Turning Corners

Another heat advisory has been issued for today. I'm off from work. The plan is to stay inside and finish the trim in the kitchen and get another project underway, painting the hallway. A few hours work and it will all be done except for the countertops. Robert is coming Tuesday to help build the forms. This morning, I picked 4 squash from the potager.

Laying in bed, looking out the window, I noticed how full the Rose Garden in the backyard had gotten. Agastache, Four O'clocks, Coreopsis Full Moon, and other plants have really filled in this year. The miscanthus will be moved this fall to the meadow garden. I have a grass plan.



Near the street, the Monarda citriodora is huge again. I've got several of these plants scattered along the driveway. The bees love them. Their flowers remind me of henbit, if henbit grew to 4' tall.





I plant close. I pack the plants in when they're small. They compete for space and light. Some flop, others stand tall. I like when the combinations work. My goal is to have blooms. I think I succeeded.



Daisy flavored blooms with pink and purple bee balm.



Echinacea grows into the agastache.



It's 77 degrees. The high today will be in the upper 90s. No rain in the forecast.

I've been inspired.

And so I've created a rose garden. Right now it's just a lot of dead bermuda grass and clay on a very sunny "corner" of a new path. But each rose I plant gives me a chance to work a lot of soil around the plant. I add lots of organic stuff and stir well. I'll be putting down cardboard and mulching with leaves in a couple weeks. The grass was killed with RoundUp several weeks ago.

I moved Mr Lincoln, my "orange" rose, a Sunny knockout, an unknown lavender hybrid tea rose that I got for $1, and because I needed a sunny spot for it, a Confederate Rose (Hibiscus mutabilis). I had wintersown this one and apparently forgotten that I had planted out one container. I found it this morning under some flopping echinacea.



On the corner, there's an old pink camellia that was nearly 30' tall when I moved in. It was so big, it blocked all the sun out in the backyard. If I was to grow tomatoes, it had to come down. Hopefully the new growth will make it through this year's winter. The stump is pretty large.

I'm sure it's not the best time to move roses in the South, but they're all fairly new and had barely begun to put out new root growth. I'll just have to watch the watering for a week or two. And we're forecasted to have lots of rain this week.

It's 75 degrees and cloudy. :)

I performed a few more injustices this morning too. I pulled out all the red spider zinnias and convolvulus. I transplanted a few things, rudbeckias, melampodiums, datura, and helianthus.



I moved a couple of young hibiscus.



That red Texas star is not happy.



I also moved some echinacea that were wintersown.





I sowed some seeds and transplanted some white crape myrtles.



I moved the Korean lilac into the driveway border. The rudbeckia here got pulled.



The loropetalum near the front door got a new home in the white bed.



A tea olive from the backyard took it's place in the corner.



I saw a butterfly I couldn't identify.



The stargazers in the front bed got relocated too. I didn't chop into a single bulb like I usually do.



I planted one of the lobelia. I want to see how it performs here over the next few days.



I tossed all the pulled plants, seeds intact, into the gully. Volunteers, maybe?



A lone Stella D'Oro is blooming near the mailbox.



Now, I think I want to paint my bedroom.