Gardening by the Book

[ginny]

These Garden Shows on DIGI are quite old. Apparently the Rich Brothers are not appearing in the newer series, most of which can be seen on youtube. Charlie is there but they are gone, although there is a note that they will be reappearing in what's shot this year. Their substitutes were...not the same and I did not like the current 2022 series which is on youtube now. So I look forward to their return, the current shows on DIGI are quite good.

I did look up the house done yesterday, the one with the man who was an antiques expert, and was doing car park antiques sales on his acreage.  It seems that Ruth worked in vain there, he had sold out and was in the news yesterday, actually, as he's been robbed at his new location,  and he blamed the show for calling attention to his priceless antiques. Something to beware of, he did have many beautiful ojbects d'art, MANY, his house was a museum of beautiful things.

Today's program here at 11 is Ruth joins John and Flavia Philips at Heath House, their gothic mansion in rural Staffordshire. John's family have lived on the land as far back as the 16th century, and the house has stood since 1840. Now in their 70s, John and Flavia are finding the property, along with the 480 acres of land, is becoming a financial and physical drain on them. The Philips believe the only way out is to sell Heath House.

uh oh, I hope this is not another failure.

[BarbStAubrey]

Wow he has a point with the treasures in these old houses being brought to public attention and now I can see the reluctance most have in turning their homes into tourist attractions. The cost of security must be huge.

[ginny]

 Yes, they are all to a theme, and kind of depressing. This last one last week was gigantic and just falling apart, and the cost of running it for a month was astronomical. You have to admit, though, some sympathy for them, as you'd not want your house overrun with gawkers either. I always thought the Highclere Castle folks docents were a bit....off putting...... but then it's not my house light-fingered folks are meandering through, either.

I'm finding in the gardens here that the perennials are now holding forth and the beautiful hydrangeas, strawberries and cream I think they are (I have 3 white variant  varieties planted in the "front" of the house where people drive up) and even though in the 2nd year and un-pruned from, last year  are just doing fabulously, they are not caring about the knee, they are shining white in all their glory at the moment, so instead of all flat Of The Same Level greenery on the foundation for the first time  they are elevated several feet above, and the contrast has made a WONDERFUL appearance and they did that all on their own. I am so pleased with them. I only planted them because Jane said she had some, and boy am I glad I did.

I have learned from this that you want your base to be  in perennials that don't need fuss and bother and a good knee to still look fabulous.

As it's way too hot to do anything, that's good to know.

[BarbStAubrey]

I'm lucky to keep my grass alive - only allowed to water 2 days a week

[jane]

Ginny...Glad your hydrangeas are looking good.  Mine here are just beginning to form buds.  It's now so hot and humid and no rain, that I've been watering all day hoping to keep my perennials alive.  I only planted two hanging baskets with annuals, when I used to plant a lot...but I can't do it anymore.

 Barb....I don't water my grass.  But, I know you want to have your house look good for sale time.

jane

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes Jane, true however I did not water a couple of years back when we had a very hot summer and the gofers took over and so I had hundreds of holes in the yard from gofers followed by ant hills that were really ant mounds - what a mess and far more expensive to repair than if I had paid the price and watered - can't win for loosing as the saying goes...

For sure though where I am going one of the first things I'm installing is a sprinkler system - dragging these hoses around is wearing me out so I do not get done much else. With a sprinkler only 10 minutes a day keeps things from drying up. I notice any weakened limb on trees are actually drying up in a couple of days and falling off the trees - I have one where the bark is splitting and falling off. Looks like this is a world wide weather event and so many are using it to sell something.

[ginny]

 Yes, I have to say, after watching all these marvelous gardening shows in the morning on this DIGI free internet channel that I am getting a world of ideas, but the thing I still hate the most is DRAGGING A HOSE.

I hate dragging hoses, like the plague, just hate it.  Every year I wonder anew at how difficult it is. How difficult can it BE? You just unwind the stupid hose where it was put when the lawn was mowed.  But it IS. How much easier it would be  to turn on something or even have a timer set and let IT turn on something, though it's so hot hoses here just burst if left with water in them.

You'll laugh at me but last year I would get in the golf cart (I told you you would laugh) and pull out the hose that way till it was straight from its coil,  and then " drive it" by puling it  over to the garden and make the cart do all the work. Takes some maneuvering, for sure. How stupid that looks in print, but when you hate struggling with something you find a way to do it. Of course this year nothing is done by me, that's why I'm so thrilled to see anything surviving.

REALLY hot and humid and I see that the middle of the country is setting records for heat. It's always hot here in the summer. I am surprised that Miami is not 200 degrees but apparently it's never gotten to 100?

