Sharp-eyed photographer Jeff G:
Top photo: a dahlia.
Second photo: Same dahlia in a different pot getting more sun. I moved it here to improve the color. In full south light all day it is a washed out yellow. The red shows up when it isn’t in full sun all day.
Third photo: The flocks that have seeded themselves over the last few years from one plant.
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Commentor Ben Cisco worried that he might have to make an exception to his ‘no interference’ gardening theory, and do some hydrangea pruning in self defense:
Yup, they’re a wee bit out of hand…
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What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
OzarkHillbilly
;-)
OzarkHillbilly
Sunday- Mostly sunny, with a high near 84. Northwest wind 3 to 8 mph.
Sunday Night- Partly cloudy, with a low around 60. North wind around 6 mph becoming calm in the evening.
Monday- Mostly sunny, with a high near 81. Calm wind becoming northeast around 6 mph in the afternoon.
Monday Night- Mostly clear, with a low around 58. Calm wind.
Tuesday- Sunny, with a high near 81.
Tuesday Night- Mostly clear, with a low around 58.
Wednesday- Sunny, with a high near 83.
So yeah, enjoying the weather is what I’m going to be doing in my gardens.
Van Buren
That typo gave me an idea-I want to plant phlox next to Shepards Crook.
HeartlandLiberal
My wife has reluctantly become a farmer’s wife, and harvests the squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and cucumbers. While I sit in my recliner awaiting surgery next week for scheduled lumbar disc fusion operation. 2.5 hours average time for the surgery. I probably I will dream of the jackals of Balloon-Juice while under. I always have to warn the nurses and anesthesiologist ahead of time that I have a track record of being, well, very colorful and profane in my language when coming out of anesthesia.
I sure as hell hope this works, because the past three months have been unrelenting pain. I have been unable to walk and exercise and have gained seven _)(*)* pounds.
raven
@HeartlandLiberal: Good luck to you. I had lumbar “tethered spinal cord” surgery last month. The worst part was the 24 hrs flat on my back post op but it is just a faded memory now.
OzarkHillbilly
@HeartlandLiberal: Good luck. My own back pain has mostly relented.
JPL
The pictures of the plants and flowers are lovely. My own limelight hydrangeas are overtaking the yard, even though I chopped them back in the spring. Hydrangeas are beautiful though.
JPL
@HeartlandLiberal: Good luck with the surgery and even better luck with the healing.
MagdaInBlack
@HeartlandLiberal: I’ve been told I’m a wee bit combative coming out of anesthesia.
I wish you good results.
MagdaInBlack
On the garden related side. I found a Luna moth at work this week. At home, Rosa the Giant Geranium is still producing, 11 blossoms and buds right now. Pearl the Squirrel and the Gang of 8 sparrows are here for sunrise breakfast.
PAM Dirac
My little vineyard is looking really good. I’m getting better at shoot thinning and positioning and cluster thinning so I think I could get the best harvest yet. Veraison is starting, which means harvest starts in about 5 weeks. It also means that the grapes are starting to become attractive to deer, birds, and all manner of thieves. Most of the netting went up yesterday and the rest will be up today. We have had only trace amounts of rain (weather station says 0.03 inches) in the last two weeks and there is no rain at all in the current 10 day forecast, which is really good for the grapes, but not so much for the rest of the yard. I got some new jacketed fermenters and a glycol chiller so I will be able to do cool temperature controlled fermentations of the white wines. Looking forward to a good vintage, but as one of the local growers has said, “All the surprises from here on in are bad ones”
Lapassionara
I didn’t know phlox would reseed. That would be great. I planted one I purchased this past spring in a spot that needed color. It would be wonderful to get more of them.
ETA without buying them
Mary G
Weather going to get up to 80 degrees on Monday and 81 on Tuesday. Closest to a heat wave we’ve had so far. Probably get a massive heat dome for Thanksgiving/Christmas.
debbie
Hydrangeas must run free!
debbie
I thought creeping phlox was the only kind of phlox. Learning every day!
NotMax
@Mary G
Winds up to 50mph predicted here for today. Digits figuratively crossed for the power continuing uninterrupted.
raven
@NotMax: From the Alaska quake?
Gvg
I have planted a baby hydrangea hedge a few weeks ago. I live on a corner with a big oak tree shading the street corner and no lawn or sun in that part of the yard. I like ferns and azaleas and other shady plants though so I was gradually filling it up. However it’s a slope down to the street and especially during our twice a year leaf fall, my leaves and mulch want to migrate down into the street and fill the storm drains. I needed a border to slow down and catch the leaves, and I am on a budget.
My mother has lots of big grown up hydrangeas and they root easily. My sister gave me three purchased ones for pet sitting which got me thinking. I rooted about twelve cuttings fro mom, and planted all of them along my shady corner. The baby’s are just a few inches high but doing fine. I need a few more to have the whole corner hedge started. Potentially it should look gorgeous in maybe 2 years. I will go get a few more cuttings today.
The tropical gingers and agapanthus ‘Royal Ana’ are blooming. I have white, yellow and red butterfly gingers and several shades of curcomas. I should thin and reset some after they bloom. Almost all were pass along plants from relatives or friends. I really love deep blue agapanthus, but this spring I planted some white ones in deep shade to brighten up the corner. In Florida’s bright sun, pale flowers don’t show, but they are better for shade.
NotMax
@raven
Nah, all we received were a few oceanic ripples which barely met that description.
