Sometimes you just want to sit down and *admire* the hard work you’ve put in. A potpourri from commentor SkyBluePink, headed ‘Flower addiction in full bloom’…
Little Pink Fuchsia
Begonia & euphorbia
Cactus
Blue Daze
Purple fuchsia
Begonias by Day
Caladiums
Begonias by Night
Lantana
******
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
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OzarkHillbilly
Beautiful flowers SkyBluePink, thanx for the pics.
It’s gonna get all the way up to 77 today. WAHOO!!! Down to 60 tonight, double WAHOO!!!.
I took almost a week long hiatus from the garden last week. My brother’s memorial was on Sunday and my youngest came up for it. He, his brother and I took advantage of it and spent 2 1/2 days on the Current river. Been almost 20 years since we could do that together. Well worth the wait, tho I think we’d all prefer a little more often. Granddaughter’s day on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday were… Other than hot as hell and watering, I don’t remember what all came up those days.
I finally got back in the veggie garden on Thursday and Hoo boy. Sucks to be fruitful. I’m still canning and freezing stuff.
ps: side bar is missing in action.
sab
That blue daze is lovely. Like a larger brighter lobelia.
I lost my mind this week and bought a crape myrtle plant. I don’t know if it will survive in our climate. If it does it will be Huge. I might consign it to a pot like my boughanvillea. The hummingbirds and bees have been nuts about the boughanvillea, but it still has to come in from outside and spend the winter under the grow light.
Or I might plant the crape myrtle in the middle of the planned expansion of the front yard flower bed. Give the plants to the north some much needed shade and move the sunny guys to the south side expansion. My spouse says ” whatever you do that reduces mowable lawn has my approval.” Plants think “Consider the soil quality! Don’t ignore that!”
Anne Laurie
Thanks for the warning! — I forgot that inserting a page break ‘reset’ the centering functions, because FYWP is like that.
Fixed now, I hope!
OzarkHillbilly
I agree. Unfortunately in my case I do the work either way.
@Anne Laurie: Yep, done and done.
sab
I have been buying and planting ” hardy mums” for a couple of years. They don’t survive. Turns out hardy mums are only hardy if planted in the spring. The fall ones we plant are sweet summer children sacrificed to the market. I think I will try to overwinter a couple, plant them in the spring and see if they survive.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: I had some mums I planted in Autumn and they came back for a good 7 or 8 years. You’re in Ohio, right?
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: You are competent either way. My guy cannot even recognize a daffodil, so if he can’t mow it he isn’t allowed near it. He does indoor vacuuming because I trust him not to suck up the cats.
Weird facing the outside world with switched areas of responsibility. Bad housekeeping is his fault, but his sisters sneer at me. Bad yardwork is my fault but neighbors sneer at him.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: Ohio 6a i think. Maybe too dry rather than too cold.
Eta I planted 4 roses last summer. Deer chomped them. I had thought only one survived, but two of the others are suddenly looking perky, so only one lost
ETA And too dry was last five years. This year we are awash.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: Well then I will pop the new guys in at once (summer not Fall) and maybe they will make it. Wintering over in the house is also hard on plants
ETA when I moved back from OutWest my twenty year old potted rosemary bush didn’t last its first basement winter.
Jeffg166
@sab: I find mums tossed into the trash in late autumn and bring them home. Sink the pot into the ground for the winter. If the root survive they will regrow. They usually aren’t very vigorous plants.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: We are 6a here too. The google says we average about 45″ a year.
On divided household duties, I clean the kitchen (because I am a bit obsessive about a clean kitchen)(eta and do most of the cooking) and sometimes the bathroom while my wife does all the vacuuming and dusting. I do all the outdoor work, and believe it or not, she does the plumbing.
satby
@sab: I’ve planted them and they’re fine, but trim all the flowers off as soon as they wilt, and then trim the entire plant down below all the flowers a good month before a frost, the roots in those pots are rootbound and weak. Pruning the plant to about 1/2 should increase the odds of it living. Mulch it and it should come back*
*I take them out of the pot and cut through the rootball so they spread out.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: Officially the heatwave broke here yesterday because it “only” got up to 82°, but the humidity most of the day was over 90%. Towards evening it came down and overnight it went down into the low 60s for the first time in days. Right now it’s at 56° and once my outdoor kitty friend finishes his breakfast I’m taking my coffee outside. RELIEF!
satby
And on topic, what a gorgeous oasis you’ve created on your deck SkyBluePink! Your pots complement your plants beautifully too. Lovely!
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
satby
@rikyrah: 🙋 Hi rikyrah!
Kay
The begonias are beautiful.
I’ve been going back and forth to the local yard waste recycling location here in Michigan. They chip the branches people bring in to dump and I like the big chunky chips to use as mulch. We have a 20 year old pickup we use for these type of chores. I’m using the mulch around the new perennials and trees I planted. I’ve also laid cardboard to make a new shady flower bed under some white cedars (with the mulch on top of cardboard) – next spring I will pull back mulch and cardboard and dig to plant there.
SkyBluePink
Good morning!
Weather changing here, too. After today, highs in the 70s-Alleluia! And very welcome rain through Wednesday.