[ginny]

Well for Pete's sake. All summer, all Covid Summer I've been watching DIGI which Barbara recommended and enjoying the Garden Rescue and the Stately home rescue and now it's gone. It SAYS all good things must end, we wish you well and off it goes.

But it's on Youtube: https://stream.how/show/garden-rescue?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=Search&t_source=64&utm_campaign=2760&gclid=CjwKCAjwlqOXBhBqEiwA-hhitI-quprcmJOL9eLWcEVAR_BxKOLC3j-h06wv1ZwAT9uxgkKBBuA_GBoCEvAQAvD_BwE All the episodes apparently.

Irritating. Especially for those of us in the US who can't get it otherwise. And when I click on this it says you can watch  it if you have Prime Video which I have. If one does not have Prime Video Youtube DID have individual episodes and now they are as of today only "previews."

So irritating.

In Edit:  And more irritation, Prime says I can watch it now with a "free trial" of "Inside outside," no thank you. I'm done with free trials which result in 5.99 per month. How irritating can you get? If Prime Video and Brit Box won't do it, I guess I won't see any more of them. Such a shame, these are old programs (2016, 2017) and we still can't get them.

In Edit II: Here IS one from 2021, it's different from the early ones, but we can still see a program. I liked the 2016 ones best:    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x81h813

And here's a bunch of them from 2022, but not the same cast: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8ch50e

[BarbStAubrey]

Oh no... you are right... just turned the computer version of Digi and same message - shoot shoot shoot - appears they are forcing us to pay for any decent TV -  I am so disappointed - will have to look for some of the Garden Rescue's at least on Youtube but I so enjoyed also the old Midsummer Murders - as close as you can get to a cozy on TV - OH and I really enjoyed the Australian police show that was in the small town of Mount Thomas - forgot the name - and on Thursday early evening there was a great cooking show with James Martin, well known in Britain - the facebook page to Digi has several posts noting with sadness the loss of the channel...

[ginny]

People like British TV, but the DOLLAR rules.

To me that's unwise. Nobody is going to pay for 2011-2016 programs except out of nostalgia and I did not like the 2021 shows I saw.

While YouTube is still free, we may get to see some shows. 

Bummer!

[ginny]

I have to say I'm REALLY in Poirot Land now and I'm so bemused at the comments on YouTube and on Amazon about David Suchet and how good he is in this Covid pandemic. We need a fan club, I am SO enjoying his books and films.

[BarbStAubrey]

Never thought of it - yes, the dollar rules - but then their ads were not about re-useable products - mostly donate to some cause or insurance which you do not switch companies often enough  plus health insurance is difficult to sell on TV - too many variables within a policy - well it got us through the last year and I notice our PBS channel is carrying Masterpiece and other Brit TV on Saturday and Sunday night again - here in the Houston area they are showing Poirot late on Saturday on their PBS station - last week was a show I had never seen - so it appears I will be trading one lineup for another -

[BarbStAubrey]

Finally looked for and found a whole slew of Garden Rescue shows on Youtube - it appears in 2021 the Rich Brothers left and this new guy with a strange hair cut took their place and then in 2022 a whole crew of new faces took over - Did not like any of the designs and Charlie really put on a lot of weight -  every garden looked like it was created for shock value - none were inviting in my estimation - Sure hope you are right Ginny and the Rich Brothers come back and bring less 'mod' or 'punk' or whatever they were and more sophistication with clean lines and outdoor craftsmanship back to the series - even Charlie's designs I thought were more livable with all her penchant for pergolas and ponds when she was competing with the Rich Brothers.

I saw one show that Charlie designed for a family with two small boys - one just starting to walk and another about a year older - all she had on the side was some sort of workbench with two metal bowls flush to the table that the older of the two was already bringing a bowl full of water around the garden with no idea what to do with it and there was no grass area for them to play much less a swing or room for a swing - lots or raised boxes full of flowers that you know the boys will be tempted pull out and will be scolded - If i were those parents I would be angry after spending all that money and they will have to take some of it down just to have yard space for their growing boys. They live in an area where the houses were all attached and no one else had any kind of garden - A tree that would grow big enough to also provide shade for the yards next to theirs would have been welcome. 

Big disappointment finding these shows especially after the Digi network disappeared I thought there would be something to enjoy - no wonder the network disappeared if that is the show they were handed to air - I could not see even the corny ads they had paying to put their ads on that show... 

[ginny]

I agree totally with this: Finally looked for and found a whole slew of Garden Rescue shows on Youtube - it appears in 2021 the Rich Brothers left and this new guy with a strange hair cut took their place and then in 2022 a whole crew of new faces took over - Did not like any of the designs and Charlie really put on a lot of weight -  every garden looked like it was created for shock value - none were inviting in my estimation - Sure hope you are right Ginny and the Rich Brothers come back and bring less 'mod' or 'punk' or whatever they were and more sophistication with clean lines and outdoor craftsmanship back to the series - even Charlie's designs I thought were more livable with all her penchant for pergolas and ponds when she was competing with the Rich Brothers.

