From our indefatigable WaterGirl:
Some of the flowers that are still blooming in my garden as of today (October 3rd).
At top: The white mandevilla blooms through the fence, so I get to see if from my side, anyone going down the street see it from there, and my neighbor gets to enjoy it from her side.
My peach tropical hibiscus is going great guns – we have had such crazy weather that it seems like it’s a month behind; it usually would have peaked a month ago.
Even the hydrangea in my round bed are unusually happy for October.
Virtually every stem has a baby bud on it, and I so hope they all get to come out before we have our first freeze. I’d say there are close to 100 little blooms.
The pink hair grass is one of my favorites this time of year; you can probably tell because I took pictures of two different plants. I have 7 of them at various spots in the back yard.
The yellow flowers are rudbeckia and they are technically zone 6, but some years they come back for me in the spring. The green-yellow ground cover around them is Creeping Jenny.
I have two Rose of Sharon pictures – the pink one is my more established plant and the white with the rose center is my new baby Rose of Sharon. Sending those in spite of the Rose of Sharon haters on BJ; I think they are beautiful and happy plants, so I don’t understand the hate.
I may have sent photos of the purple Mexican Petunia before. By June or so it makes a hundred purple flowers a day, which all open every morning and fall off around dusk, and the next morning there’s a whole new set. Repeats daily until winter.
Last but not least is a new pot of pansies for fall, and a stem from the bleeding heart vine next to it is resting on the pot. The little white flowers with the pop of red are bleeding heart vine.
***********
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
laura
What’s going on in my garden right now – city police, sheriff’s deputies and K9 are searching my backyard and our neighborhood has been instructed to lock doors and windows and call 911 if the suspect breaks in.
Baud
I was a late bloomer. Pretty pictures.
@laura:
Oh my. Suspected of what?
mrmoshpotato
@laura: ?
raven
@laura: Yikes!!
raven
The modified dog parade is today. Athens won’t allow any events (other than 92,000 at dawg games) so the parade has been changed to just the costume contest at an outdoor venue. Here’s the auction fundraiser just for ya’ll to look at. Check out the dog sculpture !
Baud
@raven:
I can’t believe they favor dawgs over dogs.
debbie
@laura:
Well, that’s a lovely way to start the day!
Ken
@debbie: It can only get better, I suppose.
raven
@Baud: It’s weird here. Athens-Clarke County has a very progressive government and has had strict covid rules from the start. UGA doesn’t answer to the city-county, they are governed by the governor who don’t believe in no masks or vaccines.
OzarkHillbilly
@laura: Fall Fugitive Season.
Baud
@raven:
How about that Bama loss? You must be thrilled.
OzarkHillbilly
Nice pics WaterGirl. I’d like to get some of that Pink Hair grass.
Raven
@Baud: I’m much more thrilled at beating Auburn like a drum for the 10th straight year. That We’re Number One shit only matters in January!
Geminid
Thank you Watergirl for the pretty pictures, especially those of the Rose of Sharon. I really like that little tree (and I don’t have one of my own so I don’t deal with the offshoots which may make people downrate them). Rose of Sharon are getting scarce now, and the ones I see are usually old plantings near modest country homes. Now, the sleek Crepe Myrtle has overtaken Rose of Sharon as a summer blooming tree.
Immanentize
@raven: Patti Smith is your neighbor?
I love the food bin idea — great for a doggie funder
Immanentize
Water girl, what great pictures and beautiful flowers. I can’t believe your plants are still going in (looks at calendar) mid-October! If you are not in zone 6 or higher, what zone are you in??
debbie
None of the yards around here have much in the way of flowers, other than pansies and mums. But I remember hydrangeas lasting longer than they have this year. Maybe they all went nuts with the flowering too early? ??♀️
Betty
The longer season seems connected to climate change. A cousin in northern Pennsylvania recently posted a picture of his lilac re-blooming. Good news, bad news.
Kalakal
What lovely photos. Thank you.
I love mexican petunias, unfortunately I they are just so invasive.
