Happy 4th of July!

Happy 250th Birthday America! .  Now I'm not saying I'm old, but I remember celebrating the BiCentennial.  As I have mentioned before, the Semiquincentennial was the inspiration for my annual flower choices this year and I am happy with how they turned out.

Maybe I should have gone ahead and added the white Petunias.  But I like them this way too.  I think it's worth not having to deadhead the white Petunias.  The red and purple ones hold up very well to the rain we've had.

The white Euphorbia has been swallowed up... but it's still in there.

The Supertunias out by the firepit are my favorite.  They are stunning.

They have filled out so much this week in the heat.

The Latte Supertunias are amazing.  In some promotional photos the veining is brown giving them a tan appearance, but these are more black (deep purple) and white which what I was hoping for.  I will probably plant this combination again.

I always buy some spare plants, especially when mail ordering.  That way I can choose the best plants and nurse the rest back to health. The extras went around the Pear tree, circled by the Vanilla Cream Marigolds.

I planned to keep the Pear tree watered better this year hoping for larger pears and having annuals at its feet is a good incentive to remember to water regularly.

Romence Gardens made a mistake when they shipped my order and they sent Tiara Blue Supertunias instead of the Royal Velvet that I wanted to use in the firepit pots.  The more purple tone would not have looked good in that combination so I planted the Tiara Blue along the edge of another area, alternated with the Vanilla Cream Marigolds.  I had planned for the Marigolds because this part of the landscape looks so empty in the summer after the daffodils are gone.  Next year I will also plan for Supertunias, but maybe not this color.  The purple does look appropriate over here though and the white center makes them more visible from a distance. 

They accentuate the purple Clematis Vine in the background.

My Dahlias are on the verge of blooming, which is fairly early for Dahlias.  I am really enjoying the Zinnias and Marigolds.  I will definitely do this again.

The direct sown Celosia are beginning to bloom.  There are about two dozen smaller plants in and around these large ones that are catching up fast.

This last photo is not an annual, but it is having a moment worth appreciating.  Echinacea Cantaloupe and the purple Clematis vine.  The centers of this Echinacea puff out and look like orange pompons and the color deepens to a rich cantaloupe.  But by that time the Clematis will be past its prime.

So those are the results of my annual flower choices.  Its something I plan for as much as a year in advance and spend months growing, buying and setting out plants.  Now I can just enjoy them for a few months.

Heat Wave

 This is day three in a row of 100ish degrees. (37 C) And that thermometer is in the shade on the north side of the garden shed.  It is 90 in the shade of the front porch, and over 100 in the garden. Plus it is windy which is making it feel like a blast furnace.  Two days ago we had decent cloud cover which stopped things from roasting in the sun, but yesterday and today have been clear and sunny.

In heat like this, things are going to wilt.  Below are the two zucchini plants that I transplanted earlier in the week knowing I would not be able to keep them watered in their black gallon pots.  The one that I transplanted a week earlier is just fine because it has rooted in.  The plant on the left is in leaf mulch that I put down for the cucumbers and the one on the right is in bare soil.

I put mulch around the second one yesterday afternoon to see if it would make a difference.  Just a little bit.  Watering them at that point would not help because the soil was already damp and they can't take it up any quicker than they have been.  I stick to my regular watering schedule but check container plants in the afternoon to make sure that they had enough water to get through the day.  Providing the squash with a little shade would help them.

They are just fine in the morning.

I mulched around the roots of the tomato plants to keep the soil cooler.

I also put a shade cloth over them to give them a break from the afternoon sun.  They are flowering heavily right now and extreme heat and humidity can kill pollen and prevent fruit from setting.

