Day 31.

93 degrees. No rain.

This has been the longest summer I can remember. It started in early April when the mercury rose to 94 degrees the first week. It's been miserable for those of us that work outside. I'm surprised that anything is still alive in the garden. Somehow, Salvia elegans is about to bloom. The plants are smaller this year. They wilt every afternoon. The hummingbirds will need to hover closer to the ground.



Starting Sunday, the forecast calls for cooler weather and more importantly, rain. I've got my toes crossed.

From Sunday afternoon.

I took a quick stroll around the yard when I returned home Sunday. My nap lasted until morning.

Foxglove. The yellow turned purple.



Dianthus planted in the window boxes last fall, planted in the garden in late February.



Confederate Jasmine on the chimney trellis.



Wintersown in 2008, Blue eyed grass (Sisyrinchium montanum) is blooming this year.



Clearance plants. I started a new bed. Castor beans have been sown behind. Euphorbia "Blackbird", Yucca "Yellow Stripe", and eventually a few sedums will be used here. These are drought tolerant plants for an area that stays dry most of the year. It's hot and sunny all afternoon.



Self-sown Pineapple sage. I checked a leaf for the fragrance. Three of my plants from last year have returned nearby at the end of the driveway.



It's 73 degrees and humid. There's rain in the forecast today after 8am. Scattered thunderstorms are possible. I'm hoping it rains all day.

Rain is coming.

We've got a good chance of rain this afternoon.



New things are popping up all over. The rain should kick things into overdrive.





The ferns I transplanted last week are starting to unfurl.



Black & Blue salvia is returning. This one is pineapple sage. That's the first time I've ever had this plant return from the roots. The three others show no signs of life.



Brugmansias have new growth too.



It's 61 degrees. There's a coolness to the air.

Tomatoes and tender annuals.

The forecast called for 34 degrees last night. At 4am, it's 39 degrees. At 7am, it will drop a few degrees before rising again. I hope we make it without a frost. Just in case, I covered my seed rack containing the tender annuals that have been sprouting all week. There's a lot of pineapple sage out there.



The tomatoes and all my overwintered plants are in the basement. I forgot the fern and the tropicals on the front porch. Que sera, sera. The sprouting tomatoes are inside. This is my second batch. I'm using the wintersown method this time.



Possibly our last cold night, the 10 day forecast looks positively wonderful.



It's now 36 degrees.

Haircuts.

I mowed the yard for the first time this year. There really wasn't much mowing to be done, but I wanted to mulch up some leaves and chop the wild onions growing all over the place. I'm not a grass freak. Whatever grows is welcome. The clover is taking over in some areas. Eventually the bermuda grass chokes it out.

In some places, I'm very nervous about mowing. After last year's accident with the hateful lawnmower, I tend to stay away from certain areas. Here's the "path" near the swing in the back yard. All the rain has washed away what little soil was there exposing hundreds of new potential accidents. I'll get out there soon and rake again, just to remove the lose ones.



It was a nice, cool day. We did reach 62, but it never felt like it. The wind has been blowing most of the afternoon making it comfortable in just a light longsleeved shirt.



Across the street, the forsythia is really showing off.



Pineapple sage, sown only a few days ago, has germinated. I found more seedlings at the end of the driveway where my plants were last year. I thought it would be a reseeder.



And the figs in the cloner...You're doing it wrong. The roots are on top with nothing below. I've been given advice to just lay them on moist soil and keep them humid. They should continue to root.



Finally, my own haircut. It's the best picture of the whole lot. The rest made me look like a serial killer. At least I just look like a stalker here.



It's 57 degrees. The hangover is gone. I'm hungry.

Summertime.

That's what it feels like outside tonight. This morning, it was cool and brisk. I wore my hat to work and removed several layers of clothing throughout the day. By the time I had lunch, we were in the 50s. Tonight, it's 63 and, breezy would be an understatement. It's windy. The hurricane chime on the perennial bed arbor has been sounding steadily since sunset. It's made from long pieces of chainlink fence posts and requires a decent amount of air movement to make it sing.

Before I headed back to work this afternoon, I moved all the indoor cuttings outside. I know. Brugmansia and pineapple sage outside in January. The nighttime temperature is supposed to fall to 51 with a 64 degree high tomorrow. I'm contemplating leaving them out there all night. They could use the rain. By now, the soil is stagnant and needs to be refreshed. Rainfall nutrients can't do much harm. However, the wind might. I pulled the rack up close to the house. I can always wheel it into the garage door if I need to, and in a hurry.



I haven't really been paying much attention to these plants lately. They've just been doing their own thing. Lights come on at 7am, go off at 7pm. They get watered when I think about it (or notice a crunchy leaf). I guess I hadn't realized there was so much sage in bloom.



I'll have to pull them back inside tomorrow if the sun threatens to show its face. But for tonight, they can dream about warmer days. The rain has started already. It's blowing fierce against the bedroom windows. I'm thinking about calling it a night and turning in early.

Blooms in the Basement

It's 36 degrees. It was a beautiful sunrise. With less than 2 months til spring, the sun is slowly moving back to the east each morning.



The yellow brugmansia opened last night. The fragrance was nice, but not as strong as the ones in the yard this summer.



Pineapple sage is also blooming. Several plants are pushing out tiny, weak blooms under the fluorescent lights.



