Man it is hot, and it is only 7:30 am. What will the day bring? Its scary when we start the day this hot. You can't help but think where is the temperature going to go? Its looking like an "in the house" day. The air is so thick out there, it feels as if you could cut the air with a knife.
Being in the yard earlier than usual today had a small pay off. I finally saw some of my Morning Glories
blooming. These are some strange Morning Glories, they bloom so early I never see them. It seems as if as soon as the sun appears they close up. Maybe they bloom in the dark?
Their colors are beautiful, but it is pretty disappointing to never get to see the flowers. Making a date to see the flowers seems a bit over the top for me.
Some work was done on the perennial gardens yesterday. A bunch of hostas that moved with us from our previous home have finally made it into the garden. The poor plants have spent over two years in these old window box planters. How they survived, I do not know! Fortunately they were ready for the big show, and it happened yesterday. We have this wicked weed here that looks like crab grass. It is called wire grass. It is called that because the roots look like a mass of wires underground. It is pretty unbelieveable just how dense the root system is on these things. I decided that we should try these hostas along the garden bed edges. The hostas also grow to a dense root system so I an hoping that the hostas root system can hold on and overtake the wire grass, blocking it out of the perennial bed. The other purpose the hostas fulfill is to cover the feet of other plants. They soften the ugly plant area where the roots meet the stem. Putting hostas over that area makes a smooth transition between the height of the flowering plants and the garden bed. I love that dense layered look in a garden. Planting densely also helps keep the weeds down.
The garden at our last home had soooo many hostas. They were every size, texture and color you can think of. Our homesite was covered with ancient huge trees that softly shaded the lot. That shade provided the ideal hosta environment. Some of them grew to be four feet across and four feet high, if not larger. Others were as short as four inches high and five inches across. My favorites were those giants which had a blue color, lots of crinkled texture and pale blue/lavender flowers on stiff tall stems. They were great for cut flowers. As our neighborhood grew my hostas were in great peril. Deer moved into the neighborhood, as the wild areas decreased, and my hostas became deer salad. All they needed for the complete dining experience was some Parmesan Pepper dressing! I feared that the same fate would befall my hosta here, but fortunately that has not happened. The deer here actually fear humans, just like they did in my youth. Mr says that deer are not a problem here because in this area people come complete with guns that can solve the problem of deer destroying home landscapes! The deer do seem to be well aware of this situation and they look over here, but they keep their distance and run if they see us. That pleases me to no end. So after being here for nearly two years I have enough faith to plant the hostas out in the garden beds, instead of the plant nursery area. I have high hopes for their success here.
There are some new bloomers out there. I have not reached the point of having innumerable cut flowers, but I have reached the point of having some flowers to create a small bouquet for the table every couple of days. It is definitely a pleasure to be able to do that.
I had high hopes for some Snap Dragons, but this is the only one that has bloomed. I grew them from seeds and they sprouted, but they didn't mature completely. I think they have been hindered by other plants outgrowing them and then shading them, which was deleterious their bloom.
A couple of Heliopsis' have come to bloom and their color is just great. Who could miss them! I just love their jolt of color! This is such a tall plant. It averages five to six feet tall. It also has a nice full green plant body. The flowers are struggling a bit this year, maybe because of the extreme heat conditions we have had. It is a very reliable bloomer in an ordinary year. You cut them and they bloom again and again. They are the perfect cut flower. Then I have another variety of this that my sister gave me. It is such a full blooming flower with many petals and dimension, it looks like a chrysanthemum. It is just starting to bloom, so I should get lots of cut flowers from this one.
Well got to go.....
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