Garden in July
Jul. 1st, 2011 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
botias
Remember how I said I was planting things to replace the annuals before it was time to pull them out? Well, those things are all of two inches tall wherever they did not fail completely. When I take out these poppy megaliths, my garden's going to look pretty bare in that area. Lesson learned: the soil here is too rich for poppies unless a poppy shrub is wanted. The flowers last only a day or two, but clip the seed heads off and it quickly produces a whole new batch.
AWWW!!!! 10yo is the best. Like the poppies, best to enjoy such sentiments while I may. The plants are strawberries. This is my first year growing them (successfully). I've tried them in strawberry pots with no success, too difficult to keep them watered. This discarded watering trough is just the trick.
Lauren's Grape from a different direction. They are a little dark for me unless they are backlit, but it's a very romantic color.
The Red-leafed Rose. I grow this rose for the foliage which to me looks like something out of a fairy tale. *sighs* It's tough, too. I planted it in a spot that was too shady, and it limped along for a couple of years. Then I dug it out, and it lay neglected while I tried to decide if it really had a place in my garden. I fell in love with it in Colorado where its drought and heat tolerance were important features. Now I've moved on, and I wasn't sure if we were still suited to each other. Other plants have similar lovely foliage, lack thorns and also produce fruit/prettier flowers and might also be happier in my new climate. In the end, I planted it again, as much out of guilt as anything else because it had dried to a crisp from neglect. A few shovelfuls of compost and regular watering revived it nicely. Tough.
This bed is nice and lush so I've got high hopes for late summer show. This is all dahlias and asters. One of the dahlias is getting started already. I was all excited until I recalled that this dahlia is the one whose blossoms would not open completely last year. So, a few days ago, I fertilized the heck out of this bed in hopes of solving the problem. This is something that needed doing anyway. My research regarding the arrested blossoms reminded me that dahlias, for all that they grow like weeds, are also extravagant, and may like a fair bit of feeding to put on their best show.
Stuff. Scabious, sage, succulents. :)
Uh. Stuff again.
And finally. Poppy fail of the opposite kind. I have yet to succeed with California Poppies. :| This is a lovely flower, but this plant got as little of what it needed to thrive as the Lauren's Grape plants got too much. It's only six inches tall, when it should have long since turned into a lovely mound of blue-green foliage covered with flowers, and set seed as soon as the weather turned warm. It's siblings have no blooms at all. It's really lovely, though. Maybe next year.
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Date: 2011-07-02 01:25 pm (UTC)And 10YO is adorable!
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Date: 2011-07-02 07:07 pm (UTC)He is! *hugs him* I'll have to refer to this pic when he's a surly, pimply teen.
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