Pleasure Gardens of Kentucky

Summertime blooms

Football is starting to really interfere with my gardening. Between the practices and the trip for the game, I haven't managed to get much more done then simple keeping it watered. The butterfly bush is starting to bloom out, and all the Day lilies are going strong, so the side bed is looking pretty amazing right now. The Phlox and Bee balm are in full bloom and the columbines are amazingly still blooming, so the front beds still have some color, though not nearly as wonderful as they were in the spring. In the long bed, the Shasta Daisies have opened up, along with the coneflowers and yarrow, so the top half is really getting a nice filled in look. The weeds have practically reclaimed the bottom half and I'm just not sure what to do about it anymore. I have taken a ton of pictures, but need to find the time to edit and upload them here. Hopefully soon!

The seasonal beds

The severely neglected gardens started really showing signs of stress this past week. We had a dry spell that actually lasted over a week and a half and with so much going on, I didn’t get out to water them until Friday night. One of the clematis vines took so much wind damage that I finally had to just chop it down to the ground. Thankfully, they are such resilient plants once established; the guy is already starting to send up a new shoot. Between Friday night and Saturday, I found some good time to really get in a weed all the beds and try and tidy things up a bit. I’ve been fighting this huge urge to jump in there and start moving a LOT of the plants around to get things looking better, but with the house up for sale, major changes just aren’t in the cards for this poor garden now.

The Sun drops, beards tongue, columbines and lupines are officially all done for the year. What was left of the bleeding hearts foliage is starting to fade under the heat of the coming summer. The daylilies are beginning to blossom one by one. The phlox has opened up and the monarda has seriously filled out in a glorious hot pink. The guara and blanket flowers are still going strong. The butterfly bush looks to be getting ready to put out flowers and Dahlias are getting bigger and bushier by the day, but still no signs of bloom. It transition time in the garden, but at least there are spots of color everywhere and some beds are a bit more colorful the others. I’ve come to discover each bed has taken on the season in which it was created. The right front bed is very much a spring bed, the side is early summer and the long bed is more of a fall bed. The left front bed is probably the best laid, as it had a lovely show in the spring, and last fall it was my favorite. A few additions last year should make it pretty decent in the summer as well. Must take some good notes for the new house beds!

Living with neglect

The garden was unfortunately, highly ignored this past week. Other then watering the pots on the back porch, I just haven’t been able to get in the mood to really get out there to accomplish anything. I did manage a few walk throughs to admire what’s going on and to cringe at the ever growing weed population. The monarda is beginning to bloom its bright pink flowers and the Enchinea looks like it will be opening soon. The leaning Rose of Sharon bush seems to be righting itself, though I’ll probably leave the stake holding it straight a little while longer. The arbor looks to be a wash as far as trying to salvage it. Getting all the screws out seems to be causing more damage to the wood then I could possible patch. Make that side of the garden look a little empty… but not worth the expense to replace it. This week will be a little hectic with extra football practices, so not really sure I’ll get much accomplished then either. Poor garden!

The Damage Survey

After having a tornado tear through here on Thursday night and then another round of wicked storms on Sunday, I finally found some spare time with all the cleanup and repairs (been helping a few of the neighbors) to get out and clean up my gardens. Betwen the hail that fell both Thursday and Sunday EVERYTHING is looking pretty rough. I had to stake down my Rose of Sharon bush as the thing was leaning so badly, it was in danger of toppling over and I had to add some dirt around it as somehow a lot managed to get washed away. The dames rockets were so badly beaten I had to pull them all out, so now I have a great big hole in the front bed. My lupines blooms had to all be cut off and are looking much less full now that all the damaged leaves were cleaned out. All the daffodil foliage had to be cut down a little early, as they were falling over so heavily, they were damaging other plants. The painted daisies were all knocked over as well.. hopefully, there may still be a few blooms left in them. I lost a few flower stalks off the Beard's tongue, columbine and guara, and what is left is most deffinately leaning a litle more then I like. Two of the four bleeding hearts got decapitated. Most everything is looking very sickly from getting too much rain. My strawberries are all rotting faster then they are ripening due to the constant moisture. It's a very sad looking garden I have right now.