Our garden is a tale of 2 halves, part is as normal and at the moment has some nice Angels Trumpets and a Tibuchina strutting their stuff, the other part ( anything within 6 feet of the house) is a blighted mess due to ( much needed) painting & repair. I think it looks worse than it really is
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: We were always in zone 5, but with climate change we are now considered 5.5.
I, too, am surprised at all the happy blooming, even today!
Geminid
@Betty: My friend Joan took advantage of the longer growing season in central Virginia to harvest a nice crop of sweet potatoes this year. That used to be a more southern plant.
WaterGirl
@Kalakal: Mexican petunias are not invasive here. I plant 3 new ones every year, and I pull them out in late fall / early winter when they stop blooming. Each plant gets huge, but it never spreads.
WaterGirl
@laura: Wow, that’s like something from a movie. Do we know who they are looking for?
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly:
I have ordered it from 3 different places over the years. Two sucked, Park Seed was good.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: we have gone from 5.5 to 6.5 in 20 years here in near-costal Mass.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: Yeah, it’s crazy. The pink hair grass is a fall bloomer, but at least three of those plants are tropical, and they are still blooming here in mid-October.
Gvg
Are you saying that the hydrangea, hibiscus and mandeville have just started blooming? They bloom late spring or early summer here and keep going till frost
Kristine
Lovely photos, WaterGirl.
Here in far NE Illinois, we’re experiencing the warmest nights since they started keeping records, low 60s when we should be seeing 50s and even 40s. That could change in the coming week, but in the meantime I’m delaying the furnace check until it cools off. Who wants to test a furnace when it’s 70+ degrees?
We have been getting some rain at least. Not enough to pull us out of drought, but the lawns are greening again and I even have mushrooms popping up here and there. The leaves are changing and falling, though. It’s as though my yard is saying ‘this year’s had it—see you in the spring.’ The major chore remaining is the mulching of the leaves. That task usually stretches well into November but due to the drought a lot of leaves have already come down. I may deal with them after it cools off.
Kim Walker
My balcony garden is till going up here near Ottawa. Lobelia, impatiens, allysum, torenia, victoria salvia – all of it. Bees are still humming all over the salvia. Daytime temperatures in the coming week are forecasted to be in the high 60s/low 70s, nights are down to the 50s. I’m liking it!
WaterGirl
@Gvg: Sorry if I wasn’t clear. They have been blooming all summer! it’s just that they seem to be happily blooming later than they normally would. I think the tropicals hit their peak way later than usual this year. So they are still going strong rather than having a few final blooms.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: Thanx!
Jerzy Russian
@Kim Walker:
In my half-awake/half-asleep state I read that as “my baloney garden”, and I got to thinking that it has been nearly forever since I had a baloney sandwich.
jeffreyw
Mrs J has a volunteer canna coming up. She has no memory of planting them in this spot. I don’t remember seeing any growing there, either.
Kalakal
@WaterGirl: I think you’ve hit the secret with the pull them out and start again bit.
When I’ve grown them I made the mistake of letting them be perennila, They looked great, huge plants, lots of blooms but they were rather Napoleonic in attitude
Kim Walker
@Jerzy Russian: Sometimes a nice baloney sandwich on gummy white bread is just the thing to make you feel young again.
RaflW
We got invited to a friend’s family cabin (super-classic one room + screen porch, just heaven in it’s simplicity. Well, two rooms now because they built a small outbuilding for more sleeping space and … woah … plumbing! added about 15 years ago). Anyway.
The cabin is 2 hrs NNE of the Twin Cities. We’ve been in drought most of the year, but it’s finally been raining. And holy cow, the mushrooms! I know nothing about them, and neither did Catherine. She messaged a couple friends to see if any were perhaps edible, but we didn’t risk it given lack of knowledge. She knows chanterelles, and those weren’t up.
