BS: Gardening 2010

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 02:24 PM

I just watched the weather report on the heat wave back East where you folks are sweating. Sorry that it's a cooker there for you.

This morning is another beautiful, big blue sky, sunny, moderate temp day.
Yesterday was gorgeous. I turned the top layer of the compost and steam came up. Woo hoo!



A.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Jul 10 - 10:45 AM

The drought here is terrible... The grass crinkles when you walk on it... We did tweek the water pressure up at the pressure tanks so that we can run two oscillators at a time and...

...no end in sight with 100 degrees every day for the forseeable future and no rain... Haven't seen it this bad in, oh, maybe forever... So for all of you who have had rain I'd say you need to give thanks for it...

Like yer hardscape, Alice...

B~

p.s. Not 500... lol...

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 11:56 PM

Photos from today:

garden facing NE

garden facing NW

old tricycle with flowers in front of pond

old radio flyer planted with red, white & blue petunias


Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 12:40 PM

You've got dibs on it, Bobert.

It hasn't rained here today, but it's early yet. My raised beds are holding their own and keeping the eggplants happy. The tomatoes are delirious (all over the place, I should thin them, but who thins tomatoes?)

Foliar feeding this morning, I picked up some of Howard Garrett's "Garrett Juice" (a mix of compost tea, liquid molasses, apple cider vinegar, and a couple of other good things) and mixed that with some fish and seaweed fertilizer, some Hastagrow fertilizer (not quite organic, but pretty close) and a measure of BT. I have a plant out front with a happy little tobacco horn worm eating away (it's a datura, no big deal, so I'm leaving him alone) but I don't want these guys in the veggie garden.

I pulled up a dead coriander and harvested a handful of seeds from it. Another handful of seeds was on the ground under it already, over where it gets a little light but is mostly shaded by the basil. Hopefully I'll get some coriander this season.

I transplanted some oregano to the bed out by the curb. I'd love it as a groundcover out there. The cicada killer wasps have been buzzing me because I disturbed some of the holes they dug under the oregano when I dug this up. They kind of big dopey bugs, one was going to buzz me but bumped into a basil plant and was buzzing angrily underneath a leaf for enough time that I moved out of it's way. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 12:14 PM

....ahhhhh, so much fir these glasses???

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 12:13 PM

Another day of waterin'... Guess the silver lining is that I'm playin' a 4th of July Festival today and so I'll get off watering detail at 3:00... The worst of it is the pond field where I took down so mnay trees and then had a massive bonfire... It's got new grass coming up and so I'm having to water it in addition to the beds...

...and 500...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 11:46 AM

Janie, pile it up somewhere (remember, critters like to live in it, so don't put it next to the house) and next year make the offer and you'll probably have some happy takers. Or you could sell or trade it.

It's sad to see trees go, but at the same time, it opens so many possibilities as far as that space. Enjoy the transition! And if they are going to leave an attractive stump, have a nice bench or something put around or next to it.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Janie
Date: 04 Jul 10 - 10:23 AM

Had an arborist out yesterday and the big dying oak tree comes down next week. It is one of the biggest trees in the yard and is going to open quite a hole in the canopy. Will change things a bit, I expect.

Anybody need firewood?

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 03 Jul 10 - 04:20 PM

I still have my three large clear plastic bags that I've used since planting the garden to keep them warm at night. Those are slipped over 3 tall trellises now, so they can be quickly put over part of the garden.

I am in the midst of creating a structure today that will support screening or the trellis panels if I need them. It consists mainly of 3 steel fence posts, wire, cable, and 6 bamboo garden stakes that are each seven feet long. I keep looking over my shoulder at dark clouds coming from the west.... so far so good today.

I finally uncovered everything and inspected the damage. Some raspberry canes torn out. One cantaloupe completely cut off at the ground, the other only has 4 small leaves left. One pepper plant cut off at the ground. All the plants lost leaves and stems. I was most concerned about losing the strawberry plants, but they came through okay. The squash and pumpkin, well, each lost about 3/4 their size. One potato plant cut off at the ground, but it may put up new shoots. It could have been worse from what I first saw right after the storm.


Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Jul 10 - 12:47 PM

I suppose if you're simply looking for emergency cover and you want to cover the garden with something that will dissipate the impact of the hail stones, then simply getting a plastic painter's drop cloth (cheap at Home Depot, cheaper yet at Big Lots or Harbor Freight) and anchoring it down over the garden with a few things like tomato cages to stand up under it to keep the plastic off of everything, and you might be able to dodge more trouble.

My yard is soggy and the lawn is now overgrown. It's too wet to mow. I'll have to time this right, to mow but when it isn't bright sunlight. I'm off the drugs now, but I'm supposed to stay out of the sun for a while yet. Hard to do in Texas in July!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 03 Jul 10 - 11:52 AM

Yes, Bobert, I'm planning something I can roll out over the garden patch. I can't buy anything for it... unemployment still has my application pending, and I haven't had an income since early this year. I'm using savings to live on, so I can't spend on anything that isn't a necessity. I do have some old screen but not enough to cover the whole garden.

I will figure something out. Like I said, it's amazing what you can find in your garage and basement. Also, we have freecycle email group here, so I may post an 'In Search Of' old screens request and see if anyone has some to give away.

The forecast yesterday was for colder weather, and they were not kidding.

A cold rain came in last night, still raining, and temps in the 40's.


Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jul 10 - 08:23 AM

The only nettin' I know of that is small enough to stop hail is sun screening and then you loose the light... BTW it can be purchased at Gemplers (online)... The deer fence would have stopped those hail balls but yer average hail ain't that big and the deer fencing is 2 inch squares...

We're still in a purdy severe dry (drought) here and running oscillators from the time we get up unti the time we go to bed...

Zukes, yellow crooknecks and cukes coming in with regularity now...

Fisnished yet another landscaping job yesterday (3 creape myrtles, 5 inkberry hollies, 5 criptomeria "radican"s and on plum yew) so today I get to weed and mulch a couple newer azalea beds....

Back to Alice's garden:

Is it possible to creat some kinda roller that is mounted on two posts that can be used (like a spool) to pull out shade cloth when they are calling for bad weather??? Of course, you'd need to have one side stapled to another long rod and two post opposite the post with the roller to attach the shadecloth to so that you'd have a roof over the veggie garden... Sounds doable and not all that expensive... The shade cloth comes in sections up to 16 feet wide...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 11:35 PM

That was the worst hail storm this town has ever had - historic damage from the size of the hail, some of it baseball sized, the duration, and the strong winds with it.

Over 1,000 windows broken at the university campus, cars totaled that were in the open, including new cars at dealers lots.

PHOTO



I went through my garage looking for things to use in my hail shield that I'm planning. Found a backdrop of a stage we used to use for performing. It's masonite, three sided, can stand on its own. If set up on the west edge of the garden, would be some shelter, although not all that attractive.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Janie
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 10:19 PM

Cherry tomatoes are beginning to come in well enough for salads, but not abundant enough yet for whatever that lovely italian salad of basil, cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and olive oil is called. (So much basil I am buying cherry tomatoes - but not for long!

More fruit setting on the Mortgage lifter tomato. I'm a long way off from having ripe slicing tomatoes, though.

Ooooooh. Should have cukes to pick tomorrow or Sunday. Something weird going on with the zuccini. Plants look healthy, but the first fertile flowers turned brown and the tiny zukes are yellowing.

Dadgum, Alice! That was a windshield shattering hailstorm! We get hail occasionally here, and every now and then will get a really bad one that does lots of damage to crops and property, but not real often, and certainly not every season. How common are badly damaging hail storms there?

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 07:45 PM

Turn those suckers on their side and you have deer fencing!

My hands smell like basil and rosemary. The ex came over to get some stuff for our son who's at his house for a few days, and took back the herbs for a well-seasoned chicken for dinner. I'm going to bring in more to put on a pizza (cheese, basil, peppers, chicken, mozzarella, and topped with a sprinkle of Parmesan and garlic powder, all on a home made crust out of the freezer), and open a cold bottle of Riesling. The Cipro is finished! Just in time to kick back for the weekend.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 06:47 PM

Yup, I need some kind of netting, small enough to prevent the hail from going through, but not so fine that it catches the wind and sails off. I was going to use an old bed sheet with vents slashed in it when I do get the posts in to hold some kind of the covering. I've been looking at hail nets on the web. There are quite a few products, like this one
Anti-HAIL structure