The half price tomato plants have outdone themselves- unknown variety – small but tasty. Doing well in the grow bags I learned about here.
Time to walk dogs (mine and 2 neighbor pups)
Nancy
I’m in awe. The flowers are lovely.
Thank you.
satby
@Kay: If you water it well you shouldn’t need to pull up the cardboard or mulch, you can dig right through the nearly disintegrated cardboard and plant. It’s called no till gardening and I had great luck with it in Michigan. Especially since it adds organic matter to sandy soil.
SiubhanDuinne
These flowers/plants are lovely, every one of them. And I love your rich variety of pots and planters, most especially that curlier-than-thou sheep. Wonderful!
O. Felix Culpa
Good morning, all! I love the beautiful Sunday morning pix. My garden is recovering from the brutal heat wave of July, and we even got a bit of rain yesterday, which was refreshing. I might even get a few tomatoes this year after all, assuming the new little fruits have time to ripen before what passes for winter in Albuquerque.
CCL
@Kay: not sure if you are aiming to also improve the soil, but for the last couple of years I covered the veg garden with a layer of compost, layer of cardboard, another layer of compost, then mulch. Cardboard completely disintegrated into the soil by spring planting, AND no weeds.
Skybluepink: On topic, beautiful plants, beautiful pots… You have a a great eye and a great collection of pots! Love the caladiums! I get mine from a place called Happiness Farms. Think part of my joy is the name of the place.
SkyBluePink
@SiubhanDuinne:
Caladium sheep was a gift from a now deceased friend. Extra special to me.
Kay
@satby:
Thanks. I’m a little obsessive about prep digging. I was taught to “double dig” a new bed where you make trenches in columns with the end result being you’ve loosened soil to 2x shovel blade length. It’s super fluffy after all that digging. I mainly use the cardboard and mulch to keep down weeds and grass, but I’ll consider no till. This MI soil is sandier and lighter so I’m leaning “double dig”- I have a mix of clay and black muck in OH – heavier.
I love reusing cardboard in the garden. I’ve been experimenting with composting it – I got the idea from the worms I keep – they like ripped up cardboard so I alternate that with kitchen scraps to feed them.
Ithink
You guys must all have a regular green thumb! I know I can always improve my skills but nothing truly this bold and beautiful can flourish in this 9 Zone in Texas with all this triple digit heat for months on end and than having a home foundation on nothing but limestone rock, at that!6
Gvg
i might weed today, in the shade. Have been avoiding garden for weeks. Too hot, record breaking and even I just couldn’t enjoy it so it cleaned inside. It’s been slightly more bearable.
last several years of trying to get more perennials in has paid off I think. I am starting to decide on what has not done well and needs to go. A few roses just aren’t impressing. Others are great. Sometimes it looks better to have 3 of the same plant that do great than 3 different ones that only 1 does well for instance.
yesterday was working on the car. Much less fun.
WaterGirl
Such gorgeous, happy flowers! So nice to wake up to.
MazeDancer
How lovely! Would sit there all day.
JAM
I love the containers, I never manage to keep mine looking really good when it gets hot, though. This week, my first seeds for next year came in the mail–Murray’s penstemon. It’s the only red penstemon native to Oklahoma, AFAIK. They need cold treatment and a soak in Liquid Smoke is supposed to help germination. I’m also hoping to try at least a few in the ground this fall if I can get the new bed dug in time.
J. Arthur Crank (fka Jerzy Russian)
The lantana in the front yard (featured here some time ago) is growing like crazy owing to the nearly 2 inches of rain from Hilary. The hedge lining the dry river bed is pushing 5 feet tall. This is after I gave the hedge a good haircut back in May.
StringOnAStick
@Ithink: Limestone is its own major challenge for sure; you have to find plants that prefer it demand that alkaline soil and not many nurseries propagate such specialized plants.
StringOnAStick
Is the 5th photo an annual or perennial? I’ve seen a perennial, woody small scale shrub here in the western valleys (OR) that has the most intense cobalt blue flowers but I don’t know what it is.
This is the first year in our new home where I had good irrigation set up and a smart controller, so the veggies aren’t having to depend on me to hand water, and the amount of production I’m getting out of a 9′ by 9′ veggie garden is amazing, especially after 16 years of only being able to raise things in self watering pots. I started the mini Roma tomato variety called Juliet from Johnnys Selected Seeds and everyone I gave a plant to has raved about it wants more next year. Thick and meaty but full of flavour and excellent texture, not mealy or grainy like Roma’s can be. This is 90 day growing season here so cherry tomatoes are your best bet, and Juliet is the best I’ve ever grown. The flat pod green beans are also insanely productive. A great gardening year for me this year!
I find that given this short season climate and the temperature extremes, my best seeds come from providers in the NE like Johnnys or Pinetree. I tried some local Willamette valley open pollinated seeds and every single one was a disappointment. Bend is like living in a drier version of the CO mountains, so the seed providers that I used there are right for here too.
JAM
@StringOnAStick: It’s an annual, a tropical that’s perennial in zones 9 and up. Evolvulus Blue Daze. It is heat and drought tolerant.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@SiubhanDuinne: this is almost exactly the comment I was going to write, including the sheep pot!