It seems to  me that the Rich brothers (hardly the "boys" the first show portrayed them as) got tired  of the show, despite really being the stars, you could see it here and there with the oldest, David (the shorter one) occasionally,  and backed off during Covid. Now apparently they are coming back, at least they ARE filming this year.  Wonder when we'll get to see it? If ever.  Wonderful publicity for them, I doubt they need it, but it's great advertising.

But you are right, those new shows are unwatchable. Unrelatable cast/ too  much the clown/  bad designs. I also would be PO'd to pay that money and get those results.

[ginny]

 There's a new show I've just caught sight of, it's instant garden or something like that, lots and lots of construction of benches out of pallets, and all in one day. Nevertheless they do a good job and sometimes a spectacular one. It's on now and one can tape it, on a new channel here as well, which shows British programming, but is an old one, channel 40 here in SC. I hope it makes it.

Gardenwise here, we're to have our first frost.  What a disappointing year it has been with my sprained knee, watching things die.  The side garden is a nice green garden, it does look presentable, or as presentable as it can with every single flower eaten to the ground. Every single one by deer, rabbits, and groundhogs. It's a veritable zoo parade out here. The garden in the triangle is totally overgrown.

But the hydrangeas have flourished and been quite beautiful. I'm very gratified to see them.

Also the rose arch has been spectacular and the little walled garden has somehow sprung to life, those snapdragons everybody told me were annuals and here in SC  would die and were planted too late a year ago are still not only alive, here in their second year,  they are 3 feet tall, and blooming, and hanging on for dear life. Between them and the roses that little garden has held its place and there are even some giant dahlias blooming now.  AND two small pink vincas somehow found their way to the front of the bricks on the lawn  in the grass and are growing and blooming. So much for "annuals."

In other words, what should not have lived in this great heat and drought has held on anyway. And really when you can do nothing about it, it is very heartening to see. Of course it's nothing like it was, but it's trying and that's all we can do. We're to have a frost in a couple of days, some severe temps actually, but only for a night or two. I'm going to try to do something to save them.

What's happening in your garden?

[ginny]

 This is the view or partial view behind my computer at the moment:

[jane]

Gorgeous. 

Our leaves were beautiful this year as well, but they're mostly on the ground now. 

jane

[BarbStAubrey]

Wow - delicious - looks just like a calendar photo for October or November - Must be difficult not to gaze at all that color rather than reading and typing away on the computer - where I'm going I will see color however, not until the end of November into December - a variety of trees and lots of pine grow east of Central Texas - I will be on the southern edge of what is called the East Texas Piney woods - even Maples grow!- Here it is Live Oak after Live Oak - no pine or maples - a few different kinds of deciduous Oaks, Ash, Cypress by the rivers and creeks, Hackberry and China Berry tucked in here and there - however, lots of flowering bushes that tell the seasons - in another week or so any open land left wild and even a few homeowners front yards will burst into bloom with a yucca we call Spanish Bayonet - large white blossoms that will bloom till about the New Year.

[ginny]

Thank you both!

 It IS hard to take your eyes off it. It's been that way at least a week, but yesterday as I came back home there was a carpet of gold leaves when I stopped to get the mail and the sugar maple near the road is shedding THE most gorgeous mustard yellow leaves in drifts. When I was a child in PA we'd make forts of those leaves in the churchyard and play all kinds of games. I couldn't resist a shuffle through them.

I put that up yesterday as a background on the computer when doing two zoom classes from the guest room,  but in front of me on that end of  the house,  that entire northern side of the house   through the window was in red. Bright red,  dogwoods, oaks, maples, but now as I look out the window toward the road (the photo here) the leaves are flying like the Night Before Christmas poem,  and I have a feeling that we're about to lose ours, too. The dogwoods have been the most spectacular I have ever seen and they are stubbornly hanging on to big red/ orange leaves while the rest blow by.

I really love fall, and this has been the prettiest one we've had in years.

[ginny]

And those were not edited photos too. Lately when I get a photographic puzzle online they have amped the colors up so  much to the point that it looks like a child colored it. That photo above does not, believe it or not, really show the intensity of color of the red.

But they are all gone now.

Those snapdragons I was told should have been planted in the spring as an annual are still going strong, or a couple of them are, and until a day or so ago still had some blooms, and we had one night at 28 degrees, but it may make 70 tomorrow.

 I have never seen anything like it, totally untended because of the knee, broiling summer, no water, and one of them  3 feet tall and wide.  I don't know what to do for or about them.

