Time flies.

Has it really been 3 months since my last blog?  How can that be?

The biggest reason was the issue of my hip.  By mid-May I knew I had to have a hip replacement.  I was never without pain and had limited mobility.  An X-ray showed the horrendous damage done to my hip.  No time to waste.

So, June 22 I had it done by a wonderful surgeon, Dr. John Perry.  Like so many others, I afterward wondered why I waited so long!  It has been a remarkably fast recovery and for the first time in years, I am able to do most of the activities of my life without pain.  That includes working in the yard, planting and weeding.  I spent two and a half hours doing that this morning. 

What happened to my gardens?  The vegetable garden died sometime in May.  We had had a small crop of tomatoes in the Spring but the plants stopped flowering and finally died.  The peppers barely produced fruit and also died.  The zucchini flowered but never developed fruit.  We don't know what was at play here.  The weather could have been one factor.  We had a few weeks of up and down temperatures, high to low and back to high every day.  And finally, Mother Nature settled on hot, with no rain, and then hot, hot with lots of rain.  We were confused with the weather, so I'm sure the plants couldn't adjust.

Another failure is the Japanese red maple.  Within weeks of opening beautiful red leaves, they were curled, dried and dead.  I left the main stalk  along in case something was still alive below ground, but last week I pulled it--fairly easily I might add.  I won't say what I'm trying to grow in that spot now, just that it's something from the garden that re-roots easily.  If it survives and thrives, I will let you know.

But some other things have thrived.  The blue daze is not only flowering but also spreading throughout the back yard garden.  I have had to cull some branches  as they threaten to "bury" some other plants, like the moss.  Where the moss hasn't been buried,  it has thrived, multiplying in neat small balls.  Quite cute, actually.

The snow bushes are 4 feet high even after a pruning in June. 

Weeds are the one thing that keep growing, so I am finally back on a regimen to keep them at bay.  I surely long for cooler weather.  When it is sunny and hot, I can only manage about an hour in the yard.  Today I was lucky, with cloud cover and a reasonable temperature  that allowed me to keep going for more than 2 hours. 

Next chore?  Digging out the weeks from the vegetable corner.  That definitely will require more than an hour.

Until next time,

Stop to smell the roses.

Deja Vu

Best laid plans seems to be my theme song lately.  One of my goals for the yard today was do more digging to find the sprinkler pipe.  I preceded that activity with maintenance of my vegetable garden -- digging out weeds and spraying for bugs.  One of the tomato plants has had its leaves chewed to a lacy pattern.  New leaves not so much.  The other plants have not yet been touched, thank goodness. 

After that I made my way around the back yard, pulling weeds where I saw them -- happily, not too many.  A nice surprise was seeing a flower stalk with buds rising from one agapanthus.  It will probably bloom tomorrow and I'll grab a photo for posting.

When I arrived on the south side of the house -- where the hidden pipes are -- I decided I ought to fill the first holes I dug last week.  Then I decided to rake the ground next to the house and move dirt toward the foundation, trying to create more of a slope away from the house.  I took the time to also dig up more crabgrass.  If we don't get a souce of water to that area, crabgrass may be all that we have growing there. 

After all that -- about 2-1/2 hours' worth -- I realized I had had enough.  So, I was the cause of the plans going awry today.  The next opportunity I'll have for digging will be Friday. 

Don't forget to stop and smell the roses.... I did: a fully opened Mr. Lincoln rose behind the house.  It made my day.

Best laid plans

The slide toward summer is not as easy as I had predicted for the gardens.  The leaves of my small Japanese maple are drying out, the hot peppers are not growing well and may be under attack, one of the tomato plants looks like lace due to a small green worm I finally uncovered.  I have been spraying the vegetables but can't tell if it's working.

A pleasant surprise, however, is the new growth on the magnolia.  New leaves are appearing and what looks like flowers budding.  The rain has helped other new plantings like the ixora and blue daze in the front yard; I hope it continues.

I'm really excited about a new garden space we have.  My husband sold his boat and gave away a car frame that he'd stored in the side yard.  So now I have a space at least 15 feet long by 10 feet wide to experiment with.  I already have some ideas -- one of which is planting a cherry tree -- but it will be a long process of preparation.  First on the list is finding the sprinkler pipes on that side.  Years ago, Jim capped at least one, possibly two, sprinkler heads so they would not rain well water on the trailers and vehicles.  I can't consider planting in that area without a source of water, so I could spend the next months digging, especially when I can only manage 1-2 hours at a time, several days apart.  I already dug 2 holes and a trench 24 inches deep without any luck.  It doesn't make sense to me that the pipe isn't there but I must persevere.   Wish me luck.

I'll keep you all updated on that.

Don't forget to smell the roses (or whatever flowers tickle your fancy).

The crazy weather must have the plants really confused as temperatures have swung from the high 80s to the 50s in the past 2 days.  Still, there is growth and flowering.  Below are some sights as I walked around the gardens.

Blue daze among the roses.  There are only about half the flowers now.

The new Peace rose has a bunch of flowers; the bare stalk in the middle is where I cut a group to bring in the house.









