Each year the weather favors different plants. What is doing well this year: pinks, columbine, day lilies, morning glory seedlings, hostas, peonies, Icelandic poppies.
Not so good: dogwood, clematis, petunias, violas, California poppies. At this point, I usually have twenty plants but I can only see three right now.
I've been trying to get by with less. I was too disorganized to plant seedlings indoors in March (plus someone hid my seeds). My bag of tuberous begonia roots was thrown out so I will wait for them to go on quick sale to replace. Only two of my cosmos self seeded and I really can't tell the seedlings apart from tick weed. There is a rain garden near my house on city land that had thousands of cosmos last summer. I ran by there today and couldn't find a single seedling. I initially didn't think my cleome self-seeded but this week, I have thousands of 1 to 2 inch seedlings..a lot of them growing in between my pavers. I identified them by their skunk like smell and now their marijuana type leaves are beginning to show. They need to grow 3 feet before the blooms show. I also have lots of unidentified seedlings..petunias? violas? snapdragons? weeds? I need to let them grow a bit more to figure out. The morning glory seedlings are obvious but my tallest plant right now is only about 4 inches as opposed to thirty feet that they are in September. My calla lilies in a pot have returned too. Over the winter in the pot I took indoors, my rosemary doubled in size, the mint stayed the same but now is quickly growing but the basil died. My 4 year old azalea given to me by my son-in-law when I broke my arm is doing great though it is not blossoming at the moment.
Six years ago at the end of the plant season, I bought a large pot of salmon geraniums for $5. I let them winter in our house though they got very leggy due to lack of light. The next spring, I cut down the stems and put them in dirt and ended up with two large pots of geraniums. These have now turned into two huge containers plus I have given a lot away. This year, I put the excess stems into the dirt in front of the house. They look fairly ragged right now but new leaves are growing and blossoms are popping up. They will turn into about twenty plants.
A single flat of mixed impatiens has yielded 3 full bags of flowers and a large planter. Two weeks later, I can barely see the bags. I put these bags on the fence that abuts my patio to give it color. As the neighbors' arbor vitae grow, more and more shade is present.
It is unbearably hot. There was at least a breeze this morning when I ran. I was careful to run in the shade. Towards the end of my run, I noticed a toddler's slide and huge playhouse being given away. I quickly got the car for the slide but aside from carefully balancing the playhouse on a wagon, there is no way to get it home.
Not so good: dogwood, clematis, petunias, violas, California poppies. At this point, I usually have twenty plants but I can only see three right now.
I've been trying to get by with less. I was too disorganized to plant seedlings indoors in March (plus someone hid my seeds). My bag of tuberous begonia roots was thrown out so I will wait for them to go on quick sale to replace. Only two of my cosmos self seeded and I really can't tell the seedlings apart from tick weed. There is a rain garden near my house on city land that had thousands of cosmos last summer. I ran by there today and couldn't find a single seedling. I initially didn't think my cleome self-seeded but this week, I have thousands of 1 to 2 inch seedlings..a lot of them growing in between my pavers. I identified them by their skunk like smell and now their marijuana type leaves are beginning to show. They need to grow 3 feet before the blooms show. I also have lots of unidentified seedlings..petunias? violas? snapdragons? weeds? I need to let them grow a bit more to figure out. The morning glory seedlings are obvious but my tallest plant right now is only about 4 inches as opposed to thirty feet that they are in September. My calla lilies in a pot have returned too. Over the winter in the pot I took indoors, my rosemary doubled in size, the mint stayed the same but now is quickly growing but the basil died. My 4 year old azalea given to me by my son-in-law when I broke my arm is doing great though it is not blossoming at the moment.
Six years ago at the end of the plant season, I bought a large pot of salmon geraniums for $5. I let them winter in our house though they got very leggy due to lack of light. The next spring, I cut down the stems and put them in dirt and ended up with two large pots of geraniums. These have now turned into two huge containers plus I have given a lot away. This year, I put the excess stems into the dirt in front of the house. They look fairly ragged right now but new leaves are growing and blossoms are popping up. They will turn into about twenty plants.
A single flat of mixed impatiens has yielded 3 full bags of flowers and a large planter. Two weeks later, I can barely see the bags. I put these bags on the fence that abuts my patio to give it color. As the neighbors' arbor vitae grow, more and more shade is present.
It is unbearably hot. There was at least a breeze this morning when I ran. I was careful to run in the shade. Towards the end of my run, I noticed a toddler's slide and huge playhouse being given away. I quickly got the car for the slide but aside from carefully balancing the playhouse on a wagon, there is no way to get it home.
1 comment:
I really wanted to plant a few beds with mixtures of different flowers. Unfortunately the other people living in the building have a large Rottweiller that just tears up the gardens that are there. I hoped to put a veggie garden but that won't work either. Now we have more racoons living under the roof I think all the aunts uncles and cousins have moved in too. Your flowers are beautiful. I agree it's been hot and I am enjoying every minute!!
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