On the brightside, The potted plants on the back porch took almost NO damage what so ever. Not even one plant got knocked over (several were up on the railing) and other then a few branches on the tomato, zuchini and cucumber plants.. they still look happy and very healthy.

I had a handful of plants waiting to go into the garden beds, so I took the time to get them all out and make a few much need moves. The moss rose was placed along the walkway to start filling in where the crocus leaves are beginning to rapidly fade away. The delphiniums were placed in the front bed to help hide the nakedness from the missing bleeding hearts and to help add a little more umpf for the two delphiniums already there. The astillbe filled in the spot from the missing dames rockets. The sickly butterfly bush, that still hasn't amounted to much of anything got uprooted. Since the roots still seemed to look and feel fine, I stuck him in a pot with some good potting soil, and some tall phlox was put in his place.

I also managed to steal some monarda starts and Shasta daisy starts off of my garden plants and stuck into pots to take with me when I move.

Of course I spent soo much time outside and didn't realize it, I know have a very bad sunburn to deal with now! UGGHH!!

A Little Neglected

Unfortunately, I’ve been ignoring my gardens this week almost as much as I have been ignoring my blog. Between soccer and football, my only gardening times have been coming on the weekends, but this weekend was a whirlwind of games to end the soccer season. I finally snuck out for about an hour late Sunday afternoon to discover my beard’s tongue, roses and sun drops have started to bloom. I also founder my lost blanket flower plants. Apparently these guys are extremely late bloomers when left to their own accord... but I have many plants popping up now. The Dutch irises, as pretty as they were have faded very quickly, though, the other irises are still blooming madly. The Dame’s Rockets have begun to fade out and I have discovered I am at a lost as to how to cut these guys back. The foliage is getting a pretty rough looking, but the rosette that was there last year, isn’t there... it’s pretty much one straight big stalk to contend with. For now I’ve snipped back the tops to keep the reseeding from going mad, and will leave them be... but if the foliage doesn’t shape up some... they may be pulled out for a better replacement. The crocus foliage is finally starting to fade, so I’ve pick up some pretty yellow and red moss rose to fill in its spot. The daffodil and tulip foliage is started to get a bit untidy, but the bed has manage to hide them well enough to let them go a while longer. Unfortunately, I also discovered some damage in the garden as well. My miniature rose bush seems to have lost all it’s foliage to black spot which, due to my neglect, wasn’t caught early enough to prevent it from going naked. Also, one of my butterfly bushes seems to have succumbed to some unknown malady. It has begun to simply shrivel up and appears to be a goner. I’m suspecting something hasn’t gotten underneath it and munch on some roots. Hopefully a little shifting of plants around in the bed can fill up the hole it’ll leave behind. Thanks to the spiderwort gone mad… some plants could actually stand to have a little more leg room anyway!

My vegetables are doing very well. The broccoli has been harvested, and what’s left of the spinach and lettuce is beginning to bolt, so it’s been offered to any and all that want some. The potted veggies seem to be doing very well. I spotted my first zucchini growing and the cucumber vine is in full bloom. I really need to get a trellis for the cucumber and some cages for the tomato plants as well.

Hopefully this coming weekend I’ll be able to get caught up on all the gardening chores. Thankfully Mother Nature has been keeping things well watered for me and what little time I have had has helped me keep up with the weeds.

Blown away

A nasty spring thunderstorm rolled through here late yesterday afternoon and wreaked a little havoc on my gardens. The bane of having numerous tall plants on an exposed site is that they tend to get blown over from time to time. Most of the damage was easily fixed. A few of the dame's rockets were blown over, and I just simply snipped the blown stalks over and none the wiser. The clematis, fringe tree, and bleeding hearts have all lost their petals now... though something that would have happened anyway, just a little sooner. The only heartbreaker was one of the iris stalks that was loaded down with about 6 blooms got over weighted with the rains and knocked over. He's now been tied up and hopefully after a day or two he'll be OK to untie... I just hate having the unsightly tie sitting there for the entire world to see. I also discovered a couple new surprises. A group of late blooming irises that I completely forgot I planted have opened up and are stunning. Also, my first batch of strawberries has come in. Summer is just around the corner!

