What's Growin'

[tic chick]

hey everyone !

i wanted to post a few pics of my echinacea's which have about 20 blooms on each plat...a sea of orange/red. i'm going to cut some and put them in a vase and hope they might rebloom in the fall, when they're supposed to, really. i'm putting up a small pic that you click on and a bigger one that you might have to use your mouse to scroll along the bottom to get a better view, but that pic shows the flower up close and it's so pretty!

hope you're all having a nice day...it's perfect here in michigan, high almost 80, low humidity!

echinacea 2.jpg

echinacea 2 double.jpg


hope you enjoy,
jeannie

well, i see the second pic is not bigger and i am wondering why. i'll fool around with it later. oh, chris, the sweetpeas for your sweet pea are about a foot up my white lattice behind the roses. i am checking them daily and moving them in and out of the lattice. they prolly won't bloom until late july, but i can't wait!

[Beader]

Wow, Jeannie, those ARE a really hot color! I've never seen that option. Very yummy. But I do know that you can easily grow more from their seeds if you wait until the head is quite dried out, & then just break it off & sprinkle the babies where you want. CAUTION: check inside the seed head to make sure there are no slumbering insects who don't want to wake up from their naps! ACK!

[Buttons2]

rain is depressing,and not even 60 degrees!

my orange tiger lily is loaded with blooms.

now have 3 hummer's & they don't get along.

only thing to bring a smile is the deer. they are coming closer to the house & some don't run off when they see people.

huge raccoon was here also. have never seen one that big before.

petunia's are a mess from the rain. it's not just a drizzle but at least no flooding.

I envy all of you with summer weather!

[Beader]

So now I have some little pretties to show off, but I haven't been keeping up w/ my garden, & in this sizzling weather, I doubt anyone could. Plus I haven't been keeping up w/ taking pix of my garden either. Let me see what I can make appear.

appear.PICT1100.jpg This is the evil alien mint aka "Curly Mint". DO NOT under any circumstances plant this monster in your garden. You will hate yourself in the morning. Its roots will grow a foot per day between heavy garden vinyl and pure red clay. After yanking it out for hours, you will have the desire to vomit from its odd minty smell. It will invade every other species within miles, poking its little alien heads up in the middle of your gorgeous flowers.


PICT1069.jpg This is my fragrant mimosa which attracts hummingbirds and butterflies and closes its leaves up at night. I think there's a smaller version called a "sensitive plant".

PICT1093.jpg And here's my nemesis, staring right at me, ready to jump the gate at the blink of an eye. Altho' the mama with the two baby fawns frolicking and cavorting their spots off were pretty cute. Did I just say that? I take it back. More to add to the many resident herds. That would be herdS plural.

[tic chick]

hey all!

SHER! glad you are okay from that storm that rolled in friday! you're back online, so i assume you have to have power... the curly mint even looks evil...like a little tree. the mimosa is a beautiful color. i remember going to a garden in new york and they had an interesting little garden, inside were those "sensitive plants". they were so small and when you put your finger close to them, they started to curl up and close. neat!

chris, one of the three planters of sweetpeas that i planted (about 5 in each container), has a tiny closed flower bud! it's purple (a sweetpea for sweetpea !)! so maybe the sweetpeas will start blooming more soon.

pati, i wish you could show us pics of the area you live in! it sounds so pretty and open and woodsy and wild!

it is hotter than heck around here. 5 days of 90+ heat already and 6 more to go (so the weatherman says). i should get my black plastic out and put it over the lawn to kill it...the heat from the sun on the black plastic makes everything underneath it super hot and dead. that's how i want my mostly weedy lawn to be.

well, to everyone who is baking, keep cool! drink lots (water...lol) and stay inside if you have air or a fan. i'm, not playing fetch with the dogs in the evening even. i water my flowers every other day really well and i squirt nora, who loves the water and i watch nick run and hide in his shady spot underneath the liac bushes, he hates to get wet (weird for a part lab). i lay on the cement driveway (it's not hot) and enjoy the cooler air and slight breeze. i think of stuff for about half an hour and let it go.