The dark pink hollyhock has grown a new stalk, also flowering.

The Mandeville has 2 healthy long vines and the flowers proliferate.

The Don Juan roses have tripled this year and are finally climbing up the trellis.

The leaves on the maple tree are growing to size.  I hope the "trunk" grows as well and as fast. 

These Don Juan roses are what I would hope to see all over the trellis.  I've been heavy on the liquid fertilizer for 2 months -- I'll keep it coming.







That's all for today.   Don't forget to stop and smell the flowers.







I can't believe it has been 6 months since my last blog. Not much happened garden-wise over the winter so I didn't feel I had much to write about. But now it's Spring and I have been very busy planting new bushes, flowers and vegetables.

Over the winter, I had baked the plot under black cloth, hoping to eliminate the nematodes. Shown in the back of this photo are the Better Bush tomatoes and one cherry tomato (far left).  Parsley is between the bigger plants in back, and super chili peppers and cayenne peppers in front. 

Below shows the zucchini I put in this year.  The variety is black zucchini, which is new to me.  It will be interesting to see how they grow and taste.

I also planted cilantro, a request of my husband's.

  Other backyard plants that are new are a red mandeville vine and hollyhocks.  The mandeville is the third plant I've put at the end of the trellis.  The previous plants (one a rose) did not survive.  I don't know why.  So far the mandeville is growing well so I have high hope.

I had considered the mandeville in previous years, but I didn't care for the colors I saw. About 2 weeks ago, I was walking through Lowe's plant section and spotted this beautiful red flower. A look at the tag surprised me -- it was a mandeville. So I decided to try it.

Later, as I left Lowe's, I looked at the plants displayed outside and discovered the hollyhocks. I hadn't seen those in many years and decided to them a try also. I would love to see them grow to their average 7-foot height.

 

red maple

I'm really pleased at something I planted in the fall. It's the Japanese red maple. A bare-root tree, there was nothing on it but the promise of growth with many buds along the stem. There are red leaves on top and bottom and I hope the growth continues.

That's it for today. Keep your thumbs green.

Storms, rain delay garden updates

    

The magnolia is blooming again and the ixora filled with flowers.

As much as the gardens and lawn need rain, the drenches we have had lately put a damper (yes, that's a pun) on my plans for planting and seeding.

I decided a few weeks ago that I would start replacing the St. Augustine grass with Zoyzia.  I had hoped to put down sod in the larger bare areas and plugs in smaller ones.  A search of nurseries and garden centers came up empty. One center declared they could order the sod but the order had to be a minimum of one pallet (400 square feet) for more than $200.  I wasn't prepared to uses that much sod at one time, nor spend that much.  Further investigation showed that I could use Zoyzia seed, which Scott's provides in a seed-mulch combination.   That will allow me to test grow it in limited areas before I commit to more.  My daughter is planning to replace her entire lawn with sod in the spring and I may be able to piggyback on her order for a small quantity if I like my experiment. 

The major planting quandary I've had -- filling the space left by removal of the magnolia -- has been decided.  I am taking another chance on a Japanese maple, a brilliant red color, of course.  It is a Web order and I should have delivery by next week.  Our weather will be cooler then and probably drier.  To avoid daily hose treatments, I will be using a slow-drip product requiring filling only about once a week.

I want to add pansies to the gardens for winter color but was told at my favorite nursery, South Brevard Nursery in Melbourne, that November was the month for pansies, so I will have to wait.

The storm that passed through our area a week ago knocked several branches out of my big oak in the front yard plus dozens of smaller branches.  I wouldn't attempt to count the  twigs and leaves.  I still have two broken but hanging branches that are too high to reach, even on a tall ladder.  I hate having to wait for their inevitable fall, hoping they don't hit people or cars.  I also lost a big branch from the ash tree in the back yard -- the first time that tree has been struck. 

After the storm, I had to get up on the roof to check for branches there and the status of the gutters.  I knew we had a problem on one gutter because I could see the small branch wedged in the corner that was causing a big waterfall onto the patio.

As I suspected, branches of various sizes littered the roof.  The gutter I knew I had to check was worse than expected.  A bunch of small branches were wedged in  and blocked leaves from washing away.  Not even a leaf blower (which I frequently use for leaf removal) would clear it all so hand removal was necessary.  Fortunately, the rest of the gutters were nearly clear, just a few leaves. 

I wish I had finished my drainage project before all this rain but I wasn't sure what and how I would do it until last week.  It may become a dry-season project. 

That is how my garden grows for now. 

More later.

Hot summer slows garden work

I haven't written anything new here for a while because there wasn't much to tell over the summer.  My garden efforts were primarily keeping plants fertilized and gardens weeded.  I had to do the work very early in the morning before the heat overwhelmed me -- usually only about an hour's worth.  Because of those conditions, I wasn't very inspired to think of future projects.

But, YEA!, fall is here and the mornings are cooler.  I spent an hour and a half today weeding and fertilizing, plus pruning the juniper and podocarpus on the north side of the house. 

