I am catching Chris

Chris Guillebeau
SideHustle

He posted 964 today.
I am on 930.

I will be current before he hits 1000.

I downloaded two new (to me) podcasts to try:

And I have a couple weeks worth of Gretchen/Elizabeth, Liz/Sarah, Do the Thing, and The Moth.

And I still have major This American Life archives.

So I will not be out of podcasts when I am current with SideHustle.

And I have several audible books in my queue.

Rose of Sharon Trees

Rose of Sharon are in the hibiscus family.

I think the only difference between a (Rose of Sharon) tree and bush is how it was trimmed/shaped.

We have hundreds of bushes.

We have two trees, whose buds are different than the hedge. I think the trees are “doubles”.

Window boxes 2019

Bittersweet

We have three huge archways. 

I moved the clematis off the first one. I pitched the wisteria off the second one (that was a tough job, massive roots, but poor plant). And I replanted both with bittersweet, which had already been planted on the third. The kids sent me the bittersweet in the spring. 

First archway. One plant thriving, three not doing much that I can see.

2nd archway (5 plants that are doing so so)

3rd archway which is full, but has never bloomed

Rose of Sharon

I will try to remember to get a picture of the whole hedge when it is in full bloom. But posting at least these three now, so it is documented. 

This hedge is almost 50’. The blooms are shades of white, pink, purple. Several hundred Rose of Sharon in this hedge. 

It runs between us and one of our (two) backdoor neighbor’s. 

On our side it is just a hedge. On her side, it is the back of a border with Hosta and day lilies planted in front of it. I missed a picture of those in bloom, will try to catch them next year. 

Speaking of Milkweed

Lysimachia clethroides, gooseneck loosestrife

This is the first mild temperature day we have had in a long time, in the 80’s with 60% humidity. 

It is super nice in the shade. 

We have had rain steadily this week. So the ground is nicely hydrated. 

My neighbor has three groupings of Lysimachia clethroides, gooseneck loosestrife. One grouping has stragglers escaping. She offered them to me earlier in the summer. But it would have been a real struggle for them to survive a transplant in the high, dry heat. I told her I would get them as soon as the weather broke. 

And I was pretty worried her husband was going to pull them before I got over to dig. 

So late this afternoon, middle helped me dig. My mom helped us plant. 

They went in the far corner of our property. You have probably never seen this corner. 

They are on the backside of a planting bed (top picture).

In the second picture they are on the right side. On the left side is MINT. Most people do not plant mint. (I also have a milkweed patch.) And like the ivy and the Lilly of the valley in the front, it will be a battle of the invasives.

Blanket flower

We looked at this pool up-side-down over a chair, on the driveway, for at least a month. 

But it worked. All the Blanket Flowers survived. They are thriving.

When my husband was planting, he packed them in pretty tightly, because they did not look good. We put up the shade and I watered very carefully. I thought at best, a couple would survive. 

I will see what they look like next year and either spread them out in that same area or move a few to a new area. 

Coneflowers - none of these pictures are from my house

Coneflowers used to be purple. 

Now they come in a variety of colors. White. Red. Pink. Green. 

https://m.brecks.com/search?keyword=coneflower&oq=Coneflower

And they also come where one plant has many different colored blooms. 

Cheyenne Spirit Coneflower (below, I took this picture at the nursery.)

My (dog) neighbor planted traditional purple coneflowers on one side of her house. And white coneflowers on the other side of the house.

And she now has a combination of white and light purple on all the plants.

First photo/below, there are now a couple light purple blooms mixed in with the white, one is peaking out from under on the left side of the picture.   It will be interesting to see what color they are next year.

And the color (in the former purple ones) is now watered down and white ones are appearing, so not good at all, in my opinion. I hope she keeps them, I am super curious to see what they do next year.

Another neighbor planted mums at her old house. Each plant a different color. A variety of colors, and she ended up with sort of muddy/brown no color on any of them. 

I looked on line, but there did not seem to be a clear answer on why this sometimes happens. 

I have seen beds in pictures where they have every type/color of coneflowers planted together, but I would now be scared to do that. 

Sedum experiment

Sedum is planted in a bed near the street, under the Rose of Sharon Tree.

I filled in the sedum this spring. There were several plants already there, I dug/moved/added several more from other parts of the yard, and I bought several. 

It has been interesting because tiny sedum I planted this spring are now (all) the same size as the established sedum (which has been there for years). 

And it is all getting ready to bloom. New starts do not always bloom. 

In other words, I absolutely can’t tell which plant was what. It is now all mature size. 

I like my flower beds to be very full. And I do not want to have to weed. So I want edge to edge sedum on its end of the bed. As it grew this summer, it filled in pretty well. There are just two empty places that need additional plants. 

A friend told me I can just cut a piece of sedum off a plant, stick it in the ground, and it will grow. 

We have a couple days of rain forecast. So I stuck one piece of sedum in an opening/empty spot in the first picture. And four in a larger opening/empty spot in the second picture. 

And we will see what happens.

Day lilies and irises

In case you are wondering, I am trying to document my yard.

I know almost everything growing in it (except the yellow flowers that are not daisies, in the littler bed down by the street).

I think I missed getting a picture of these day lilies (below) in bloom.

The bed of day lilies is actually a bit bigger than this picture shows.

And this year I added miniature daffodils between the day lilies, so there should be good pictures next spring. Assuming nobody (🐿 🐰) ate them.


But I did get a picture of these irises in bloom. There are clusters of irises many places in various beds.

I am not sure if I ever said - but  irises come/packaged sort of unidentified. And I like “like things together”. It makes weeding much easier. I have large beds and it makes things very pleasing to the eye. I like the style of masses/groupings.