, jeannie

[Buttons2]

the tiger lily is in full bloom & being eaten by the slugs. I cut back the petunia's.

my sweet peas are really long & bushy but need some sun to bloom!

nasturiums are blooming.

potato's are very big & really taking up space. peas are blooming. tomato's are beginning to bloom. my tarheel green beans are climbing the chicken wire,corn is getting tall & shading my beans. we planted corn for the fun of it cause can buy @ local stands 10/$1.00.

Jeannie,it prboably sounds much nicer than it really is here! housemate is obsessed with his John Deere & mows constantly.

as for the deer? have I mentioned I have them all named? it's funny to see them check out the green space men & back off.

we have 2 baby quail,some have already become hawk snacks I guess.

a friend emailed me the other day about how birds are so agressive this years & killing each other! well it's going on here too. the hummer's are vicious. male quail are fighting. even the swallows! creates quite the racket & is just plain weird.

last night a baby swallow fell out of nest right onto concrete. I got some plastic gloves,picked it up & begged housemate to get a ladder & put it back into nest. when he did that the other baby came down & died on the concrete. sad.....mind you I hate the swallows but just can't stand to see a baby critter die.

[JanM]

I'm happy to report the tomato plants are growing well. It was touch and go for a while. Although I planted them late, by Texas standards, they are doing OK. I see a B B size tomato on one of them. The one that is the runt is growing as well. I snapped off the stem that was in bad shape and then the other stem started growing. One of my 3 containers of green beans died, but the other two have flowers on them. The cucumber plant is ever reaching out to attach itself to the tomato cage I have in its pot. There are flowers on it also, but I don't know if they are boy flowers or girl flowers. According to what I read there is a difference! Go figger, eh? It seems to make a difference if I water in the morning instead of in the evening. I water the soil and don't water the leaves of the plant.

[tic chick]

hey jan and all!

watering early in the day iis usually a waste because the heat of the day will just make the water evaporate. watering in the evening, around 7 is the best, because if you do get water on the leaves, it has time to dry, plus there is less evaporation of water in the sunless, cooler night. water on the leaves in the late evening might lead to fungus disease, because they like cool, damp conditions. glad to hear the runt is getting stronger .

here is a pic of my hydrangea bush, taken about a week or more ago. the flowers are fading because of this extreme heat. the other two hydrangeas i have seem to have deeper purplish-pink flowers, but they are just babies now, barely a foot high.
mrs. hydrangea.jpg

some of my ferns that broke off from high winds are regrowing. a darn squirrel has taken a liking to my hosta leaves *mad.

well, cooler weather is coming this weekend and all next week. i'm going to try and get the topsoil delivered monday and start planting those boxwoods. oh, still have to transplant that french lilac. i have a new hole dug for it and a trench around the plant, now i have to saw horizontally through the bush and pull it up. maybe sunday.

happy growing, jeannie

[Beader]

Hey Jeannie, how are you guys getting cooler weather this weekend??? We're headed for a record 103F tomorrow & that's the day of the big family wedding! It's so humid & soupy that I really really don't want to venture outside & then get attacked by millions of little bugs. When I itch, I scratch. I don't even see the little critters till I get inside w/ red welts, so don't know if they're the little light green thingys. I really need to put on the circular spritzer & give 'em all a long drink. That would be for the plants, not the bugs.

Jeez, 911 just called w/ an Extreme Heat Alert since the heat index will be going over 110! What's the old adage -- "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger"? Let's hope that's true for our leafy green friends. At least for two more days.

[Buttons2]

finally have decent weather! 70's is perfect in fact.

daisy is in bloom.

have peas & didn't even realize it.

tomato's are so crowded I did major snipping on bottom of plants again.

at war with slugs. dumped alot of "safe" slug bait (my dog tried to eat Deadline)

I've been outside past 2 days enjoying the wonderful weather & reading good books.

cannot imagine the extreme heat some of you (well actually from the news I think most everyone) is suffering from. you'll get relief soon I hope!