[ginny]

Gardening wise, here we are March 14, totally crazy weather. Yellow pollen everywhere. We've had 70 and 80 degree weather in February, but  last night was 31, in the 20's tonight, can't plant anything.  The dogwoods are starting to bloom. But everything else is  about finished, forsythia, cherry trees, Bradford pears, quince, etc., daffodils all gone, azaleas doing well, but worried about our gorgeous dogwoods and these very cold nightly temperatures.

Sure am enjoying our "Squirrel Buster" bird feeders. They really work, and the squirrels are getting very fat eating the seeds scattered below, so everybody seems happy with them.

What's happening in your garden with the strange weather? Or IS it strange there?

[BarbStAubrey]

So busy unpacking I won't really get into a garden till probably the fall after we go through the heat - I did have a crew cleanup and take out three of those Sego Palm - really dislike them and half of the fonds were dead after the freeze this year - the one that was probably 8 feet in height near the front door I want to replace with a Redbud  the one near the driveway was so close to the Magnolia it is probably good it is out of there and then the other was so close to a tree - when things are planted as transplants for a nursery they are so small it is difficult to realize just how big they will get - I'm thinking the one under and so close to the tree I may replace but a bit further away from the tree with a Mountain Laurel - great scented flower in Spring and green all year. Been making my list of plants I just have to have but first I want to paint the fence along the side where it goes all the way close to the street next to the driveway - there is a narrow planting space that I think I want to plant some Jasmin and Honeysuckle to go up over the fence - but before I start dreaming about what I want outside I need to get this house further along. Needs more painting and a complete redo of the master bath that currently has a tub without exaggerating that takes up with sitting a monstrous 9 feet square area - I'm replacing with a shower and taking out the dinky shower that is next to this gigantic tub with all these jets etc. Cannot even get in it to clean it - I would never get out...

[ginny]

hahaha

I had never heard of that palm so I looked it up, did you realize how toxic it is?

"The sago palm contains several toxic compounds. These compounds can cause very severe gastrointestinal upset, affect the nervous system, or damage the liver. Clinical signs of poisoning may occur as early as 15 minutes following ingestion, although in some cases, signs may not appear for several hours."

It's also poisonous to pets.

Good thing to remove it!

[BarbStAubrey]

Good grief - well it is growing all over although now that I think on it there is none growing on or near any of the ranches - there was not that much of it in Austin but then Austin is a bit further north in zone 8 where as this area is in zone 9 - I remember it was all over San Antonio which is well into zone 9 --- well who knew - I just did not like the look and I thought it was pushing it those who plant any palms north of San Antonio - all it takes is one bitter cold snap that lasts for a couple of days and they all look like brown paper sacks blowing in the wind.

There are many large trees already growing in the yard but would like more color and spring blossoms - last night I started a list of trees, bushes and perennials I love and it would be disappointing to live without them in my yard - the beginning of a plan... for now the yellow layer continues - it is a battle of which lasts longer - the thick yellow or my lungs - I've already changed out the house filter after only a week and I have two small air filters turned up full blast that have had their filters changed - ha it is war with the yellow

[ginny]

What a spring this has been! I wonder anything is alive, but it is and my rose arbor was, if possible,  even more beautiful than last year, hundreds of large blooms. (It always blooms around Mother's Day). Now the  little brick garden has started,  and is also a  delight. I thought this section  is coming along color wise:   That tag on the right is to my newest rose, John Paul II. I had one last year and due to the crowded conditions I always have in the brick garden it had to struggle to bloom but it DID. It would send out 3 and 4 foot branches and bloom the most beautiful white roses  you ever saw. Perfect shape, strong fragrance.  And it would keep at it. NOW it's in a giant pot and the plant has to be seen to be believed. It's already bloomed once, it's just a glory of a flower, it really is and seems very happy in the pot. So far. it's covered with buds. The old plant is happier too as it now has some sun.

   However, it seems that I've lost the entire 100 foot border  at the other end of the house to the deer and voles and rabbits or whatever, all I've got is a nice border grass dividing line.  How frustrating! I REALLY put a lot of work into that to lose it all. Makes you want to cover it with a wire fence but how to stop the voles. Nasty things.

And that formerly loamy ground is HARD as a rock! I've pulled out all the hydrangeas in the back of it  which the deer ate to the ground and put them here on the terrace in pots. They look nice but nothing like what it would have been. The other new hydrangeas around the house look really healthy and good.

It appears other than our established 50+ year old blooming shrubs, etc., for any new plantings terrace gardening and raised beds is my future, which is not all bad. It's certainly easier and more fun to maintain and it IS nice to have a lovely show to look at. This morning I discovered something which I am SURE you all knew without being asked, but to transplant some geraniums to the porch this morning I used those disposable gloves you buy in boxes of 100?  Yesterday I used regular gardening gloves for the heavy work including those impermeable on one side  gloves and they naturally got wet and muddy, same ol same ol, but this morning I used those thin disposable gloves, and I put 3 and 4 on each hand. Is it wet? Peel layer 4 off and you've got a fresh new start to go in the house and get water or the next plant to bring outside. Is it muddy? Peel that off and you're fresh and dry again.

