Summer Rains

 We have entered a rainy period which is fine.  It cuts down on worry about how the plants are coping with high heat and turns your focus to tidying up every day.  I just cleaned these Petunia planters up yesterday morning.

That's the thing about traditional Petunias.  They don't handle rain well.  The deep purple blooms shed water and seem to hold up the best, especially the first couple of days.

The red ones - not so much.

At least they aren't white, which would be translucent and ultra icky.  No matter.  They need to be dead headed anyway so they don't set seed and quit blooming.  I just have to wait for the plant to dry out a little.  You ought to see my fingers after 10 minutes of Petunia trimming.  Thankfully, Hydrangea flowers don't do that.  

Little Lime Punch Hydrangea (planted 2024)

Little Quick Fire Hydrangea (planted last month)

The thing about rain is that it gives all of the weeds a quick boost.  You will come out in the morning and an area which looked fine yesterday will have all of these happy little weeds.  Below is the pea bed that was mulched.  It won't take long to pull these weeds, especially with moist soil.

Eww!  This pea bed with no mulch is a different story!  Purslane!  The best way to deal with this is to pull the more mature plants at the far end and then rake over it with a garden rake uprooting all of those tiny babies.  I will leave the garden rake right there and every time I walk past I will take 30 seconds to rake it again so that the roots dry up and die.  A nice hot, sunny afternoon would help cook them.

Here is a little update on the grape vines.  The first one is growing like crazy.  It has a really nice growth habit that will easily lend itself to a multiple vertical cordon style.

In the spring, I will prune it as diagramed below.

Right now I am just making sure I tie up the stems that I want to turn into cordons so they are protected and will harden into the form I want.

The second vine has one main leader.

It may require a different form just because it fits this particular vine's growth habit.  Maybe next year's growth will provide what I need for two opposing cordons.   We shall see.  It's kind of fun.