A to Z and things in between.

In my garden,

Agastache



Buddleia
Coreopsis
Datura
Echinacea
Foxglove
Guara
Helenium
Inula Grandiflora
Joe Pye Weed
Knifonia
Lirope
Monarda
Nasturtiums
Orlaya
Penstemon
Queen Anne's Lace
Rudbeckia
Salvia
Tradescantia
Ulmus
Veronica
Weigela
Xanthosoma (I cheated, it's actually Alocasia)
Yarrow
Zinnia



Yesterday afternoon, I was walking out the front door when I spotted something across the street. There's a huge pile of leaves out back of the rental house that's now empty. Poking up out of the pile, I saw huge leaves. I had to get a closer inspection. Are they bananas? They've got to be cold hardy. They still had red clay around their roots.



The fragrant bed is coming along nicely. The datura and four o'clocks open just as dusk begins to fall. The fragrance comes along shortly after.



Pink and yellow have joined the white. Zinnias are also planted here.



It's 77 degrees. The high today will reach the upper 90s. This weekend will be hot. I'm heading out of town. I need a break from the housework.

Bloom Day

It's June 15th. Last night a wind storm came through and tore down a tree two streets over. The power was off for almost 5 hours. It warmed up a bit in the house. No painting was accomplished in the dark. And now, the blooms.

Echinacea "White Swan"



The first Sunflower.



Hot pink Four O'clocks.



Red Four O'clocks.



The first zinnia. Why are they always pink in my yard?



There's a vitex blooming in the pokeweed jungle.



Dahlia.



Om, nom, nom. The next squash is being created.



White Butterfly Bush. This is one of the two I have. I grew this one from seed.



This creature was spotted this morning hanging from the bottomside of a weed I missed last week on the slope. I think it's molting into something I've never seen before.



It's 72 degrees. Another hot day is on tap. Rain possible. Storms likely. Robert will be here by noon to help with the countertops. I'm off to take a test.

A summer day in April.

It's still 92 degrees. I feel like the daffodils, dry and crispy.



It's not all bad. The butterfly bushes seem to be growing several inches a day. Finally, I've got butterfly bushes that don't sprawl out across the ground.



While planting some wintersown seedlings in the perennial bed, I pulled some clover to discover Jim's alstroemeria. It's the one with the variegated foliage.



I scattered seeds like a mad man today. I even tossed out some left over potting soil on a bare spot where I walk a lot. Grass seed went over it and I watered it in.



Scattered seeds include Salvia subrotunda, Four O'clocks, lemon basil, cosmos, zinnias, melampodium, and others I can't remember now. It's the heat. Yeah, that's the ticket. I did sow a few more containers. Basil Gonovese, Lemon lime basil, sunflowers (a wide variety from mammoth to red bloomers), Limelight four o'clocks, and a striped four o'clock I have never grown before. It's not as though I don't have enough to plant out already.



I tried to relax in the swing, but after an hour in the hammock, I'm exhausted. The meadow is over a foot tall. Larkspur, red clover, and many weeds make up the majority of the tall seedlings. Rudbeckia and bee balm have been spotted along with a few cosmos around the outer edges. I'm afraid what might be lurking in the middle of all that clover. I bet something that slithers has made itself at home.



I just can't believe how fast everything's growing these days. We haven't had rain in over a week. Thursday, we're supposed to have PM thunderstorms. I hope so. The pollen was so thick at times today, I thought I lived on a dirt road again. All my roses have buds, summer blooming perennials are shooting up flowerstalks, all the crape myrtles are leafing out now, including the white and red ones I started from seed last winter. It's incredible.

After the long winter, I was hoping for a gradual transition into summer. Not a chance of that now. We're running 23 degrees above normal today. As I sit here with the windows open, pollen covering me and everything inside, I can hear the leaves on the trees rustling in the wind. The houses on Brown Avenue are quickly disappearing thanks to the foliage. The stream has dried up. I'm filling the birdbath twice a day. Two crows came in for a drink while I was laying in the hammock the second time.

Maybe on Sunday, things will be cooler and I can plant out more seedlings. They're getting watered twice a day too. Some have succumbed to the heat already. But reseeds will fill the gaps and get moved as spring moves forward. Today, I found a batch of self sown nicotiana and datura. I think every seed that fell has germinated. Lucky too, I was about to have to head downtown to snatch more datura pods. But it's too hot.

Soggy

It's still raining. Overnight, the rain gauge collected 1.25". The ground, already squishy from Ida's 7 inches, is now soggy. The thermometer stands at 48 degrees.

Some plants just don't know when to quit.



In the cloner, the best rooters this round are butterfly bush and cotoneaster.



The high today should be in the 50s. Rain clearing out overnight but clouds remain through Tuesday night. It's warm and dry inside with a fire roaring in the basement.