Is this wasteful? I can't see how it's more wasteful than the pile of wet dirty garden gloves stiffening on the porch, you can't put dirt in the washing machine,  which I rinsed off and now have to wait to dry. When you put them back on they are stiff and unpleasant. Useful, yes. The only game in town? Not for me and my raised beds  any more.

I have joined the Disposable Culture I guess.

[BarbStAubrey]

Ginny where the soil got hard if you water a cup of vinegar to a gallon of water it will penetrate and soften the soil in a week or so - also if you spread Epsom Salts your garden will really not only green-up but bloom like never before. Spread around trees after a heavy freeze and voila the tree come back to life rather being cut for firewood. 

[ginny]

I'll remember that, Barbara, about the tenderizing of the land, especially since most of ours is that red clay. I have to add loam to it. There' s also a new APP for the iphone (I think its more intended for house plants) but you capture the leaf of the sad looking plant and it tells you all kinds of remedies, like coffee of all things, so I plan to try  it out on the houseplants as well. I did know about the epsom salts and roses.   It would be pretty easy to throw that out as well.

I'm up for whatever.

[PatH]

Portland is entering its Rose Festival phase, lasting through about June 18.  I always think the roses won't be blooming yet, but they always are.  It started at midnight Saturday-Sunday, with a fireworks display, which was partly visible from my window.  There will be entertainments, dragon boat races on the Willamette River, all sorts of stuff, ending with a parade of many floats, all constructed of roses.

Ill probably cower away from the festivities, but the rose test garden is already worth seeing, and remains so until very latte fall, 'with a huge number of experimental varieties, blooming at different times, on a slope with paths going through.

[ginny]

OH gosh yes, the Portland Rose Test Gardens, how lucky you are.

I love rose gardens...particularly the test gardens with the new varieties. At Biltmore House in Asheville NC  a couple of years ago they had some sort of International Rose Trials. I knew nothing about it!!!  I wish I had, I love to see in person the new roses. You are lucky to have one permanent where you live.

Regent's Park in London had a wonderful rose garden.  I haven't been since Covid but it was called Queen Mary's Rose Garden  and it was SO fun to walk there and look at the varieties.All of us circling a particular bed trying to discover what THIS one is. hahaha  The last time I went it was too early in the year, I think, so the experience was much diminished.

 But what thrives in the UK does not necessarily thrive here, I've found. Once walking from Fishbourne Roman Palace to the train station you pass a row of houses with beautiful very small front yards with I think are called pocket gardens, which were a glory,  and there was THE most fragrant rose, labelled Sheila's Perfume. It was gorgeous and you could smell it way off. It took years for it to come to the US but when it did I bought one,  it failed, I thought it was me, and then another and they both bloomed once and that was it, our very hot very humid summers simply did not suit it. Apparently?

At any rate roses are tougher than people think,   and if you can only meet their small requirements (like water) they reward a million times over.

[jane]

We were never successful with roses.  This year, I'm relying only on perennials for color.  I just can't get out and plant annuals anymore.  I do have a lot of self-seeing balloon flowers, so I hope they will do.  My clematis is also climbing and the hydrangeas look to be coming along.

Happy pretty gardens,

jane

[ginny]

I certainly can relate to that. I have been doing the same thing, inserting perennials in the brick bed in addition to the snapdragons which for some reason really do well in that bed. Roses apparently do not like any competition, their roots spread out a long way and they want a lot of water and food.

 I'm finding that the older varieties, which look old, too, are doing the best but  I just took a shot this morning of my new John Paul II which I'm trying in its own pot on  the hot brick porch, and it's absolutely gorgeous.  Here are two shots of it.  This  morning it seemed to be drooping a bit so I ran out and watered it. A flawless white rose. It also has black spot due to our constant rain.  I've got pots everywhere again  on the porch and they don't look that good.. I need some raised planters to do my puttering. 

I'm with you on the perennials. I added one daylilly, two daisies, and lots of snapdragons. Even though it's an annual (but here is more a perennial in that insulating brick bed,  if the cold doesn't kill it)....I can't resist a snapdragon.  In this heat everybody told me I was wasting my time. Yet I saw them in Florida at Disney  World and I thought surely if they can grow in that heat they can grow here. Boy do they!

I saw yesterday in the long garden some daylillies blooming!!!! YAY, they aren't all dead, after all. And some daisies.

But the perennial borders are the finest.

[jane]

The John Paul II is gorgeous.  Wherever it is seems to make it very happy. 

[ginny]

Isn't it? Thank you! The trick is to keep it that way. I've hit on a new rose site https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP3Ge131YXD3IqGU-NOO1kw in which the guy takes a more organic approach which makes sense against spraying for blackspot (I'm sitting here with an "organic" fungicide at my feet).  I'm going to try his way and see if I can possibly stop it here because again of our rainy spring, the leaves are wet all night.


I bet the colors of your perennials are beautiful together! And once planted with reasonable care, don't they make a pleasure to look at  every year?  And they really want to grow. I have a Lycoris at the Pump House I need to move, it's VERY old, totally unattended, and beautiful, old southern plant, I think it's known as  a spider lilly, beautiful thing, and those beds are totally unattended and have been for years. I ought to go get it for its constancy and move it to a better spot. Nobody can see it there.

Yesterday in a trip to Lowe's, I saw a beautiful daisy like plant that sort of matched the one I planted earlier this year in that brick bed, blooming when only about 5 inches tall, covered with buds, and large pedals. I've not seen anything like it, but I threw away (duh!) the original label. Well here another one  was in the baking sun, having been thrown onto a section of daylillies which were blooming with no  pot? No pot, the roots all exposed to the sun and dry.

So I asked the cashier  what I could do as it had no pot, I wanted to rescue it (it must have 14 buds on it) but there's no bar code and she and I went out and she took a pot from a dillydally and put this plant in it and then put the daylilly deep down  among the other daylillies where it would get water and not get dried out, and so home I came with it.  (Daylilies should not be affected by this treatment. I remember back in the day people that provided them for retail or landscaping here would dig them up and stack them, dirt-less and pot-less in stacks in the hot summer for long periods of time, the rhizomes keep them alive.)  This little daylilly would get moisture and be protected from the sun until they sweep them all back into the van to go back to the nurseries. They keep a rotation going too often for my taste  to try to show only something blooming, one of them told me once. Anyway, it was a slow day but more than one cashier, so   the cashier could leave her post, which is all to the good for me, otherwise I'd have to have come home without it.

When I got it home it was remarkably unscathed from the ordeal and not dried out. I have no idea why not.

Now I have ordered another hydrangea, this one another Wee White Invincibelle which I already have in one section of the bed, and which is not only a really short  dwarf but a lovely filler of gaps.

[ginny]

I'm continuing my futile (and I thought it was futile till all the rain came, now it appears to be a lack of water causing a lot of my problems!!) attempt to garden in old age. I have bought a marvelous little mini greenhouse from Lowe's for the porch. I actually thought I was buying the cold frame (which essentially is half of this and has a straight back with the raising windows). but this one was 10 dollars more, delivered free and I absolutely love it. It's small, about 3 feet long and 2 feet wide, and light to carry,  and fits perfectly in one corner of the porch.  The assembly consisted of screwing in some screws (supplied). My  youngest son did that for me, so I'm all set and I'm going to take cuttings and grow some seeds.  I'm going to putter.

And this is a nod to old age. I do have a greenhouse, a real one, and a cold frame, a big one, but time (42+years), distance from the house (considerable),  snakes in residence  and rot have ruined the cold frame which was made of two screen doors over the normal set up by a carpenter. And if I want to enjoy mass large scale gardening it's going to have to be by a hired gardener or something I can  manage on my own. Puttering.

So my little raised  brick bed continues really well, have changed plantings in it, adding perennials and using snapdragons and the miniature snowball hydrangea and little daisies  with the roses, it looks pretty good. I am seriously considering making the back of it a raised bed of brick, too, on the porch.  There's a guy (actually a LOT of people) taking cuttings of half a leaf of a hydrangea on youtube and I'm going to try that, too. We've got some wonderful old hydrangeas here I'd like to  have more of.

The long bed which I had given up on has sprung to life and is blooming nicely, while needing weeding,  and the disaster of the one in the driveway fork, due to all the rain, has produced more blooms than I've ever seen. I think they are all trying to say we need water and fertilizer, and how about some weeding?

It's to be  90 today, however, and I hope the storms pass us by, it's too hot to do anything out there now. Maybe tonight I can finish planting the daylillies, Home Depot and Lowe's have VERY good prices on beautiful ones, and you can plant them any time.

(I've also discovered that Home Depot has a provider that will send a plant any time of the year [or so it seems] in quart well rooted pots. This is a very good thing for people who live in a planting zone which the growers have stopped their shipments to. The plants are smallish but very hardy so far, and the prices at Home Depot are the best of anybody's for this service (try pricing a Wee White Invincibelle Hydrangea delivered now and you'll see what I mean.) I think so far you can plant anything with that Miracle Grow Moisture Control, water and a little shade cloth over it for a week or so, if you keep it watered.