A tear in my eye

I spent a little time this weekend, potting up my veggie starts and planting those that are left out in the garden. The leftover tomato plants pretty much filled up the room that was left in the garden area. The leftover pepper plants will have to wait till the spinach and lettuce come out, which won’t be too much longer with the heat wave we’ve been having here.

As far as the flower beds go, there seems to be something new blooming everyday. I actually got a little teary eyed walking around and taking pics this weekend as the beds are really starting to look like I wanted them to, and soon it’ll be time to leave them behind. It’s been hard to resist buying anything new, and I’m trying to focus on getting some starts of anything that can handle a thinning and potting them up to take with me. Plus I need to get some more seeds going. I know it’s technically late for seeds, but I figure what ever I can get started now will be big enough to go into the ground once we move and they’ll be ready for blooming come next spring.

Poor Clematis

One of my poor clematis either has a damaged branch or has clematis wilt. I really think it's the former as only a section of one leader seems to be wilting and it took a couple of days for it to really look bad. Thankfully I'm only losing about a 1/4 of the plant and the rest of the blooms seem uneffected. I have to spend this evening figuring out how to untangle the yucky branch from the rest of the plant without doing any more damage. Wish me luck

Mother's Day in the garden

Managed to get some serious gardening down this weekend. Working on the back bed, it’s now almost all cleaned up. I’ve stuck a few bedding annuals in there, but it would take a lot to fill it all in. Hopefully just cleaning it out will be enough. Also went through and finally dead headed all the daffs and tulips. The beds look a little empty without them. In the front beds, the dames rockets and coral bells are in full bloom. The columbines, painted daisies, dianthus and clematis have started opening up and the lupine and Irises are shooting up their buds as well. Three out of four on the dahlias have finally broken ground. The gaillardia is sending up buds, but they look like they are the shorter variety then what I had last year. Not quite sure what to do about it. The spiderwort has taken over the side bed, everything managed to survive and is doing well, save for the climbing rose. I’ve pretty much given up on him. One of the butterfly bushes died back to the ground, so now that part of the bed looks a little empty, but I know he’ll fill it up quickly now that the heat is here. In the long side bed, the fringe tree has finally bloomed. Try as I might, the pictures just don’t do it any justice, but he’s beautiful. The top half of the bed is actually looking quite nice; I know I’d be pretty happy with the end result if I were able to finish it. It’ll be the hardest thing to leave behind, knowing it wasn’t quite done.

A little white?

I woke up yesterday morning to unexpected frost. The weatherman had indicated the low to be around 40, not quite frost temps for us, but as usual he missed the mark again. Lucky, the frost was light enough and short lived enough; I’ve incurred very little damage because of it. The tomato seedlings have a few leaves that have yellowed a bit, but nothing that will hamper them in anyway. All of the flowering plants seemed to have taken it all in stride.
I need to get more pictures done quickly. The garden keeps changing so fast, it’s almost hard to keep up. The snowball bush has started to bloom, as well as the pink and purple azaleas. The fringe tree is really starting to come to life and actually has some green popping out (the blooms will be along shortly). The columbines and painted daisies have sent up buds and will be opening any day now, and the lupines just keep getting bigger and bigger. The first of the Dahlias has finally popped through the ground, as well as the hostas I had given up for dead last year. I actually ended up with another small flush of daffs in the back of my beds, late bloomers that were waiting for more sun to creep back there, I guess. The irises are beginning to put out some serious green, and I’m a little anxious to see them bloom. These were hand me downs I received last year, so I have no idea as to even what their color is. A lot of the irises in the area have started to bloom, so if my beds hold to par, I’ll see something in the next week or two.