From master gardener and commentor SkyBluePink:
From earlier this year…
Pet cemetary
Native azalea tutu
***********
Recently, more than ever, the garden photos have been a genuine blessing. Between politics and the heat dome (which, praise goddess, has finally broken here… for the moment), my yard is an overrun disaster and my mood isn’t much better.
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
OzarkHillbilly
I wish my azaleas blloomed that prolifically. Beautiful, thanx SBP.
eclare
The azalea tutu is adorable!
Jeffg166
Beautiful plants. It was a good year for azaleas in this area. Never know from year to year how they will fare.
With some rain and the worst of the heat over things are perking up a little in my garden. The guy who cuts the grass can come do it this week. It has grown enough to need it.
VeniceRiley
I cut some roses for my neighbour and BOOM. Now have a dozen ore blooming on that bush. The budlias are finally starting to flower, and the grass is mown. All other Dog bathroom rows of flowers and sad lavender have been torn out by the garden man we had come by.
The pyrocantha looks like a multi-tentacled alien reaching towards the center.
And we had to put Kilo to sleep. He was just letting us know in so many ways that he was absolutely done. The wife is heartbroken
OzarkHillbilly
A few weeks ago after a 3 day stay in the 70’s I said not to worry, July would have it’s revenge. The weather this week has been quite Un-Ozarkian, from the mid 70s to low 80s. The high today is predicted to be 80, tomorrow 81, and 84 – 86 the rest of the week with a little more humidity. If this is July’s idea of revenge, I can only say, “Bring it on.”
I fear to think what August has in mind for us.
@VeniceRiley: Sorry to hear about Kilo. My wife was bereft when we put Woof down. I wasn’t much better.
WereBear
@VeniceRiley: I’m sorry. It’s tough.
eclare
@VeniceRiley:
I’m so sorry about Kilo.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Our do but that was way before the Masters again this year.
raven
@VeniceRiley:
We who choose to surround ourselves
with lives even more temporary than our
own, live within a fragile circle;
easily and often breached.
Unable to accept its awful gaps,
we would still live no other way.
We cherish memory as the only
certain immortality, never fully
understanding the necessary plan.
— Irving Townsend
…
rikyrah
Good Morning , Everyone 😊😊😊
satby
@VeniceRiley: Condolences. You gave him the heaven on earth of a family who loved him so much that to spare him suffering you chose to suffer instead.
satby
Same, Anne Laurie, same.
Beautiful pictures SkyBluePink!
Jay
@VeniceRiley:
I am sorry for your loss. You will always have them though, in your memories.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I’ve come around to the fact that I have them in the wrong location. Not enough sun I think. I had some in a different location and they did quite well there. Unfortunately I had to move them and they didn’t like that at all.
Anne Laurie
How acid is your soil? Common wisdom around here is that azaleas need *really* acid soil — and also a lot of supplementation. Garden centers stock as many bags of ‘Holly-Tone’ for azaleas (& blueberries) as they do of regular fertilizer, even though our local heavy clay is already pretty acid!
satby
@Anne Laurie: huh, I should check mine too. Mine is so sandy I always think it’s how dry it gets, even the day after a good rain.
bjacques
I’ve been lately looking after a garden whose owner had died recently. My partner and I are lucky in that her friend, who used to organize flower shows in Dan Francisco, is as visiting and could advise on watering, feeding, repotting, etc.
A large hydrangea in the garden was overgrowing the wall of a neighbor’s house, and she asked nicely if I could deal with it. A couple of days ago, I had a pair of garden shears and a spare hour, so I ripped the vine out and bagged it for the morning’s trash pickup. It was easy, since the vine was dying. It still put up a fight, though; when I was cutting its roots and bending the remains of the trunk, the trunk whipped back and gave me a fat lip.
Jay
@bjacques:
One has to ask permission from shrubbery first, before touching it. The pruning has to be consensual.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Residents here who want to garden can apply for one of a couple dozen raised beds. Lots of people grow vegetables. It perhaps will not shock you to know that not everyone keeps their sticky fingers to themselves. A week ago, an acquaintance was waiting for a large tomato to ripen when it disappeared. She is so outraged that she bought a surveillance camera and is keeping watch. We await developments.
