My Surprise

I received a big envelope in the mail from Charlotte, my daughter in Shreveport.  I knew she was sending me one bright yellow Iris.  I was surprise to see four.  I placed them in a pan of water over night, the roots were quite dry.  Charlotte loves E-Bay I think all my Irises came from E-Bay except about three because Charlotte bought them.   I went out to plant them Tuesday morning and I could hardly dig the holes the ground was so hard and dry.  Carrel watered Friday however he tunes the water on high and the water runs off.  I have been telling him you water slowly with soaker hoses.  That is what they do is soak not run.  So he water slowly.  I went back out and planted my Iris.   With soaker hoses you turn the faucet  only one quarter of a turn.  He complains it takes too long.   Not only do you not water deep and waste water but you put too much pressure on your hoses and they spring a leak and do not water the full length of the hose.  I could not find not one worm in that bed.  The mail man has run over the plastic border on this bed and broke it down.  The water running too high has taken all the top soil out of this bed.  When it cools down this is one of our fall jobs to put this border back.  This is the third time we have had to mend this border.  We may get some bad weather tonight from the south. Hope we get some rain.  Hope you enjoyed this new page that I have added to my blog.  Thank you for watching my garden grow and bloom and hope you grow one of your own  Happy gardening to you from Carrel and I.  Juanita     

                         Looks like we may get some fruit from from my Passion Plant this fall.

                                               Crepe Myrtle still blooming, second blooming.

 

                                          The wind was blooming to hard to take any more pictures today.

 

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Getting Ready For Fall

I ordered my bulbs for spring to be planted in the fall.  I found the King Alford  bulbs at Parks Seed.  I ordered twenty five.  The King Alford bulbs  had a disease and you could not buy them for awhile, however Parks have them now.  I also  ordered twenty seven Purple Hyacinths to go in the little bed  behind the bench.  I will have nothing in this bed but purple also the two feet bed around the walk. I made a mistake when I bought Purple Smoke Baptisia austalis,  however we live and learn.  I am thinking about the Angelonie  The three I bought to fill in a place where something went to flower heaven.  The Angelonie bloomed all summer, it is not tall but the blooms are very pretty.  Most perennials bloom for a time and then quite. I have the Stokes Aster in the back of this bed, they bloomed a long time then bloomed again.  The Purple Smoke grew too high and laid down and did not bloom.  I know sometimes perennials may not bloom the first year I did not mind that, but I do not like the growth pattern.  It is suppose to bloom in the fall if they are cut back, I must have cut them back fore of five times.   Another mistake I made was thinking the Lamb's Ear  would shade my Clematis it did not.   Lamb's Ear does not need as much water as the rest of the flowers so it is now gone.  I decided to put newspaper and pine straw over the roots of the Clematis, it is looking great now and blooming again.  The Clematis was almost dead and was not over one foot high now it is about three feet and very green.  So if you want a Clematis but do not have a plant to shade it cover the top of the roots with  folded newspaper and pine straw.  This Clematis is a double one, each day another layer opens on this one.

I bought twenty seven " Red" Hyacinths  however these are not really red they are a very hot pink.  I will buy some more lilies, next month.  Another blunder, Park's Seed had pictures of  some fine looking red plants with humming birds eating from the flowers, so naturally I bought enough to fill my bed in front of my house under my feeders.  I do not understand how they took such a great picture, mine look nothing like theirs.  Mine are red like theirs but how a humming bird could even find them, as small as they are, is beyond me.  Another do not buy again!  So to make a long story short,  I bought very few flowers that I will keep for next spring.  The sad thing is I spent about one hundred dollars to pull up and throw away.   Last night when Carrel came to bed he told me my motto must be the one on the calender for the month of August,  "Housework never killed anyone, but why take a Chance?"   Well maybe not but Wives do.  Smart me I told him to sleep in the other room.  Then I remembered there was too much material, that I had bought some time back, on the bed and my suit case full of clothes from a trip we took last fall.  Anyway I told him I like September's motto best "This is an Equal Opportunity Kitchen."  He said he agreed and he would let me wash dishes some, well on the other hand maybe not.  I hope you have enjoyed this page on my blog.  We thank you for watching our garden grow and bloom and hope you will grow one of your own,  Happy gardening to you from  Carrel and I, Juanita.

 

 

 

 

 

Chores

I appreciate the misunderstanding I have with nature over my perennial border.  I think it is a flower  garden she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass and tries to correct the error. Sara Stein

Crepe Myrtle

The picture above is the second blooming for my crepe myrtle.  I had a hard time convincing Carrel those little balls were not blooms but seed pods and I did not want them to spout under my tree.  He is one more hard headed man.  If we cut them off at the same time they will bloom back together.  I cut the bottom off, but  Carrel was three or four days cutting the top off.  Finally I told him I knew about these thing please cut the seed pods off.  I was thinking damn it  just do it hard head in my  mind.  I am hoping to get a third blooming.

Carrel dead heading roses.  Another thing I have a hard time convincing  him to do is not cutting the stem of the roses all the same height.  If you cut some short and some longer they will look better.  So I go behind him and cut them the way I want them, no need to argue.   Most of these roses will not put on new growth except at a five leaf branch.  The  VaVoom is different it puts out on either the three branch or the five, and the current rose does not have to be cut off for them to make a new bud, so they have really grown tall.  I did go out and cut one on the outside stem \down to less than three feet.

VaVoom

I will cut the  the VaVoom in different heights and we will see if I am right.  It has been so hot until the roses have been really small.  The VaVoom has not suffered as much as some of the others.  I am glad the city has not told  us to cut down on using the water.  I have fifteen  beds in my yards and Carrel has three long beds in his.  All but four beds have soaker hoses in them.  That saves time and water.  We hand water the five.

Baptisia

Rudbecia and Hi Neighbor

Weeds!!!  In some flower beds I have put down my newspaper because I have finished these beds.  However some of my beds are not finished  and I may not be  finish next year.  I read other gardening blogs to get ideas.  I look at books go to computer sites, still I can not decide what to plant.  This area is quite hot so I plant for zone ten as much as I can.  I pulled up grass Monday, it was cloudy, but hot.  I have two beds that are very grassy.  I pull up grass until my hair was  wet and stiff.  Another chore was to cut back the  Baptisia around the the small flower behind the bench.  It has never bloomed the tag said cut it back and it would bloom again in the fall if not Baptisia will be gone.  The tag said it would grow to three feet tall, wrong it runs about four feet. Charlotte thought it was weeds.  On the computer it impressed me.  It is best to ask other gardeners what to plant but there are none to ask close by here.  I also dead headed the  Rudbeckia  Gold Strum, I do not want this plant to go to seed, it sends out roots and has almost taken over the end of this bed.  The Gold Strum is the hardest of the Rudbeckia I have found.  The others have white mildew, Carrel sprays them but it does no good.  The picture to the right is Rudbeckia  with Hi Neighbor.

Passion Flower

 I hope you have enjoyed this post on jobs done, when you have flower garden the work is never completely down.  Thank you for watching my garden grow and bloom, and I hope you have one of your own.  Happy gardening to you from Carrel and I, Juanita.

American Beauty

Pink Phlox

Goldstum and Phlox

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                               This is what Carrel likes to do most of al.l