[ginny]

 I am really getting into this mini gardening thing. There is much to learn about the mini Greenhouse. As my husband pointed out to me yesterday when the plants seemed to be drooping in this ungodly heat, it's not exactly greenhouse weather. No fan, no ventilation like the old big one. So am proppling up the little roofs, for ventilation. It's obvious whoever built it thought of that as it has little brass flanges which will support the roof with a slight twist...very well thought out.  It's not right slap IN the sun, and I put a shade cloth over it yesterday, watered it, and it does look a little bit better. Trial and error.

The internet is full of films of root snapdragons with a cutting and glass of water, root hydrangeas by plunging in a leaf in moist potting soil, even root dogwood trees! Root the fringe bush with a cutting and water, etc., etc., etc., so am trying them all. Once I get roots, I hope to keep them alive in my little  experimental HOT house  till the plant gets strong enough to put outside. 

It's a LOT of fun and very not labor intensive. So far. VERY much an experiment.

Happy puttering!

[BarbStAubrey]

Looking again at the photo you posted of the mini greenhouse I'm wondering why it is called a greenhouse - it looks so much like what we called cold frames - yes many a cold frame is wood sides with a window like structure on an angle from back to front that can easily be raised or lowered but I've seen them with plastic sides much like your greenhouse - looking online at mini greenhouses and most of them are small versions of a regular greenhouse where you can walk in them and instead of glass they are made of clear plastic - there are a few that can be placed using the side of your house or even a wood privacy fence for the back but your's you said was set up on your porch - interesting - can you put a couple of full size plants in it to protect them during the winter or is your's only tall enough for a few starter?

[ginny]

You're absolutely right, there seem to be millions of choices! Here's a link to what I thought I was getting and what I think of as a cold frame, but is only the front half of what I got,  if that makes any sense.  I wanted something small for a corner of the terrace and it fits perfectly. I was lucky because it's twice the width of what I thought it would be.

Mini Cold Frame or What You Will

The reason I'm calling it a mini Greenhouse is that's what Home Depot calls it: Here is what they call the above: "39 in. x 26 in. x 16 in. Brown Wooden Framed Greenhouse Grow House Outdoor Raised Planter Box Protection, PC Board"...hahhaa so I guess you call it what you like? Every term BUT what I think this one is: a Cold Frame.  This is what I thought I was getting. I like what I got more.

These are TINY mini greenhouses, note the size given, but perfect for rooting cuttings and seeds, but even Amazon has every height, size, style material imaginable. I had no idea. Hammacher Schlemmer for 3 times the price has one raised on sticks, so it's waist high. That seems very handy to me.



What I got is actually kind of hard to find:  this morning I can't find it at all in Home Depot online.  There is no bottom,  it sits right on the bricks. I imagine that one could use a plastic bag in a shady corner and achieve the same results, but I'm really enjoying it so far.

That's a good question on the can I overwinter a plant in it? In this area of the country it was quite difficult,  even in the large hobby greenhouse we have,  to keep stuff alive in some of our cold winters, we had heaters and used these giant plastic trashcans under the benches filled with water and still lost plants, but it gets quite cold here sometimes.

I overwinter plants in the house, the mini greenhouse  I have is  2 feet 2 inches tall.

[BarbStAubrey]

yes that link shows what I would have called a cold frame - reminds me of a comic I recently saw - so much is being renamed and that is what the joke was addressing - the photo was of a pistol laying on top of a barrel turned on its end and one nearby cowboy talking to the other saying he left his cordless hole puncher on the barrel and he had to go get it... to me it was funny with not only 'things' being named differently than I would expect but all this human anatomy and activity being given names that have me at a loss for words...

Had no idea that winters get that cold in your area - but then Katha is not a big gardener and so she has no plants that she tries to keep alive during cold weather unless they are in the ground and take the kind of weather that zone is planted to accommodate - I know each fall she adds bulbs and she loves her hydrangers and does what she must to keep them during a freeze. Here we had a freeze again this year that killed off some of the bushes and the lemon tree - the last freeze in Austin was a doozy and that got whole trees but most years if the temp goes below freezing it is only by a few degrees lasting a day or maybe two and so throwing a blanket of the more tender plants usually works.

What I have to learn how to contend with is water - all the ideas I had are going out the window - the house in on a septic system that daily turns water used into a half hour of watering the lawn - the backyard especially only has 5 heads and the yard is completely watered which I'm seeing now was why that part of the fence that blew down was weak - it was getting watered every day - most plants only want water once a week or maybe twice but not drenched daily - some of the potted annuals can use that much water but most perennials and bushes it is too much - so now finding flowering perennials that I like that can take daily watering - found that Siberian Iris can as well as Canna- there are a few, very few others but those two I like how they grow and flower - wanted yellow daylillies along the fence but nope too much water - another I was hoping to plant was Lavendar which would even help keep the mosquitoes down but nope - to much water... I like the idea of a meyer's lemon tree and I have a huge clay pot which I think if I can find a stand with wheels I can move it around if it gets cold and as a starter the daily watering will be OK.