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 06:30 PM

Alice, it took me weeks to build those beds, because I designed them as I worked, looking at the results and building from there. Lots of trips to Home Depot for dirt, piecemeal, and then I planted fairly late, but not so late and everything caught up. Though the proportions aren't quite so long or narrow, if you place your hand on the table top with your four fingers separated (with about a finger's width in between each finger) and think about building a backboard and building a raised bed radiating out along that plank (several 2 x 12s) and positioning several bed separations so you can step between them, then you have this garden. My yard is wedge-shaped and along the sloped driveway. I can walk around the back side of this and pick from the other side of the planks (I also put chicken wire up to keep dogs, etc., from running into the bed) and step into any of the trough areas (though now many of them have volunteer tomatoes that I didn't have the heart to pull and wasn't fast enough to transplant). I filled the lower areas with an inch or two of coarse free mulch so it wouldn't be too slippery after watering, but this rain is really testing this system.

Last year my eggplants were on the level ground and we had similar rain and they simply drowned in the mud. Now they're about 12 inches above the orignal level of the bed, as are all of the tomatoes, peppers, everything else. I didn't build frames, I simply beveled the soil and kind of tamped down the edges. Since it isn't framed, I can move the raised beds fairly easily in the off season, or pile it all up and move it around and rebuild them (though I don't plan to unless I have to).

I have this idea for taking Bobert's leftover deer fencing and putting it stretched out horizontally over the top of Alice's garden to protect it. That hail would never know what hit it, eh?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 05:58 PM

The first hail storm on June 30 was a record storm that caused so much damage that the total it is still being computed.

The forecast was for more days of afternoon hail. We had the hail again yesterday, not as big or forceful as the storm on the 30th, and now another one is moving in this afternoon.

Everything is covered as well as I could for the next storm.
I'm still pondering plans for better garden coverage. Anything else I plant this year will go in containers on the deck so they can be better protected.

SRS, it sounds like you prepped your garden beds well. You will get used to that mud... and everything will take off growing like crazy from all that rain. It's quite a sense of satisfaction when you can pull a weed root out by hand.

Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 05:47 PM

Another thunderstorm is starting now. We've had days of rain, and my drainage system is draining, and there are lots of flowers on the tomatoes and it's cooler, but still - it's so darned soggy out there! I did some weeding on one side. It's lovely to pull weeds when they come out when the soil is like soft butter. :)

I picked up another load of topsoil and humate to finish the keyhole garden, or come close to finished. I'll plant it for fall. I haven't had a chance to plant the new bed out front, and I'll have to weed it before I do it, with all of this rain. I can see sprouts of Bermuda.

I picked up an organic crabgrass killer that is supposed to be pretty good from the reports on my Sunday organic radio program. It's mostly ground cinnamon, so depending on how it looks and smells, I may hit the bulk spice aisle next time I want to kill crabgrass and a few other weeds that don't like it. (It's supposed to be put down when the grass is wet, but not when it's raining, so I can't test it yet).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 07:45 PM

Hey, the badminton ricket is as good a weapon as any.... I take 'um and put metal screen over the head of it... Makes short order of any buzzin' thing buzzin' you... Most bees don't bother me at all but some are agressive... Plus carpenter bees are destructive... On shot with the badminton ricket and they are done...

Had our fist zuke last night... Sauteed it with some onion (also from the garden) and some turkey kilbasa... It was good... Poured the fish emulsion to the cukes, peppers and tomatoes so they oughtta get happy and fast...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 07:09 PM

HAIL HOLE - Two and 1/8 inch dia. hole punched through a hard plastic chair.

I had some lettuce and radishes sprouting in pots on a table on the deck, and had turned a couple of plastic deck chairs over the pots to shade them for a few days.

I didn't discover that the hail had punched a hole through one of the chairs until this morning. No wonder it HURT when it hit!

Well, I'm going to battle this weather.... not giving up. I have a couple of old steel fenceposts that I'm going to put in by the garden and construct some lath and/or hail screening over the garden.

Today I covered the garden with lath, rakes, anything that will protect it from the predicted severe storms for the next few days. I even found a few badminton rackets to layer over some pots.

... of course you know, this means war.




Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 01:42 PM

We have only 3 or 4 months of real growing season here, so this setback may have pretty much eliminated chances for enough time to regrow and harvest anything. I can't afford to buy replacement plants.

I was SO optimistic about the start I got with tender things like peppers, squash and melons. Not too excited about getting just a some radishes and potatoes out of this.

I just came in from gathering up leaves and vines and broken plants from some of the garden.

We have 3 more days of severe storm forecasts, even though it is calm blue sky right now. I covered the garden containers with rakes, chairs, lattice and wheelbarrow, whatever I could gather up that won't blow away. Weatherman says we have more bad stuff coming.

The county is going to have to get emergency disaster help for all the hail damage yesterday.

Blink and the warm months are over here.

A.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 12:06 PM

We haven't been hit by hail, but we have a good chance of more rain today. It really poured last night. After beheading my big sunflower it still seems to be alive out there. It attracts pests away from othe things in the garden, so I want it out there. If it's no longer a big charasmatic plant, I'm sorry, but it's still doing a good job.

I'm afraid stuff will rot with the massive amount of rain. I built these beds to drain, so this is the real test.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 07:06 AM

First of all, Alice... MOVE!!! Jus' funnin' wid ya'... I know that people like where they are 'er they would move so...

...sorry about yer hand... That really sucks... And yer garden... Maybe you'll get a few surprises and find that some stuff will survive nicely... Hailed on Mr. Clifford's veggie garden two years ago and it turned out okay...

Me??? Wish I could find time to work in my own garden but the P-Vine keeps getting these landscape jobs and they tie me up... Meanwhile, she gets to pay gardener... Grrrrr....

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Janie
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 12:55 AM

Local news reported today that my region has experienced the hottest June on record.

Temps have moderated starting yesterday, and look pretty decent for the next few days. Have had a few, brief showers but have also had to water or irrigate.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Janie
Date: 01 Jul 10 - 12:52 AM

Oh Alice, so sorry!

But was it worth it anyway? Only you can answer. Did it feel good to be out there working and nurturing, and digging while you were doing it? Will some plants survive and recover, despite the beating they took? Can some seeds be resown? Will there be another year, or other years when the hail stones don't hit and the garden is glorious, helped along by the loving attention you continuously provided to the earth on the ground or in the pots? Can you fill a decimated bed with flowering annuals that will cheer with their beauty in a few weeks or a month?

We all might have different responses to these questions. There are certainly no right or wrong answers. For me, the reality of life is "shit happens", whether it be life in and of the garden or in other aspects of life. Let the crap compost, and much that is good and positive is nurtured. Lessons in the value and strengths to be found in developing resilience is how I choose to see it. (after I've cried or despaired, sometimes.)

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 30 Jun 10 - 10:19 PM

My hand is bruised and swollen but the bleeding stopped.
A bicyclist caught in the hail had his hand broken from hail hitting it. There was a funnel cloud in the valley, but the baseball to tennis ball to golf ball sized hail and the strength of the wind in town broke windows at the university, all the skylights at WalMart, cars totaled, home and business windows, roofs torn up, trees blown down on buildings and cars, power lines down...
and Mexico and Texas is getting the hurricane.

Back when I was just battling frost and snow, I said the best way to have a garden here is to grow it in a greenhouse. I feel really defeated trying to fool Mother Nature into letting veggies grow outside.

Delphiniums and Foxgloves were just starting to bloom (trashed now).

I think I'll have a Guinness and wait until tomorrow to look at what is left of the garden.


Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Jun 10 - 09:39 PM

Alice, we've got the wet end of that kind of storm down here. It took down my 12' sunflower last night. I went out this morning when it was sunny and bright and propped it up with all sorts of garden hardware stuff (metal posts) but it rained again this afternoon and now this evening. I just now went out and cut the top three feet (more or less) off of the plant, hoping that the top won't be waving in the wind and bring the whole thing, now a plant plus adjacent hardware, down like a guillotine onto the plants around it.

The garden is going to try to rot after all of this rain. I did design these raised beds to drain, so I think some of it will be okay, but just simply getting this much precipitation.