Not that I’m complaining, mind you.
;)
Gvg
@debbie: There are about 50 species native to the US. Many of the less known kinds are really beautiful. The local species may be better suited to growing really well in your area. A really healthy plant can look a lot more beautiful than one that is struggling, even if that same plant is wow somewhere else. Check your local native plant society. Most of the US has at least 3 or 4 native phlox species. Go ahead and try the non local species too. Phlox are great. I love P. paniculata
satby
Good morning, take 2. Nice pictures everyone; and Ben, pruning is painless ?.
Got up at 4:30, took the dogs out, fed the cats, had a cup of coffee waiting for dawn, then fed the outside kitties as it was barely light. Halfway into my second cup of coffee had to go back to bed for another 90 minutes of sleep. It’s been drastically cooler and less humid, and should stay that way for a few days, so today will be a weeding day as soon as most of the dew is dried off the grass.
satby
@Gvg: They seed and grow wild in ditches around here, but they’ve always died when I tried to grow them. I like them, but I suspect it’s because I keep trying to grow hybrids (an orange variety) instead of native pinks and purples.
Betty
@HeartlandLiberal: Best wishes for a successful outcome. As a fellow lumbar stenosis person, I can feel your pain.
Gvg
@satby: The hybrids I have tried haven’t usually done well for me either. I suspect some of the cheaper packaged plants are not healthy. Pests and viruses, you know. I just found lots of scale on some I planted last year, which I have never seen before. I sprayed, but if it doesn’t clear up I will shovel prune. I have been thinking about buying from the phlox specialists or other high quality mail order. There is also rooting cuttings from people with healthy plants around me. I have seen good ones growing here, but haven’t managed it myself yet.
satby
@HeartlandLiberal: very best wishes for a full recovery. My mom had that surgery decades ago when it was probably less refined, and it helped considerably.
A Ghost to Most
Our San Marzanos (I care!) and heirlooms (not so much) are loaded with tomatoes. I grew them from seed under my spare grow light. Five Brussels sprouts are cranking as well. The award winning gardener behind us (the original owners of our house) seems a bit put out.
sab
I love those hydrangeas. My postalperson left us a note that mail delivery would be interrupted if we didn’t clear the front walk, so goodbye goldenrod (and the birds and bees that like them.) They fall over every time it rains, so postalperson has a valid point.
JPL
@A Ghost to Most: Good job! ?
Kay
I tried this zinnia this year and it is really something. Compact, bushy plants just loaded with blooms. I only (early) seeded 6 plants and stuck them in with the vegetables to see what they did but they’d be great as a border. There are 3 different colors in the mix so they’d be perfect in a container. They looked like nothing for all of June but they really took off in July. They’re too short for cut flowers.
WaterGirl
@JPL: I bought two “little lime” hydrangeas many years ago, and they have been well behaved, but this year one of them said fuck that shit and it is HUGE.
jnfr
We’re having late day rains this weekend, and my yard is more like Missouri than Colorado, it is so humid. Hard to believe that just beyond the Divide everything is in a massive drought.
satby
UGH! Got about 1/4 of the worst weeds cut down / pulled and found poison oak amidst the clover around my roses. So now I’m DONE and inside and scrubbed down. Fingers crossed I don’t get a rash. UGGGH!
WaterGirl
@satby: Ugh is right! Fingers crossed.
J R in WV
Wife bought a “climbing hydrangia” some years back, and I put up a trellis thingy for it to climb. It is huge, thicker than my thick wrist at the ground, makes the trellis invisible under a giant green mound. Has never bloomed the first tiny bloom.Only good thing is that it isn’t spreading by seed without blooming.
On the other hand, tall wild phlox is blooming along the farm roads, beautiful pink flowers. Locally the tiger lilies are called ditch lilies, very prolific in early summer and still going strong all around us.
Ruckus
@HeartlandLiberal:
Good Luck!
That unrelenting pain thing is not fun. The pain doesn’t even have to reach the upper levels of the pain scale, after a while, middle level unrelenting pain just sucks donkey balls and can easily drive you crazy.
Ruckus
@raven:
24 hrs? Damn!
I had to lay flat on my back unmoving for 6 hrs after my angiogram and that was tough enough. 24 hrs? As I said Damn!
Ruckus
@Mary G:
Amazing the difference a few miles makes in socal.
I’m just below the foothills, in the eastern edge of the San Gabriel Valley and it’s been low to mid 90s every day for two weeks, with another week of the same. It even rained here one day last week.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: Imm has the most gorgeous white climbing hydrangea. I would kill for that, but he has blooms all over it. Maybe it has been busy making greenery and the blooms will start at some point?
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
We thought that too, but it’s been 10 or 12 years at least… I’ve cut it way back a couple of times, trying to keep it off the stucco, which it can probably tear off the building no problem. Huge mound of greenery… never a bloom. nothing.
Geminid
@J R in WV: Some rock phosphate might help induce blooming. There are also plenty of super phosphate products out there that serve the same purpose.
I’ve applied a Plantone product with aluminum sulfate to a customer’s hydrangeas, but that was mainly to make the blossoms bluer.
sab
@satby: At least you have your jewellweed soap. I have been using it all summer as my shower soap because I get into all kinds of things that make me itch. I use fels naptha for the initial poison ivy scrub, but I love your soap for the low-level general itches that are part of my life in summer.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: Ask Imm about it in the next garden chat.