One of the sad results of the very hot summer was the decline of the transplanted magnolia in the back yard.  You may remember that I had moved it from the shaded corner to a sunnier spot on the south side.  Its reluctance to revive and show new growth convinced me to pull it out last month.  So now I am on the search for something else to fill the spot. 

I am also waiting to find a new Mr. Lincoln rose bush to replace one in the front yard.  The tree trimmer (man) took down a large branch that unfortunately hit the old bush straight on and broke the trunk at or below the ground level.  There was no salvaging that plant.  The bush next to it onlly suffered one broken branch which I considered part of my fall pruning.

With the advent of October, I pruned all my rose bushes for their semi-annual trim.  There is new growth on all of them now so I anticipate another flowering winter season. 

The cooler fall weather has apparently made all the plants happy as they are filling out and blooming more now.  Even my magnolia has one ready to burst open and another soon behind it (see below).

The biggest success has been the large ixora under the maple tree.  It has succumbed to the freezes the last 2 winters but recovered and filled with flowers (also below). If we don't have another freeze, it will continue to bloom all winter.

That's all for this update.  I should have more as the fall progresses and I plan more projects.

Blooms in heat

My husband gave me a huge bouquet of red roses today to celebrate our 42nd anniversary.  They are lovely to look at but have no scent.  I think it's a crime that the marvelous scents of roses have been bred out of the flowers.  Fortunately, I just have to walk out the front door of my house to be transported by that heady aroma. 

Here is a look at one of my roses in bloom:

It's a Chrysler Imperial.  There are three blossoms on my Mr. Lincoln, the branches stretching nearly 5 feet high, about eye level. The Knockout roses are full of blooms too.

Despite the incredible heat, the roses are blooming more this summer than in several past years.  Perhaps I've been more diligent about fertilizing and dead-heading the blooms.   The only disappointing factor is that the blooms don't last more than a day in the heat and humidity.  But neither do I.

I was reading another blog about growing roses and the writer recommended a climbing rose called Stormy Weather.  It's purple and strongly scented.  I will have to research that one to see if it will do well in this area.  The Nelson nursery specializes in growing roses on root stock for Florida so that's a place to start.

Keep cool, my friends. 

Summer doldrums, rain

My garden corner activities have slowly wound down as the temperatures have gone up, but fortunately, my major projects have been concluded.

The sidewalk extension is done and I am loving the extra space and ease of transition from yard to driveway.  I did find the tumbled glass I wanted to fill the spaces, in a lovely combination of white and peachy pink pieces.   Photos are below, taken from below the path, looking toward the house, and at top, looking toward the street.  The color combination is not visible, unfortunately. 

                   

The rains we have been experiencing have done wonders for the grass and all my plants.  The grass plugs I planted in the front yard are finally filling in the bare spots.  My rose garden, which had gone into rose hibernation with the high temperatures a month ago, have been restored and they are in full bloom again. (The photo below doesn't do them justice.) Even my magnolia in the front yard has erupted with new flowers. Nature is wonderful.

 

The only problem with the rain is that it has come in fierce downfalls that have overloaded the gutters, causing waterfalls over the edge and creating drainage issues.  I have spent several mornings restoring ground levels and adding splash blocks.  

The vegetable garden finally died out and I spent another morning pulling out dead plants and weeds.  I think I'm going to improve the ground with a heat treatment for the coming season.  The baking of the soil supposedly will kill weed seeds and roots as well as nematodes, which I've had problems with in the past.

That's the update for this month. 

Labor breeds labor?

Don't you love it when your plans come together and you can yell, SUCCESS!   That's how I felt last weekend when I changed a few sprinkler heads and they are now working as planned.  I have a couple more to replace in the back yard, but the front yard should be thriving again soon, especially if the rainy season kicks in soon.  So far, only areas north and west of us have been getting any of the forecast rain.

Perhaps it is the constant reconstruction that has been going on in my house the last 3 weeks (bathroom renovation), but I got the bug to start my own garden renovation.  Some years ago I had added a brick path the length of our driveway so that anyone exiting the car on the passenger side didn't have to step into the grass.  My new project is widening the top of the path with similar bricks and blocks.  Part of the reasoning is that a boxwood bush near the path was half dead and I also found myself cutting through that garden strip to get into the yard and/or the nearby rose island. 

The project first required pulling out the boxwood and a couple of dwarf liriope (which I transplanted) and then digging out the dirt.  I filled a 40-gallon bucket to start.

Yesterday I bought the 12" stone blocks (with a brick pattern) and decorative edging so today was labor day.  Have you ever tried to fit square, or linear, stone along a curved edge?  There are corners and spaces left but all the pieces were in place in about 2-1/2 hours.   At that point my back was yelling at me to stop, so I did. 

Some of the dirt I dug up I spread around bare spaces in the yard but I still have most of that 40-gallon bucket left.  I may just dump it in the vegetable garden for a change in its composition.

The gaps in the brick addition I think I will fill with colored glass stones.  If I can find them.  I'll be hunting online later to see if local stores have them.

Tomorrow I will be back in the gardens planting more blue daze ground cover.  The ones I planted a week or two ago are thriving so I have several more places I can put them.

That's all for now.  Keep smelling the roses to sweeten your life.