3:56pm - I started working on the kitchen after running a couple errands. While out, I picked up two large pieces of Confederate rose from Carla's neighbor. She has several that start out white and turn pink. I chopped them to a foot each and put them in water to root. There's more than a dozen cuttings from those two branches. The purple queen was stuck yesterday. It'll root quickly in water.



In the kitchen, I used the heat gun to remove the paint from the window and I started on the door into the mudroom. I made a new windowsill from leftover pine boards. When I went to the router to ease the bottom edge, I rounded over the wrong edge on about 6" of it. I chopped that off and replaced it with a new piece. It's glued and clamped. In the morning I'll finish it once the glue is dry and I can sand it smooth.

Lovely view, eh? Hanging on that old clothesline is a rug that I assume is from the apartment on the left. Its been hanging there since the spring. I'm thinking it might just get gone one late night this week. Obviously, I would never do such a thing, but I know people.





I got the last three pieces of beadboard installed as well. The outlet that was giving me trouble fit once the 3/8" plywood was added to the wall. The box is attached to the concrete block behind the plaster.



It's still moist out. The temperature is 50 degrees and holding. The basement is 79 degrees. Upstairs, it's 64. I wonder if heavy drapes would help with the heat loss? This evening, I'll sort more seeds. Back to work tomorrow.

7:47pm - I finished the windowsill. The scraped frame needs sanding. Bondo was used on some really bad spots.



Ya'll are funny. I don't take any vitamins. I drink about 4 cups of coffee and put on some music.

Seed Collecting

I spent some time today collecting seeds. At work, the gaillaria needed to be deadheaded. No problem. The petunias could use a pinch too. I'm on it. The gazania had lots of white puffy stuff, but nothing I could identify as seed, so I trashed it.

In my own yard, I separated Golden Jubilee from the chaff. Using my stainless steel bowl, I collected seeds from white and pink four o'clocks. I'm keeping them separate for no real reason.

I collected from several melampodium.



I tossed the heads from a couple zinnias into the same pile. Maybe the goldfinches left me something.





A few more purple cleome pods split when I touched them.



Of course there were cosmos, including a very few yellow.



The outline of the next bed is taking shape thanks to RoundUp. I sprayed it a couple days ago. I'm sure the heat and sun are helping.



And when you stop paying attention, something else blooms.

Frog

At work this morning, a huge frog hopped across the concrete. I scooped it up and brought it home. It's now living safely in the perennial bed. Hopefully, it will find plenty of things to eat. I ran inside to grab the camera, but it was long gone once I got back outside. So I took some pictures of new blooms.

The brug across from the arbor is turning orange.



A zinnia I must collect seeds from.



Another Miss Huff lantana. This one is a lot shorter.



Magnus.



The canna that popped up in the lawn is growing nicely. I moved it to the perennial bed last week.

My plans have been doused.

It rained yesterday. We were supposed to get some scattered thunderstorms in the evening, but it rained. And then it rained some more. Last night, just as I was settling into bed for an hour of tv, it rained again. And again. And again. Needless to say, the leaf mulch and the garden bed is way too wet for tilling today.

I have to work today, but I have a couple hours to get a few things done. First, I want to clean up the mess I left in the driveway. I need to do something with the hoophouse in the basement. I'd like to plant out my wintersown petunias along the edge of the perennial bed. That depends on whether or not the soil is too wet there. A little hole, a spoon sized scoop of seedlings, and some tamping down is all I need to do. Maybe they'll appreciate the extra moisture.

One thing is for sure. My body is not appreciating all this work and gardening today. The only spot that doesn't hurt is the tip of my index finger and the lobe of my left ear. Every other part of my body just aches. Once I get moving, I'll be fine. If I get moving is a better way of putting it. For now, there's a cup of coffee that needs some attention.

It's sunny and 55 degrees. High today will be in the mid 70s again.

10:48am - 61 degrees and sunny. Got some more things done today before work.

Planted 12 begonias, a white brugmansia, a rooted gardenia cutting, and a rooted osmanthus fragrans cutting (the only one to survive the winter) under the dining room window.



18 Carolina Cherry Laurels were transplanted into cups.



20 Cornus florida (flowering dogwood) seedlings were transplanted into cups. Each cup contains 2-3 seedlings.



Potted the two passionvines with a trellis.



Overwintered cutting of a red mandevilla is in a cheap hanging basket by the basement door.



Planted three more white brugs in the back beds.





And I noticed my tomatoes have bloom buds.



I also planted out a pan of mixed zinnias, petunias, rock soapwort, and a few others. Off to work in a bit. Long day. Tomorrow I will spend the day at my parents'.

The hoophouse is full.

It's been a long morning with my hands in dirt. I've been sowing more annual seeds in the basement waiting for the warmer weather. It's 57 and sunny at the moment. Another 12 degrees and the weatherman will be right again.

