Gardening

[ken a.k.a OMK]

Knee Deep in Water Chloe you have beautiful flowers. Our Zinnias and Sunflowers are long gone. Short season due to extreme weather changes. Our Coleus though looks almost as good as yours.

[finnime]

ken a.k.a OMK's right, Knee Deep in Water Chloe, you do have magically beautiful flowers. Lovely.

[Opti]

Sept 14, 2024 19:59:46 GMT -5 ken a.k.a OMK said:

Knee Deep in Water Chloe you have beautiful flowers. Our Zinnias and Sunflowers are long gone. Short season due to extreme weather changes. Our Coleus though looks almost as good as yours.

Because of the high heat this year, only the flowers planted by folks who have part shade look good in the complex I live in. Both my mums still have nice yellow flowers but most of the leaves are black and dead. Only a little bit of one plant on the less sunny side has green leaves, and its right by the building. Weather is getting more moderate but this week was without rain so I will probably water everything again today. Even azalea bushes are showing stress from lack of water.

Jealous of the sunflowers, if I had any they probably would have been incinerated by the sun earlier in the summer.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

I was just switching the sprinklers and noticed the crazy growth on this plant. We bought it as a start last summer, and I managed to keep it alive over the winter. It was one little stem this spring.

[greenthumb59]

Sept 23, 2024 9:09:48 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

I was just switching the sprinklers and noticed the crazy growth on this plant. We bought it as a start last summer, and I managed to keep it alive over the winter. It was one little stem this spring.

I love sedums - so do the deer!  At least at my house.  

[happyhoix]

Sept 24, 2024 18:25:47 GMT -5 greenthumb59 said:

Sept 23, 2024 9:09:48 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

I was just switching the sprinklers and noticed the crazy growth on this plant. We bought it as a start last summer, and I managed to keep it alive over the winter. It was one little stem this spring.

I love sedums - so do the deer!  At least at my house.  

Hmm, I’ve been looking for something to put in the back of the flower bed. I thought it was partly shady and planted hostas. They mostly died. I need something that can tolerate heat, mostly sun and a crappy gardener.

[Opti]

Its a pretty chocolate.

Looks like the praying mantis did survive those contract landscapers. I saw one in the parking lot and today it is in the bush I initially found it in. Glad its OK and I wonder where its been all this time.

Mums look positively awful. I think slugs have been crawling up them because of the trails I find. Could that have turned the leaves brown and black? Very confused as to why they look this horrible so early in the season. Only part of the large mum looks semi normal and its the piece closest to the building.

[daisylu]

Sept 24, 2024 18:25:47 GMT -5 greenthumb59 said:

Sept 23, 2024 9:09:48 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

I was just switching the sprinklers and noticed the crazy growth on this plant. We bought it as a start last summer, and I managed to keep it alive over the winter. It was one little stem this spring.

I love sedums - so do the deer!  At least at my house.  

Same here. 

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

I decided I didn't want to pay someone to stack bricks for a flower bed, so I did it myself. The lawn guy was just here to mix up the soil and compost and put it into my new flower bed. He is not impressed with my brick work.   He had no idea I was the one who did it though. It’s the right side he thinks needs help. 

[greenthumb59]

I could actually do a little yard work yesterday, as it had rained a couple night before.  I cleaned up the dead and dying stems on my peonies and trimmed out the neighbor's privet head which grows through the chain link fence.   I also cleaned up some other plants, and put up one of my willow supports for the winter. 

This was in our south bed.  It has a chain link fence and my elderly neighbor just lets our other neighbor do whatever with her yard.  He lives on the other side of her and wants the hedges to grow up.  He trims the top of the hedges on his border with her, to keep it neat, but our border gets no trimming.  It is crazy high with privet hedge and random trees.  My DH and I will have to clean it up some this winter.  There are briars too, and they are trying to spread.

Now that we have had rain, I can spread out my wildflower seeds.  I'll do that in a day or so after the rain stops.

DH and I also had a serious talk about the garden.  He wants to continue the straw bale garden.  I am fine with that - I grew some awesome tomatoes in the bales.  And he doesn't want to mess with the ground garden anymore!  Remember I have been fussing about this, because he will plant corn, okra, etc and then never does anything to maintain it. I end up taking care of it, and I am just over that.  

So I get the ground garden now!  It's already fenced off so my 80 pound house pony (lab) can't wander around in there.  I have sunflower and cosmos seeds already!  I'm shopping other seeds now!

[Tennesseer]

In SW Tennessee, we have had a mild to warm fall this year. The below picture is one of nine Kniphofia (Red Hot Poker) plants I bought in early Fall. It has been warm enough for one of the nine plants to begin sending up a flower stalk. The stalk will get to be about 3-4 feet tall.  Failing to have a hard frost or freeze soon, I should get a bloom out of it.

First photo is one of the nine plants with the beginning of the stalk. Second picture is what a mature patch of Red Hot Poker looks like.

[Tennesseer]

ANd my ginger lily which usually blooms no later than September is blooming again.  Not my picture.  Cannot get my phone to upload the shot I took of it.  It was okay with the beginning of the Red Hot Poker stalk but not the ginger lily.  So I used a photo I found on the interweb.  

[Tennesseer]

The flower stem on the soon to hopefully bloom Kniphofia (Red Hot Poker) plant is a very fast grower.

This picture was taken this past Saturday, November 9:



And the picture below was taken Tuesday,November 12. The stem has grown about 12 inches in four days:

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Nov 8, 2024 13:37:29 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

In SW Tennessee, we have had a mild to warm fall this year. The below picture is one of nine Kniphofia (Red Hot Poker) plants I bought in early Fall. It has been warm enough for one of the nine plants to begin sending up a flower stalk. The stalk will get to be about 3-4 feet tall.  Failing to have a hard frost or freeze soon, I should get a bloom out of it.

First photo is one of the nine plants with the beginning of the stalk. Second picture is what a mature patch of Red Hot Poker looks like.

I love this plant but my husband does not. I had a few at our last house but haven’t planted any at our current place.

[NoNamePerson]

Nov 13, 2024 19:49:09 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

The flower stem on the soon to hopefully bloom Kniphofia (Red Hot Poker) plant is a very fast grower.

This picture was taken this past Saturday, November 9:



And the picture below was taken Tuesday,November 12. The stem has grown about 12 inches in four days:

That's why I love Amaryllis plants. They grow so fast you can almost see them growing!

[Tennesseer]

Nov 14, 2024 10:03:57 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

Nov 8, 2024 13:37:29 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

In SW Tennessee, we have had a mild to warm fall this year. The below picture is one of nine Kniphofia (Red Hot Poker) plants I bought in early Fall. It has been warm enough for one of the nine plants to begin sending up a flower stalk. The stalk will get to be about 3-4 feet tall.  Failing to have a hard frost or freeze soon, I should get a bloom out of it.

First photo is one of the nine plants with the beginning of the stalk. Second picture is what a mature patch of Red Hot Poker looks like.

I love this plant but my husband does not. I had a few at our last house but haven’t planted any at our current place.

I have never planted it before. But I like the bold splash of color.

[Tennesseer]

Fast grower.  One last comparison of the red hot poker.  First picture of the little stubby stem Friday, November 8:  




And now the red hot poker stem almost three feet tall Tuesday, November 19: