and plenty of erasers, we set out to design it. We managed with the help of spacers, to find a home for every panel and all but two of the spindles. New lengths of hand rails were purchased to close in two gaps in the rails. All that remains to be done is the hip roof. If I do say myself it looks beautiful in a very "Williamsburgesque" kind of way! Can't wait to complete the roof and slide the screen panels into place... then we will have a "bug-free zone" for evening cocktail hour.