A Salvia leucantha cutting is trying really hard to keep up.



Brugmansia seedlings. These are the ones I sowed more than a month ago. I can't wait to see them bloom.



Today, I'm off work. Have plans to head over to Carla's to help cut and split some wood from a tree taken down this summer. Also planning to prune her very large, overgrown Brown Turkey fig tree. From my perennial bed, I'm taking her several butterfly bushes. They were grown from cuttings stuck last year where I wanted them to grow. I just pushed the limbs into the ground and trimmed them way back. All of them survived and bloomed again this year. I'm taking them out of the circle bed near the birdbath. Tomorrow morning, I plan to remove even more plants from that space. I want a cleaner slate when the wintersown perennials are planted out.

The forecast today: 67 degrees. It's January.

5:54pm - Spent the day between Carla's and the gully. We chopped and split some wood for her sister at her house, trimmed a fig tree, and planted some butterfly bushes. In the gully, we pulled out some stones to finish her edging along the front of the house.

I came back, cleaned and wrapped some fig cuttings from her possible brown turkey. I bleached them in a 10% solution, wrapped them in newspaper, and put them in gallon ziplocks. They'll stay there for the next month. In early March, they'll be put in containers in the hoophouse.

I also brought back a piece of her fig tree that had some small roots. It's about 4' tall and 1.5" in diameter. I'm hoping it takes.



Outside, I have more sprouts.













The high today reached 64. It's 59 degrees currently. The sun has almost disappeared below the horizon.

7:16pm - 20 more containers have been sown. The White Texas Star seeds from two of my recent trades arrived. I sowed 4 containers of each. Solidago fireworks, euphorbia marginata, and Chocolate Joe Pye Weed were some of the others.

It is raining like crazy.

So I've been in the basement most of the day. It's 55 degrees and pouring.

I had a couple bags of TopSoil. It's not the best stuff in the world to use, especially with indoor container plants. It compacts, has a lot of wood chips, and no nutrients.



So, like you do, I screened it.



Then added some perlite.



I've got a 5 gallon bucket of mulch now.



I repotted a lot of the brugs. The soil I used for those just wasn't re-wetting when I watered. I lost a few cuttings. I still have at least 16 of the yellow and white. I've got 6 nicely rooted pink cuttings. One is struggling.



I also potted the Confederate Rose. It's pouting.



There's lavender that rooted in the cloner. I'll move it out to the hoophouse when I put it up next month.



All told, I've only lost 6-8 cuttings so far. Everything is growing like nuts. I'm going to have to prune some things soon. It's so hard to toss the cuttings. I just know I'll stick them in the cloner and need another light rack by New Year's.



The larger brug cuttings are doing well too.



And because I was bored, and had the concrete, I've made a small birdbath that I'll bury in one of the beds in a few weeks. I topped it with sand and used an old light fixture shade to make the depression. The large bowl is smooth and I'm hoping the concrete slides right out when hardened.



It's almost time to eat now. It's been a fantastic day. Good music, good coffee, good plants, it's almost as nice as working in the garden itself.

I forgot. I also sowed seeds of Winterberry, collected on Thanksgiving day from a tree near my parents' house. I sowed more Cornus florida too. And then I sowed Frasier fir seeds collected from the Christmas trees at the store. And finally, Japanese Maples. I had them inside in a baggie. In just a week, I've had some mold develop. I hope they'll survive. Sorry Kris, I'll have to send you seedlings instead.

Hibernating

It's 52 degrees and mostly cloudy. The wind picked up overnight. The rain is coming. By 2pm, we should be soaking in it. By sunset, it will have moved on ushering in cooler temperatures for the rest of the week. A fire will have to be built this evening in the basement heater.

I've got a few chores I'm working on today. I'm doing laundry. The dishes are done. I'm planning to sweep and maybe mop the hardwoods before heading to work. Since Thursday, I've had this odd pain in my lower back. I'm not even sure what I did to cause it. I just remember waking up on Thanksgiving Day with it. I'm trying to give it some healing time when I'm not at the store. The heaviest thing I've lifted all morning was the coffee pot.

The sun is a lot like me today. It wants to come out, but the clouds are keeping it inside.



Some things from around the yard:

Oakleaf Hydrangea



Snowball viburnum



Sedum. Just three feet away, the frost has killed another to the ground.



Under lights in the basement, the pineapple sage is trying to bloom.



I'm packaging two sets of cuttings from the brugmansias to mail out today. I've also got two seed trade packages to send out. I'm still waiting on one thing before mailing a large package to Austin, TX. I'm hoping it will be ready in another week.

I've got two more days of work before my two days off. I've got no plans for those days. Rain on Wednesday, sunny and cooler on Thursday, I'll probably spend most of my time sorting seeds and thinking about next year. I could work on the kitchen. Then again, I could just stay in bed and watch some movies.

4:37pm - The rain we were supposed to get broke up and gave us just a smattering of moisture. It's humid and sticky at 57 degrees. The clouds should clear out with the wind later tonight.

When I was leaving for work, I spotted something. I ran back inside to get the camera.



Last December, this camellia was blooming. I assumed then that it was a C. japonica. It was also much redder last year. Methinks it needs some acid. I'm not going to remove the oak leaves this year and I will fertilize next spring.