Glad now that it is taking longer to settle in - I'm learning more about how the sun passes over and now this water that is more of an issue then I ever imagined and I did learn where the north wind blows in - I must say what I did not expect, I have two towering long needle pine trees in the front and all they do is shed long needles cluttering the grass and driveway - a constant mess - can't blow them in the Bar Ditch or it will fill up with pine needle debris and be useless during the rain causing the street and the houses to flood - I also now appreciate the many native baskets made with pine needles - they are never ending and when they first fall they are still very pliable. Huh just hit me - I bet I'll be looking at racking up fall leaves - never had that in Austin - 90% of the trees were Live Oak and they don't drop their tiny leaves till Spring when the new leaves poke through and then yes, there was raking and bagging leaves but the weather was spring like in March. Both there in Austin and here in Magnolia the fall weather is not much cooler than summer - high temps until Halloween breaking the heat with a downpour about that time and then still in the 90s till Thanksgiving sprinkled in a few 80s and maybe if lucky a few 70s which is where it is after Thanksgiving with the 60s poking their head in - then for about 2 months starting Christmas it is 70s and 60s with a norther that blows in for usually 3 to maybe 4 days at a time with lower temps in the 30s and 40s -

 I have noticed there is not many houses with the various cacti in their front yard and I see many homes here with roses which we seldom could grow in Austin - and so a second difference - it we has heavy lime soil in Austin where as here it must be more acid - I do note it is thick clay like soil - lots to learn about -seems most of the retail with plants are either big nationals like Home depot or Farm implement and Feed stores. Shows the area has been only developed in recent years rather than a few long time garden centers that could make a living catering to single family home owners.

[ginny]

Good heavens, Barbara! I hope you're not having pools of water (mosquitoes) particularly now.  These are sprinklers? 1/2 hour of sprinklers in the summer would probably be more lost to aeration and evaporation  than anything else, but surely not in the winter?  Wow, that is going to be a challenge. Maybe on the pine needles people would come get them for mulch, we have requests in our planted pines all the time for their use. Snakes like pine needles, too.

It's hard to kill a daylilly. They LOVE water here, can't get enough. I don't have any sprinklers so it's all by hand but boy do they respond.

For me, too, it's kind of a new world. I keep going once a week to Lowe's and Home Depot to see what they have blooming so I know what will bloom here this time of year. Home Depot has a service  for their PV Plants which I mentioned before for varieties you can't get  here,  and they will ship them any time of the year. They also have a huge catalog of what they do have. The pots are smaller and more manageable size and price  for transplanting than those gigantic pots in the store,  and so far their little plants are doing splendidly, even when planted in this heat (with watering and shade cloth) but they are perennials.


The biggest shock here to me is that raised brick  bed and snapdragons. In NJ and PA I was used to snapdragons. Here it's too hot or so they say. Not so. They over winter and come back with at least  a dozen or more stalks (if  you cut them back after the first bloom) in huge bundles that you could hardly get your arms around, just spectacular.

And I'm almost afraid to say it but the dahlias planted in it are for the 3rd year coming up and...dare I say it, spreading with no lifting or fussing at all.

So it's a new ballgame, this area we live in, and I'm really enjoying learning how to deal with what it wants instead of fighting it, as I have been doing.

[ginny]

Well! My plans for the garden and my age are somewhat in conflict, but I've decided to alternate hard digging days with a Day o Rest and that's me today.

Yesterday I planted 8 new plants in this searing heat, and the only saving grace for them is it's in shade for most of the day and I'm going to water the fool out of it. The excuse I have is that I could not resist them and why on earth are the pots so HUGE? What is going on with Lowe's?   Why spend big bucks even with the sale for a gigantic pot of plant when the same plant can be had by mail in a tiny pot, when, planted a week ago is growing like a weed and quite healthy?

At any rate after digging a hole to China (having watered the thing endlessly before and getting 8 tenths of an inch of rain the night before, I came upon a tunnel!

A perfectly round tunnel about a foot under the ground going endlessly into space.

I'm not much on poisoning things. I put a steel shovel in front of it. I am thinking of blocking it....maybe with a brick? Maybe with tinfoil? I have heard that mice despise tinfoil and will not deal with it? Perhaps this is a vole?  A mole? My cheapest alternative is to fill the tube entrance with tinfoil.  Or to put some kind of steel mesh there. I've got tinfoil.

Stay tuned hahahaha