I picked peas in the early morning while they were still fresh from cooler night time temps.  I planted a lot of peas this year because I was getting low on seed peas.  The past two years I only planted two rows which is enough to eat but doesn't leave much to save.  So I was still planting seeds saved in 2022 and 2023.  I planted every last seed I had and intend to save enough seed for a couple of years.  When I pull the peas plants I gather whatever dried pods are on the inside or low on the plants and got missed in the harvest.  This year, because I have plenty, I want to save some of the nicer, large pods for seed.  Which means I am simply leaving some of them on the vine.  Once the pods start to dry they get a textured feel to them.  They will have lost their sweetness.  These will be the ones I pick later and lay out to dry.

I am still picking a little from the first row planted April 1st, mostly from the second row planted a week later and just starting on the third row.  The fourth row is not ready yet.  There are a lot of peas.

Row #3

I have most of what I want to freeze already processed.

The Sweet Corn is visibly growing each day.  It loves the heat.

In preparation for the heat, I did relocate this pot of Begonias into a cooler spot. 

That's about all you can do in a heat wave.  Give things a little extra care and wait for it to break.  Next week we should be back to average weather.

Pumpkins Stage 2

 I have had the Pumpkins protected with wire cloches but they are out growing them.  Pumpkin vines are quite prickly, so I don't expect that the deer would eat them all to the ground, but I want to err on the safe side.  Today I removed the cloches, side dressed with fertilizer and watered that in.

Then I covered them with a floating row cover to keep the deer (and squash vine borers because I saw one of those today too) out for a few more weeks.

The plants are nowhere near as robust as they were last year but I don't know if that can be attributed to the later planting date or the cooler night time temperatures.  We will see.

Pumpkins July 2nd 2025

Today I also planted out my summer squash.  I really did not intend to plant any for myself this year but I seeded them for other people and when I seed something, I always have a backup.  So - now I have summer squash.  I didn't really have a spot planned for them unless it would have been the beds vacated by the peas in a few weeks.  But these are root bound and we are going into a heat wave, so they got stuck in corners.

They were getting a little wilty each day and now starting to bloom.

I picked my first two red raspberries.  Yum!

Today was lawn mowing day.  The lawn that has the three London Plane Trees was proving too challenging to mow with the large, 60" wide, diesel powered zero turn mower.  It is very wet in the spring and fall and with all of the turning and tight spots the large mower would either leave ruts or tear up the corners with the tight turns.  I was considering one of those robotic lawn mowers, but in the end we decided on a DeWalt battery powered, self propelled push mower and I have been mowing it with that while my husband cuts the rest of the acreage.  

This lawn has changed to much in the last 15 years.  Here is a before and after.

It is the prettiest lawn we have.

I'm proud of this lawn.  The lawn clippings get bagged and go straight into my compost pile.  This view is from the neighbor's driveway.  They get to enjoy it more than we do, and it isn't really visible from the road.  But it is the best lawn we have.

Right Plant - Wrong Place

I had really wanted this Pixie Powder Recipe somewhere I could enjoy it but I have very few shady spots and none in an area where I could walk past it several times a day.  I decided to try it against the east wall of the garden shed where it would get morning sun from about 8:30 until 1pm.  It didn't work.  The Impatiens are failing more and more each day and we are heading into a heat wave so I am calling it.

This is what it is supposed to look like

The Impatiens in the back corner is all but dead.  The Begonias are holding on  but not thriving.  The Euphorbia is a very tough plant and will survive just about any conditions.

I removed the Impatiens and Begonias and used the last of this year's potting soil to put them in a one gallon pot.  I am all out of decorative containers and officially out of potting mix.  I placed the pot under the apple tree where it will get high shade all day to see if the plants can recover at all.  I am pretty low on replacement plants too.  

Instead of driving to the other side of town and spending yet more money on plants, I planted the only thing I have left that would be suitable.  Four bushy little Binky Dahlias. They at least look alive and should begin to bloom in a few weeks. I am already brainstorming what to try next year.  This planter is in a very visible spot and I have really neglected to plant anything nice in it the past few years.  I can't remember the last time I really liked what I put in it.

