One perfect shot, from commentor RalfW.
And a bounty, from ace NYC photographer Ema Ema:
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Speaking of a sure sign of summer… One pleasant surprise, here north of Boston: Our multi-graft front-yard cherry tree, which we were pretty convinced was dying last year, put out such a burst of growth this spring I had the Spousal Unit prune down a bunch of low-hanging branches this week. So, for about the first time in over 20 years, I picked (from the prunings) more than five pounds of ripe cherries!
(The Spousal Unit, native of America’s Cherry Tree Capital, scorned the flavor — they’re some variety of ‘white’, i.e. yellow-with-an-orange-blush — but I was perfectly happy to eat them.)
It may be the tree’s swan song. On the other hand — I carefully did *not* say this out loud — last summer I put down a rubber ‘mulch mat’ to smother most of the godsbedamned vinca he’d lovingly transplanted around the tree…
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
Benw
Noice pics and yay for homegrown cherries! Our hydrangeas are about to go wild and we just discovered that the peach and apple trees we planted last year have several proto-fruits ripening. Very excited!
Baud
So much color.
Mai Naem mobile
I think you’re talking about Rainier cherries which are quite a bit more expensive than regular red cherries.
Lapassionara
Great photos! My current project is pulling the vinca minor out of a bed beneath a sassafras tree that appears to be struggling. I’m hoping this will be the fix it needs.
We have a tart cherry tree that produces just enough cherries for one nice pie. It is one highlight of my early summer.
raven
“Signs” of summer. Not here, it’s hotter n a well diggers ass in the Mohave!
oatler
I’m feeding my pomegranates three buckets of water a day. No idea what I’m doing but one of those suckers is producing fruit in 115 degree temps
OzarkHillbilly
Thanx for the pics RalfW and Ema Ema. A beautiful way to start the day.
I haven’t gotten any cherries out of our cherry trees since we bought this place. That first year I got about 2 gallons but nothing ever since. They usually succumb to a fungus, but if not the birds get them just before they ripen. This year the squirrels pruned the trees of all their blossoms. My apple trees finally gave me some fruit 2 years ago, they didn’t look like much but they were tasty. This year a late freeze killed the blossoms. My peach trees have never given me anything more than stone.
Not much gardening for me the past couple weeks. My sciatic flared up and I’ve been fairly crippled. The closest thing to gardening I’ve done is eliminating a couple of parsley/gaillardia/Zinnia thieving groundhogs. Something has been mowing my bean plants and I’d like to think those 2 were the guilty parties but my money is on night prowling rabbits.
Jeffery
First yellow summer squash have appeared as well as embryonic cucumbers and a few tomatoes.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Beautiful pics
Gvg
After a scorching hot dry week in the upper 90’s, we got blessed rain. Saved a bunch of unhappy plants and cooled things down. I mowed yesterday. Black eyed Susan’s are still very nice but some are going to seed. Collecting Mexican hat and rain lily seeds. All summer for the past several years, I carefully collect all the rain lily seeds and sow them fresh in trays. At the end of fall I will have trays of what look like grass that I divide into about 4 inch clumps and plant all over the shady side of my lot. Some of the earlier plantings are this year old enough to flower and add to my seed trays. Last year I planted out 4 trays. This year I already have 4 started and today will start a 5th. Someday soon, I will have about a quarter of my lot blooming pale pink trumpet flowers every summer rain. Something about seed saving becomes an obsession I cherish. Both my mother and I have it.
Argiope
OK rose people (NOT rose Twitter people), I need help. My gardening style can best be characterized as Benign Neglect and this isn’t working out for the roses. I planted two climbing roses last summer, and they were getting hit by aphids a few weeks ago so I put on some neem oil. Then I went on a trip, and now I’ve returned they are seriously on the struggle bus. There are some unaffected new growth low branches and some sucked-dry, dead-looking branches. Do I cut out all the dead stuff and start over? Thanks for any advice.
Spanky
@Argiope: Dead stuff is dead stuff. Cutting back this time of year, while not recommended, will prompt a spurt of new growth, so you’ll be helping it along if you feed it some rose food.
satby
@Argiope: yes, prune that dead stuff out and remove it. Be sure that if your climbers are grafted that the new growth isn’t from below the graft. And instead of neem oil, you could try diatomaceous earth as a bug killer, after you put some fungicide on it. (I personally hate neem oil, it stinks and has never helped a single plant I’ve tried it on.)
Here’s a site with pictures of the most common rose diseases, and info on how to treat them. I don’t stick to organic on my flowers and shrubs, just food crops; but still there’s a lot of organic choices in pest and disease control.
ema
Thank you!
satby
@ema: Very nice pictures!
O. Felix Culpa
Thank you, Ema and RalfW, for the cheerful flower pix!
satby
Yes, thanks also to RalphW!
Last night we got the first real rain in about two weeks of unseasonably high temperatures (90s+100s). Badly needed it, though I’ve been schlepping the hose around watering the shrubs and flower beds. I always let the grass go dormant. I got granules to kill the grubs in my lawn and garden beds to try to chase my suddenly active moles away to better hunting in the vacant lots next door, so that’s the job for this afternoon.