I took a nice sized eggplant over to my neighbors this morning: produce is coming out of the garden, but eggplant are a summer loving plant, so I'll have to watch it now to see if it dries out enough to keep setting fruit.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 30 Jun 10 - 06:56 PM

I brought in two of the hail stones and took photos. They are a little larger than golf balls. One is like an ice pinecone with a pointed end.
Branches and tree leaves and things broken by the wind are everywhere on the street and around town.

Hail stone on left has a sharp point on one end.


Hail accumulated against west door.


AAaaarrgh... was it really worth all that work to make a garden?

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: maeve
Date: 30 Jun 10 - 06:40 PM

Oh Alice- That's a heart breaker. Take care of your hand.

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 30 Jun 10 - 06:36 PM

My hand was smashed by golf ball sized hail - trying to run to the garden to cover it, I held a plastic chair over my head, and made it only to the spruce tree where I stood under a branch and was pelted... bleeding and bruised hand.
The garden is mostly decimated. Some of it may recover, but the squash and pumpkin that were thriving were cut back to the ground by the hail.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Jun 10 - 11:40 PM

Need to get this weather to pace itself. Another downpour and all of my larger tomatoes will split.

I checked out the wild grapes across the road. They're solidly green now. I'll look again next week. When they go, they go fast.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Jun 10 - 06:03 PM

I may have missed my mustang grapes with being stuck in the house and feeling like shit. I'll go look this evening.

It has rained, heavily off and on, for two days here! Whooo! (I'm going to have to go back to mowing for a couple of weeks, I can see.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 29 Jun 10 - 03:18 PM

My raspberries are bee-ing pollinated now.

The winter snow drifts really crushed my raspberry patch, but the canes that survived are very healthy, so I hope to have enough to freeze.



A.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: maire-aine
Date: 29 Jun 10 - 02:54 PM

This year has been the perfect combination of rain and temperature, and I'm harvesting more black raspberries than ever in the last 20 years. I've eaten them by the bowl-ful, frozen some and given lots to my neighbors, and they're still coming.... Plus, they're a week earlier than usual.

Tomato plants are doing well; should have some nice ones if the critters don't get them first.

My favorite garden center had flats of annuals on sale, so I bought some zinnias & snapdragons. I put them in the strip between the sidewalk and the street, just for a little color.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Jun 10 - 08:45 AM

"Raining"??? What's that???

Went out this morning with the P-Vine and we picked close to a gallon of red berries (don't know what they are called???) to make jam this afternoon...

Going to dig red potatoes next and then put the oscillator on the rest of that area of the garden... First zuke gets picked tomorrow morning...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Janie
Date: 29 Jun 10 - 01:10 AM

Interesting idea, Alice.

I would be a little hesitant to try it, though. I can see where it might be a good idea for your short, cooler season. Here in the south, though, I think the shading of roots and fruit provided by the leaves may be more benefit than harm.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Jun 10 - 05:45 PM

Janie, if your camera has a memory card and you have a card reader, you can get images without the cable.

Bobert, the author is May Theilgaard Watts. I think you'll see why I asked if you had read that book if you pick it up.

Alice, I don't prune my zucchini - I'm lucky if any are alive out there now, the worms and beetles have been so bad this year. I'm just leaving the existing one alone and watching it.

It's raining - after weeks of nothing, we've have a nice little thunderstorm roll over us this afternoon. Maybe a half inch? We needed it, and more!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 28 Jun 10 - 11:54 AM

Janie, do you ever prune your zucchini?

You can cut off the large leaves that are shading other plants and also shading the zucchini too much itself.

It can help your zucchini and surrounding plants by opening it up to light and air.

Here are some tips on zucchini pruning:
CLicK


Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jun 10 - 08:24 AM

No, Magz, I haven't.... I'll have to see if the library has a copy...

Yea!!! Only 92 here today... Geeze, I never thought I appreciate "only 92"???

Zukes and cukes on the way here, also... Maybe two more day for each... Okra finally takin' off... Planted fennel about ten days ago and nuthin'??? Did everything the seed pack said but... Maybe they are just slow to go???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Janie
Date: 28 Jun 10 - 12:47 AM

So far, the cherry tomatoes look quite attractive on the trellises and will look even better as the tomatoes color up. Have misplaced the usb cable to download photos from my camera. When I can find it, and if I can remember my flickr log-in, I'll post pictures.