Binky Dahlias

Wild Areas

Our manicured landscape area is surrounded on three sides by wild areas.  This strip of weeds between the Viburnum Thicket and the west driveway is a good example.  It used to be the very edge of the mowed lawn.  After the driveway was put in we used to still take a pass down it a few times a year with the lawnmower.  

Once we actually tried landscaping it.  We planted some daylilies and iris and mulched it heavily.  For a few years I kept the blackberries, wild strawberries, ferns, goldenrod and aster beat back a good three feet.  Then I gave up.  I still whack it down in the fall, otherwise the goldenrod leans over into the driveway.  But areas like this are impossible to landscape.  Its a losing battle.  All woody thicket area need to be bordered by lawn or gravel.  And the gravel may still be a battle.  All natural vegetative species believe in Expansionism and Manifest Destiny.

Before I gave up on it completely I buried some Milkweed roots in there.  I had allowed a volunteer Common Milkweed to grow in the landscape bed along the house.  That's something you don't want to do either.  Common Milkweed spreads by roots and it is difficult impossible to get rid of.  Especially when it finds itself in loose, rich, fertile soil like a garden.  I dug roots for three years before I got it out of there.  But I always buried the roots in an area where I would actually like Milkweed to grow.

The first year three stalks came up and this year I have 20.  

There is a lot of insect activity in there in the morning.  And fresh, young Milkweed is actually pretty attractive.  Later on it will get ugly and I will harvest the pods, throw those somewhere I wouldn't mind Milkweed to grow and whack it down.

There were a lot of tiny snails this morning, and several lady beetles.  I have seen a Monarch Butterfly visit this thicket several times this year already.  Monarchs are very spare with their eggs.  They know that if one hatches, the caterpillar will need plenty of room to munch.  They can't be crowded by many competitive siblings.  There is a little egg there by the lady beetle.  None have hatched yet.  

On my morning walk I thought of a "faith in planting" example to show you.  Three weeks ago when my last perennial plant order arrived, the two Amsonia plants had absolutely fried in shipping.  They were about 8 inches tall and every leaf was brown and crispy.  But the stems were still green so I potted them up and stuck them in the cold frame.  After about a week they began to show growth at the base so I snipped them down and planted them out.   They are doing just fine.

Next year they will look like the one pictured below.  Amsonia is one of the first perennials in my garden to bloom in May.  The flowers are subtle and short lived but afterwards you get a nice shrubby looking plant that is very tough and will add nice texture to any garden.  I started with one plant and now I have six of three different varieties.

Another example of a quick growing, mail order perennial is this Cimicifuga (Bugbane).  This has been in the ground 10 days and look at how quickly it is putting on growth.  I killed my last Cimicifuga because I planted it in an area where it did not get enough sun.

I am looking forward to seeing how this one does.

Puttering

 Today I worked on getting a few more odds and ends out of the cold frame.  The first was the late seeding of the Candy onions.  First they got a haircut.  My camera wasn't sure what we were looking at.

Then I popped them out and shook most of the soil out of the roots.

I trimmed back the roots too.  Then you just get a pencil, poke a hole in the soil, stick the onion in there about half an inch deep and water them in.

I had a few spare Marigolds after planting the pole bean bed.  I just walked around planting them in any bare spot left by trimmed Daffodils or whatever.  I protected them with wire cloches until they can root in.  I planted four and still have two more to find spots for.

Here are a couple of updates.  The bigger grape vine is already tall enough to start training along the cables in each direction.

The replacement vine has some catching up to do but it is growing fine.

The combination pots near the fire pit are looking "decadent" just like the name of the Proven Winners recipe.  It is curious to note that the Black Cherry Supertunias are putting out a few blooms that are a different red.

The ones under the Pear tree are doing something similar.  That is something a hybridizer would consider a flaw and a sign of an unstable strain, but when I get variations like this in my garden they always seem just a little prettier than the rest of the mill plants.