But in some areas of the woods we tramped, there were like 50 mushrooms per square yard. I said, knowing nothing “it’s like every spore that would have produced sometime in the growing season just woke up from the rain and all said ‘now or never!'”The colors and variety were wild. In one spot on the trail there were five mushrooms in a row, inches apart, and each was a different color and structure. So pretty and strange!
Also in late blooming: It was 75 and sunny, and a bit muggy yesterday. For that far north on Oct 9, it may be the coming ‘new normal’ but it’s weird. What did we do? We swam in the lake! Maybe the water was 60? 58? The nights have been cool for weeks now. There was some hootin and hollerin, but I loved it. My Swedish blood said “this is fine” and I just quietly swam and floated while my friends and partner jumped in and ran out a couple times. Definitely a memorable cabin-close weekend!
OzarkHillbilly
@RaflW: Hen of the Woods are common and easily identified mushroom. Also:
8 Things To Know About Hen of The Woods Mushrooms
Very tasty.
laura
@WaterGirl: there was a car crash on the freeway and two people fled, climbed up and over the partially constructed sound barrier and into our wee neighborhood. The neighbors accross the street caught a partial view on their security cameras and thinks they called friends for a getaway car and pulled a skedaddle. 2 am sirens are fairly common on a Saturday night, but rarely does it involve multiple squad cars and multiple le agencies at our house for several hours.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: It looks good there!
WaterGirl
@laura: Wow. What’s the point of fleeing from a car crash? Presumably you can be linked to the crash either through your vehicle or a rental.
Unless you were a fugitive to begin with, I don’t understand what is gained from fleeing?
I guess maybe if you were drinking, the thought is that by the time they find you, they can’t prove you were over the legal limit? But fleeing the scene of an accident is a crime, so wouldn’t that be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire?
debbie
@jeffreyw:
Love them! We’ve got yellow, orange, and red ones around here. I didn’t know bulbs could volunteer.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
I can think of several reasons… Kids joyriding in a “stolen” car that belongs to someone’s mom; Someone doing a drug deal in a “borrowed” car; Someone aware of an existing warrant for their arrest for something more serious than a car crash runaway…
But while you’re correct that it doesn’t make a lot sense to run away from an auto wreck, some people don’t think much or well under the best circumstances, and after wrecking on a freeway at what was probably considerable speed, not thinking at all is the most likely suspect.
Hope they weren’t running away from people they injured in their joyride!!
ETA: Years ago Wife put in a climbing hydrangea, which is now a huge ball of greenery even after being cut back pretty hard a couple of times. I can’t tell you what color it might bloom, it has never showed the least sign of blooming. Anyone have suggestions as to what might be going on?
It is in a partial shade location, doing great but for not blooming.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: You should ask Imm about that. He has the most gorgeous climbing hydrangea – catch him in a garden chat and ask him.
Imm’s actually blooms :-) and it’s a gorgeous white. Maybe even “double white” if I recall correctly.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: Some varieties of hydrangeas need or tolerate more sun than others. I don’t know about climbing hydrangeas but I would guess that might be true for them, also?
Like I said, check with Imm.
Do you happen to have a tag from when you planted yours? That might be a good head start, but I’m guessing the answer will be no.
laura
@WaterGirl: Sadly, no shortage around here of serial bad decision making. It took hours to wring out the adrenaline and cortisol and I’m expecting I’ll be ass-dragging all day. It’s got to be hard living in the parts of town where this is a more frequent occurrence.
SkyBluePink
Beautiful yard!
I have a blue/purple Rose of Sharon- maybe called Bluebird. And, of course, have the pinks and whites and all in betweens of the others). I love them!
Geminid
@J R in WV: You might try digging in some rock phosphate. There are also plenty of superphosphate “bloombooster” products around. People hope to stimulate their cannabis buds with these.
But rock phosphate is probably better for your purpose. I do not speak from experience, just from hearing local garden guru Andre Viette* talking up rock phosphate to induce blooming on his Saturday gardening show.
*Viette is a third generation nurseryman with a horticture degree from Cornell, and has a good base of knowledge.