That’s the gardening excitement here.
Ken
@bjacques: Could have been worse, as so many plants are (as Michael Pollan put it) little chemical warfare factories. Derek Lowe recently blogged about bloodroot and its murderous sap, and I’ve been religious about gardening gloves and hand-washing since.
As for pruning, my philosophy — which I think I’ve mentioned before — is that the plant’s ancestors survived for millions of years with insects and goats, so it should be able to handle me trimming it.
p.a.
Here in southern New England August is hotter than July 1 year in 5. If it’s going to be this year, oh shite!
In issues with “Big Plant”, not one of my serrano plants has produced a fruit with any heat. There’s usually some variation, but so far it’s “oh-for.”😮 Are they going the way of the jalapeño?
OzarkHillbilly
@Anne Laurie: TBH, I’ve forgotten. I have a sack of Holly tone and apply it once or twice a year. Either I need to do it more often or just give up on that location.
SkyBluePink
@VeniceRiley: Deepest Sympathy.
OzarkHillbilly
As far as I am concerned, August is preferable to July. The heat and humidity in July is relentless, rarely does one get a break from it. In August, the hurricane season starts to pick up. For us here in the Ozarks, the greatest benefit is that the atmosphere gets stirred up by the storms and cold fronts get “pulled” down from up north by the passing TSs.
This cooler weather is way out of the norm, as was Beryl, which I give credit for 4 or 5 days of the cooler weather.
SkyBluePink
@OzarkHillbilly: I started using HollyTone a couple years ago and it had made a difference. Even then some azaleas put on a show every year, others not so much.
:
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: A pH soil test kit can help you know how much to add. Cheap at the hareward store, last I looked, of course.
Gvg
@Dorothy A. Winsor: years ago I blamed squirrels and raccoons for repeated nearly ripe tomato disappearances. Until I caught the golden retriever eating them. She didn’t even know she wasn’t supposed to. Had a whole one in her mouth and grinned at me. I was shocked. Such a perfectly mannered dog!
Later it was strawberries. Had to move those plants, because it gave her the runs…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Gvg: LOL. Goldens are so goofy
Anne Laurie
Our late lamented Zevon *loved* cherry tomatoes, and
stealing‘picking his own’ was absolutely part of the charm for him!When we had to move the last of the tomato rootpouches out of the side yard (cherry tree made it too dark), I’d buy an ‘extra’ plant just for him, and train it to trail over the chainlink fence, so he could still get the frisson of being a Raffles…
He tried to teach our other two dogs, Gloria and Sydney, about the joys of tomato theft. They dutifully ate a few, but could never seem to ‘get’ the point. Which surprised me, since Gloria was such a food thief we had to raise every trash can in the house out of her reach, and Sydney would do *anything* to feel like part of the gang!
WaterGirl
Love love love azaleas. Photos 4 and 6 – I would love to have my azaleas look like that!
@VeniceRiley: So very sorry about Kilo. Heartbreaking. Tears.
O. Felix Culpa
@VeniceRiley: Condolences. Our floof is aging, and it breaks my heart to think about when he’ll no longer be with us.
@SkyBluePink: Love the azaleas! And the matching pink flamingo! Thank you for sharing.
Jeffg166
@OzarkHillbilly: Enjoy your unexpectedly mild July. You will pay for it at some point in the future. The last three summer in Philadelphia were not that bad. This year is making up for that. Not the worst but more back to what it has become over my lifetime, hotter longer, more humid and less rain.
S Cerevisiae
With all the rain here in the Twin Cities both the flowers and the weeds are growing incredibly, there is one hollyhock that is about 9 feet tall.
ETA: The temperatures here have been pleasant, I think it’s only hit 90 once so far.
OzarkHillbilly
@S Cerevisiae: How are the skeeters? My sister lives in Coon Rapids right across the street from the Mississippi and the skeeters there will drain you dry.
S Cerevisiae
@OzarkHillbilly: we are fairly close to the river here and they are worse than normal but nothing like the reports I am hearing from my friends still up north, they are epically bad up there this summer.