Thank you, commentor JeffG166:
Top pic: This rose never disappoints. I bought it under the name of Fourth of July.
The elderberry in all its glory.
A rose whose name I have completely forgotten. (The iPad camera isn’t getting the color quite right.)
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A Cicadageddon! update from our own Ozark Hillbilly:
Still figuring out this new camera. We have the 13 year brood here.
It wasn’t until yesterday that they got serious about making whoopie, and have become “vociferous”. It can be a bit deafening when temps warm up.
Bonus Billy Jean — Her Royal Highness:
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I had intended to spend this past week getting our “tomato garden” (20gal rootpouches filled with potting mix and tomato ladders) properly set up, but we got our coronavirus boosters and RSV vaxx last weekend, and something in that combination thoroughly kicked my flabby old arse. However, I’ve finally managed to get all the dozen expensive mail-order plants transplanted & staked out… with only one near-certain failure, so far. I ordered a Black Bear (a new, tasty variety that started producing early last year & was one of the last to give up in the fall), and the plant so labelled arrived drooping & sad. Turned out, when I finally got a look at the full label, to be a Black Beauty… latest version of the faddish navy-blue lycopene-heavy types that always taste bitter & fibrous to me, like cubic kale. So I won’t be sad if it fails to survive its move, except that I’d rather have had the space for a more attractive replacement plant, and it’s probably too late to find anything worth tending by this point.
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
War for Ukraine Day 836: A Short Saturday Night Update
NotMax
Sum sum summertime.
;)
satby
Nice JeffG! Are those shrub roses? I’ve decided those are working best in my garden.
I went to the SW suburbs of Chicago to meet a friend for lunch yesterday, which apparently is ground zero for the cicada explosion. They’re pretty loud, and were flying around looking for romance (or at least a bigger tree). We have next to none in South Bend.
satby
Looks like big storms moving through Ozark’s state right now. Stay safe!
JPL
Gorgeous pictures, bugs and all. Cicadas are supposed to be in GA, but not in my neck of the woods yet.
Jeffg166
@satby: Cascading type. Not really right for where they are but I like them.
satby
@Jeffg166: very pretty!
2liberal
Is this garden related? Here in Tempe AZ I’ve been swarmed by fruit flies by the thousands INSIDE since late March. Now the temps have gone over 100 and they’ve all died. So I can set aside all my ff traps, all the fly paper until next year.
WereBear
Found a miniature rose that would be sadder if it made it to the bargain table, so…
Rose Rescue!
Betty Cracker
Our bananas!
Also the bougainvillea is busting out.
The lime tree (not pictured) has lots of fruit, but they’re not quiiiite ready. When they are, it will be daiquiri time!
delphinium
Great pics JeffG, OH, & Betty C! Haven’t seen a banana tree before-cool.
MagdaInBlack
It’s kind of weird with cicadas around here. I don’t hear any around this condo complex, but as I drive thu Arlington Heights, there are certain yards, and even certain trees in the yards, that are deafening. Then a block away, nothing. Found one still alive on the driveway at work, and like the child I am, brought it in to show my coworkers, who are used to me and were actually interested.
Happy Sunday
Eta: Ruby the giant geranium has 8 blossoms and 3 flower buds coming in. Garden update
satby
@Betty Cracker: wow!
OzarkHillbilly
The 13 yr cicadas are about done here now, and the yearlies haven’t really started up yet so things are a little quieter at the moment. My wife is happier now (she’s a bit insect-a-phobic… OK ok, more than a bit) It’s threatening rain again today but fortunately I need do no more planting/sowing in the veggie garden. After July 1 I will sow my squash and gourd seeds and cross my fingers the squash bugs don’t find them. After the rains pass this morning I will mulch everything in there, more for moisture retention than weed control. Summer arrives later this week w/ predicted highs of 92. Blech.
Bugboy
I cannot believe in a lifetime of bug nerding, I have never witnessed one of these. The closest I got was one of my advisors at SUNY Syracuse telling us about attempting to record one nearby on one of those big cassette tape decks that were around before we had Walkmans, and nothing came out on the recording, like it was dog-whistle to the microphone!
Lapassionara
@Betty Cracker: the banana tree! Gracious me. And the bougainvillea is gorgeous.
the cicadas have calmed down here. Thank goodness.
OzarkHillbilly
@Bugboy: You’d have loved the triple hit I experienced way back when dirt was still new (late ’60s). IIRC it was the 17, 7, and 3 year broods all at once. Absolutely deafening.
O. Felix Culpa
Beautiful pix! Well, the cicadas are more interesting than beautiful, but Billie Jean certainly qualifies and seems to know it. :)
My pollinator garden is coming along, despite the unfortunately high temps, as is my vegetable garden. We harvested a bunch of french radishes and cooked them with their greens, using a Madhur Jaffrey recipe from Uttar Pradesh (mooli ka saag). Very tasty.
pat
My hostas are humongous.
WaterGirl
Billy Jean! 💕
@Betty Cracker: I would love to be able to bougainvillea like that! I have bought a hanging basket of those so many times, but they are not terribly happy here so of course it’s nothing like that. Oh, and banana tree!
WaterGirl
Dare I say that we have not had any cicada action here in central illinois. We are like 45 minutes from where they predicted the center of the action would be. Not sorry to have missed them, though!
SkyBluePink
@Betty Cracker: I used to have a fence covered in bougainvillea when I lived in FL. Now I can sometimes find it in hanging baskets for the summer. Does not survive over in the basement over winter. Beautiful but deadly when cutting back!
I enjoy your FL pics.
cope
@Betty Cracker: When we lived in Florida, we had tangerine, pink grapefruit, navel orange and lime trees. By far, the most prolific and appreciated were the limes. I used to take plastic shopping bags full of limes to work to share. I’d leave them in the mail room with a note to “help yourself” and they were always gone by second period.
My personal favorite use of limes in those times was in a plank cooked salmon recipe. The salmon filets were coated in butter, garlic and thin slices of limes on a cedar plank and popped on the grill, cover closed. Good stuff, Maynard.
O. Felix Culpa
@cope:
Yum! You’ve given me an idea for dinner. :)
Jeffg166
@Betty Cracker: What do you do with all the bananas?
Jeffg166
@cope: A friend of mine lived in Florida and loved mango season when people would put boxes of them at the curb for anyone to take.
Gvg
It’s hot and we need rain but things are growing. I am harvesting rain lily seeds but the bag full. Started sowing yesterday. I collect and grow them and plant out in fall, then do it again each year. Started with a pot full 5 years ago and now 1 quarter of my yard is nearly full. It’s gorgeous when the rains start. Last year I started 16 trays of seedling rainlilies. They look like ryegrass when they come up. I make up trays of potting soil, and drop the fresh seed on it all summer. Already have 3 trays and am not done. Yesterday I harvested 4 times that day as every few hours I noticed more pods ripe and splitting open.
We really need the rains to start. Things are drooping.
kalakal
Still desperate for rain
Star of the garden at the moment is the Clerodendrum ( musical note plant)
Strutting its stuff