So one fall we planted all the irises. All over the front yard. And then they bloomed the following spring. And we dug and replanted them according to color. I never remember which color is where, but when they bloom, they are all the same in each section.

Orange honey suckle, nicknamed “the beast”.

It is very good that I planted this on a very sturdy wooden swing set, years ago. Because it is now massive and very heavy.

You can see the dog rope hanging in the middle. The pup can play tug of war with herself. She also likes to dead weight hang from it by her teeth. And she also swings on it (by her teeth, jumping up and catching it as high as she can.)

The orange honeysuckle self starts all over this end of the backyard. One just happened to start right by a leg on the other side. I tied it, and it is happily growing.

These pictures were taken right as the sun was setting

 The light was very interesting.

I think you might have to click on each picture to see it. 

This is a small section of a large bed that runs the length of the driveway. You might recognize the stump and the millstone. These are the only Black Eyed Susan’s in the yard. They nearly glow in the dark, if you click on this picture. (That is the neighbor’s house.) 

You can see two flower beds in the picture. Both are near the street. 

The bed in the back of the picture very large. It has probably 20 trees in it. It is full of Ivy on the street half, then Lilly of the valley on the half on the right edge of the picture. Those two each hold their own, equally invasive. On the edge, after the Lilly of the Valley are hundreds of jonquils (in the spring) and a dozen day lilies, in the summer. 

The bed in the front of the picture has ivy near the street, a row of boxwood, a birch tree, red coral bells, the mystery yellow flower, a Rose of Sharon tree and sedum.

This is the garage window. It is a large window and a huge window box. There are six big pots in the window box. I do not put dirt directly in any of the (3) window boxes. They all have pots. There are light yellow petunias. White salvia and white geraniums in those pots. The bed is planted with boxwood and pachysandra. 

Husker Red Penstemon (blooms in spring)

It self seeded from the neighbor’s yard, in a great spot behind the Black Eyed Susan’s. It is a very nice patch. I weed, water and let it go to seed, so it will come up again each year.

I am trying to catch him before he hits 1000

SideHustleSchool by Chris Guillebeau is a short daily podcast. I would guess he averages under 10 minutes (each day) most of the time. He does a special longer version occasionally.

I did not start listening to SideHustle podcast when he launched on 1/1/2017, instead I began listening to his archives, starting with the first one/in chronological order, early this summer.

I downloaded all of them to my phone.  So there have been hundreds of SideHustle podcasts in my queue, all summer. I saw that as a positive, a fun summer thing.

I enjoy him very much. I like his voice, his humor, his personality and his education.  I have not decided to start a home based business, I am listening because of the variety of topics. All kinds of gift ideas and interesting concepts.

So all summer long, when I was caught up on my other podcasts, I always had Chris Guillebeau available.

As of this moment, I am on SideHustle podcast #750 which he recorded January 2019. So I am in the current year (yeah!) and headed toward the home stretch. He recorded #954 today, I am hoping to be current before he hits 1000.

If you are wondering about the math, 1000 - 750 = 250 / 46 = about 5 1/2 podcasts a day, which is usually under an hour. Very doable even if I only listen when I am out walking dogs.

But when I am current, I will really have accomplished something fun and educational and current, this summer.

Audible queue

If a book (mentioned anywhere) looks good, I have just started getting it on audible. 

If I start it and do not like it, I simply return it. I think returns must be done within a year of purchase. 

So then I always have a few books in queue, ready/available.

It is rare that I see a book reviewed or mentioned in a podcast and think “that sounds good”. 

Most often I think the opposite. 

If it is a classic, many times I have already read it.

So when a title does sound good, rather than putting it on a list, which I might forget I even have, I simply use an audible credit and put it in my library.

Charging station, really good gift idea

https://authenticallyemmie.com/2019/07/everything-on-sale-day/

I love her pictures and posts.

I have never purchased anything she has featured, previously, but I jumped on the charging station when I read her post in July.

The station has been “charging central” on my kitchen island ever since.

Yes it has a lot of cords, but they are much more organized and visually appealing than the multitude of long cords that were there previously. (And I was always worried the pup was going to chew on one of the long cords.) It is nice to be able to set the device in the slots of the station. We have mostly iPhone cords attached, but I think there are two android which also work on our headsets.

The (now) 11 year old was here this past weekend and loved it. Her mom was here also and thought it was great.

I ordered one for them, also, shipped directly, they should have it Monday.

Honeysuckle (bush with the delicate white blooms)

This is a bush. It is growing in a hedge row on the side of the front yard. 

The row has a variety of things on it, we planted, and also some self starters. 

They are all big and green and totally blend together.

These white blooms are very small and delicate, I only noticed it,  because we were trimming branches in that section of the yard, right when it was blooming.

Anyone know what this is please?

Plant identification help please - they are not white daisies

Every year I wait for this to bloom, to confirm it is white daisies. 

By the next year I can’t remember what it was and I wait for white daisies.

This year, I PAID ATTENTION. 

And I was shocked it is not white daisies.

Looking thru pictures, once upon a time, there WERE white daisies in that area. 

But comparing the leaf, to my actual white daisies, it is different. 

Anyone know what this is please?

hibiscus (the big pink bloom in the middle of the back bed)

Weeding the long, back bed that is now mostly Hosta, earlier this summer, this looked like it might “be something”.

In other words, I did not pull it as a weed, I left it.

I thought it might be a peony, but comparing leaves to Peonies on side of house, no match. 

Yesterday it had a bud. Today it had a bloom. A big bloom.

Anyone know what it is? 

I am guessing in the hibiscus family.