Immanentize
Thanks for the pics! This thread is like my radio church each week.
My garden is coming nicely, although the runner-based Peruvian potatoes only showed two plants, but that will be plenty for me. All my tomatoes are growing well, and (knock on my wooden noggin) I have seen no sign of blight this year yet. I still have some left over serenade, so I will be hitting them with it when I get back home tomorrow.
Stay hydrated!
WaterGirl
Rainier cherries are far superior to bing cherries, which I also love!
They are best eaten not when they are plain yellow, but when they have a nice rosy blush on at least part of the cherry. I would kill for a Rainier cherry tree!
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: Speaking of Peruvian… the Peruvian daffodils that I bought 2 years ago on the recommendation of someone here in a garden thread have been stunning! I am zone 5.5 so I have to dig them up and store them in the dark all winter, but they are amazing and I plan to buy more.
I wasn’t smart enough to take photos when they were in their prime, but this is what Peruvian daffodils look like.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize:
I used to say that about watching Rawhide reruns on Sunday mornings when I was in my late 20s. Clint Eastwood long ago ruined himself for me, so no more watching Rawhide for me.
Agree on the Garden Chat!
oldgold
@satby: Here, in the Twilight Hardy Zone, we too have experienced draught. How dry is it? Glad you asked.
So dry the Republicans have agreed to regulate squirt guns!
So dry that at Baptisms the Baptists are sprinkling and Methodists are using wet wipes.
So dry the all the fish have ticks.
So dry that the fire hydrants are whistling for the dogs.
So dry the lifeguards are encouraging swimmers to pee in the pool.
So dry the Catholics are praying for the wine to be turned back into water.
So dry the drunks drinking their Scotch straight are considered community exemplars.
schrodingers_cat
Question for master gardeners:
How does one get rid of poison ivy?
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodingers_cat: Nuke from orbit.
On the more serious side, pulling it up might work. (wear gloves and long sleeves etc of course) I’m not allergic to it but the few times I had to remove it, that’s what I did.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Wear gloves. Wear long sleeves. TecNu skinn cleanser and follow their direction. After you pull ist wash everything in hot water.
Do not use a weed whacker. Those little bits of plant will torment you for years.
We had a huge patch from the neighbor’s yard. With her permission I hired a herd of goats who ate it all. Then I put down cardboard with topsoil and planted grass. Extreme approach for extreme situation.
I am so sensitive to poison ivy that if my dog looks at it I break out.
Fels naptha laundry bar soap is okay for minimal exposure, but TecNu works better for worse exposures.
Good luck.
sab
@sab: My most recent bout with poison ivy this year I wore latex gloves, pulled it up and bagged it and put it in the trash. It only touched me in two places. I rushed inside afterwards and washed with fels naptha and hot water.
Only got blisters in two tiny spots (left hand little finger, right hand wrist) and those didn’t spread. Success. And the plants seem to be gone still a month later.
sab
Also poison ivy leaves long roots and propagates via rhizomes.
After the goats I pulled out an eighteen foot plant root, and sure enough at the end were three tiny poison ivy leaves. Had gloves and washed with fels naptha so no major rash outbreak. Minor rash and blister outbreak but tiny and didn’t spread.
I hate that stuff.
Argiope
Belated huge thanks to the rose people! Will implement and report back.
satby
@oldgold:
satby
@sab: too allergic to risk pulling it, I use poison ivy chemical killers. My new yard guy isn’t allergic, so I’m having him do the cutback on the wild grape that I know is intermingled with poison ivy. Kills all the way down and through the roots.
jnfr
Blossoms on my eggplant, peppers, tomatoes. Lilies blooming in various shades, but not much else yet. It’s been a bit cool which is nice, but still extremely dry.
JAM
I’m picking tons of cucumbers and a fair amount of Sun Gold tomatoes. The other tomato plants have a lot of green tomatoes on them and the peppers are looking good. Squash is besieged by borers and some kind of fungus that turns the fruits black. I guess I’ve picked enough of them to make back my seed money, but I don’t think I will bother with squash again. The melons have lots of baby fruit but the beans don’t want to flower for some reason.
The flower gardens look fine (though the back fence is overcrowded, as usual), but one of my Rose of Sharon plants just went from thriving to totally dead in about 2 days. Some kind of root disease. I guess that’s common after too much rain followed by blazing heat.
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
I don’t think Roundup will work, it also doesn’t work well on Autumn Olive, so I found a brush killer called Crossbow, which I expect will do the trick.
One problem is it isn’t sold in a pre-mix spray bottle, you have to buy a quart and a sprayer, mix it and attack with the spray. Serious herbicides can be dangerous to other living things, I wear heavy clothing and a mask and glasses when I use it.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat:
@sab: Soaking the ground, or waiting until the rain does, helps in pulling the roots out.
MagdaInBlack
Those iris up top make me swoon ❤️