My zukes and cukes are finally starting to produce fertile blossoms so I should have a couple of each to harvest before too long. Next year I won't plant anything else in the raised box with the zuccini. Its big leaves are starting to shade out the basil and the cuke I planted in the same box. I may buy a couple of shorter garden trellises for the cukes. They are trying to climb a basil plant now, as well as the trellises the tomatoes are on. That would also raise the one cuke above the shading zuke foliage.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Jun 10 - 12:26 AM

Bobert, have you ever read the old little naturalist book Reading the Landscape of America?

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jun 10 - 08:30 PM

Yeah, Janie... Yer evergreen azalaeas will do best with mornin' sun and not have to bake in the afternoon sun... The diciduous azaleas are the opposite as most are primitaives that have been hybridized from seed collected from their natural habitat which is on top of mountains... Okay, many do well on the sides of mountains as well but those too will tolerate sun...

Just returned from driving the P-Vine to an Executive Committte meeting of thr azalea bunch and it was held at a member house who is also into conifers and she knows that I like them, too, so she had three wonderfiul books waitin' for me to look thru... Found some really nice ones to research...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Janie
Date: 27 Jun 10 - 08:16 PM

I love Dame's Rocket! It also grows wild here, but not profusely. Ox-daisies are my favorite of all the daisies. I transplanted them to my garden. Also transplanted bidens and Golden Ragwort to my garden in Hillsborough. The bidens had to be weeded aggressively to keep it from taking over, but was worth it.

Your pond is lovely, Alice.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jun 10 - 07:28 PM

I have a link on my clipboard so I'll post it and then go back to Alice's photos. Taken with your laptop? Now someone with a digital camera should walk around behind you and document that! ;-D

pdq, the Aggies are a good source of information, and for even more local to my area, I love this little nursery (placed on the side of an old estate of some sort in the southeast section of Fort Worth) Weston Gardens in Bloom.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 27 Jun 10 - 12:15 PM

It looks like spattered paint on those rocks,
but it is actually
Lichen.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Alice
Date: 27 Jun 10 - 12:11 PM

I don't have a digital camera, so these shots are not very good quality... just taken with the laptop.

Sweet Rocket comes up everywhere here as a weed, but I let it bloom... it is so fragrant and I love the purple color.
Here it is with the last of the falling peony petals in the background.
Sweet Rocket

The hens & chickens that I planted years ago when I made a pond and rock garden are beautifully well established.
Pond & hens & chickens


Snow In Summer in front of pond

old rock garden, Hens & Chickens, violets


old rock garden, Close Up

Daisies are a weed here, just like sweet rocket, coming up
in the lawns, the ditches, the alleys, everywhere.
I mow them down except for a few choice places like the
flower garden where they came up with sweet rocket.
Daisies and Sweet Rocket


Lupines, flowers about ten
inches tall.


Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: pdq
Date: 27 Jun 10 - 10:48 AM

Here is a site with tons of info on native Texas plants including some azaleas...

                                                                         aggie-horticulture

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Janie
Date: 27 Jun 10 - 10:27 AM

Look very similar to your photographs but are somewhat lighter - though the differences may simply be about lighting in the photos. They are azalea lace bugs.

I was just reading more about them. Apparently azaleas and rhodies that are sited where they get more sun are more bothered by them.   That may be why my Koromo Shikibu is consistently more susceptible. It is positioned so that it gets more sun than the other azaleas.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 27 Jun 10 - 08:15 AM

Some amazing plantsmen this year at the "North Hill Symposium" on Friday . Dave Burdick and Rob as usual , Walker Farm and Broken Arrow from Ct .Glenwood Gardens as well Fergus Garrett from Great Dixter and Keith Wiley from Devon were both speakers plus Tom Cooper . Of course Joe Ech and Wayne Winterrowd (our hosts ) both spoke .

The really interesting change was the gathering was at Scott Farm next to Rudyard Kipling's house in Dummerston just outside Bradlebourgh Vt . What wonderful land for gardeners to gather on ..

I am thinking of making up a collection of historically inspired flowerpots to give to the museum at the White House . Hopefully other horticultural potters will add to it as time goes on   .

Erica's gardens are doing great . We are also in the town's public vegetable plot . Great fences in a beautiful field with a ton of light !! Wonderful thread as every year ! yours Guy