I sowed lots of different seeds.

Nasturtium - dwarf cherry rose, moonlight, and jewel mix
Convoluvus tricolor - a trailing low growing morning glory
Moonvine
Dutchman Pipe Vine
Morning glories - knoila black, heavenly blue, split personality
Sunflowers - esther mix, tiger eye, and mammoth
Four O'clocks - white (collected from my plants) and Limelight
Dusty Miller
and two types of millet - purple baron and purple majesty





That's 176 cups not counting the 90 zinnias I sowed last night. Not all of these will be planted in my yard. Some will go to my sister's house for two beds she has asked me to stuff with flowers. She's in SC so her last frost date is about a week ahead of mine.

I also wintersowed 21 more 2-liter containers and 4 lasagna pans.



The other containers are under plastic still. I cut large slits in the sheet of plastic for water and air movement. I'll remove it in a few more days. There are some containers that need more germination time. I don't feel like covering 200+ containers in the case of frost.



The tomatoes in the hoophouse overnight are looking good. Not too much stress from the transplant or the barely freezing temperatures last night. The concrete blocks did their job and helped radiate heat back into the structure.



I had to rearrange everything inside to fit all my newly sown annuals. The hardwood cuttings came out. I tossed a Sterlite container that was used last summer to root softwood cuttings in the wooden box over the cuttings. Some were removed but most are doing well.



Finally, everything was put in place. The plants that have spent the winter in the hoophouse were put outside. They include a few roses, an osmanthus fragrans (I lost two), and lots of gardenias.



Now, it's time to cut the grass and do some cleanup in the yard itself. If I have an extra hour before sunset, I want to plant out a few wintersown containers. Work this week will be hectic for sure and I doubt I will have time to fuss with much more than watering duty.

2:35pm - 61 degrees. The grass has been mowed. Mostly it was clover and wild onions that needed trimming. The bermuda grass in the back yard is still dormant. I should do something about the lawn one day. Not this year though. I've got enough to worry about.

I took down the window boxes on the front of the house. I built them from pressure treated plywood and the water just soaks right through. I plan to fill pots with annuals this year rather than filling the boxes with dirt. This will make it easier to change them out when the summer heat zaps the petunias. It should make watering easier too. Now I just need to find the containers.



I found a sweet potato from one of the vines last year. I'll replant it this year to see if it grows a new vine. I have cuttings from the green and black vines in the hoophouse.



I'm happy to see that the Japanese Barberry I planted late last fall is coming back. I didn't realize it was deciduous when I bought it. I thought for sure it was dead.



Did I mention the 55 gallon drums my dad brought me? I plan to use two of them connected together to create a rain barrel watering system for the perennial bed. No sense running up the water bill when there will be veggies that need it more.



And finally, Sunday's picture. Things are coming to life out there. Hard to tell from this distance. I can just imagine all the zinnias, rudbeckia, shasta daisies, morning glories, etc that will be blooming this summer. Most of the wintersown seeds are perennials, so they will need another year to put on their show.



I've had a sandwich and some sweet tea. Time to get back out and plant out some wintersown containers.

4:30pm - and it's only 63 degrees. The weatherman lied, again. No biggie. I got everything done on my list today except for transplanting some wintersown petunias into individual cups. I fried my pink tray in the hoophouse two weeks ago, so I'm glad I sowed a couple of cups on the side. The white ones are doing poorly too, but I also have a cup of those. I'll get that done after dinner this evening.

Planted out a few things.

Nicotiana sylvestres
Columbine - burgundy(2) and purple
Red Bee Balm(2)
Dianthus Albus - white bed
white hollyhock - white bed
Virginia stock(4)
Crimson Clover

I bought a pack of 6 stargazer lilies, my absolute favorite, and planted them near the arbor in the perennial bed. I still have peas soaking that need to go out. And the coffee grounds container on the kitchen counter needs to be emptied. I can't decide where to toss them. There's also the cabbage seedlings in the basement that need to be potted into cups and hardened off. Maybe I haven't finished everything I need to do today. The third day of spring and I am already tired!

That big plant in the top row is nicotiana sylvestres. It was sown on Dec 21, 2008. I noticed the sprouts around January 8. It's so large, it was shading the other seedlings under it. That container was planted out.



New seedlings are popping up in the perennial bed. You can't see them unless you're on your hands and knees with your face in the dirt. I really hope these are the rudbeckia "Autumn Colors" volunteers from the one plant I bought last summer. It made it nearly 3 weeks before the pill bugs took it down.



Or maybe these are the rudbeckia?



Or these?



Most likely, there is some cleome in there and perhaps some Golden Jubilee or coreopsis. I scattered seeds all over last fall.

Guess I will head back downstairs and do some transplanting. Is it time to eat yet?