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Horticulture Week

It's Coming

Well, against my better judgement it is, but Mother Nature (she's been quite the cranky old bird this year) has her own ideas of how things should be run.

Fall. What is she thinking? 39F? Already? Seriously? Sooo not a good joke.

You'd think my DH would learn...

Him: "Do you have to save everything?"

I wait for the inevitable flustered gesture and accompanying eye roll.

Me: "Ummm, let me think a minute." Polite pause as if I'd really consider such a nonsensical question. "Yes!"

Resigned sigh as he grabs hold of the opposite side of the 8000 pound elephant ear/canna pot.

Ahhh, the annual fall bring-it-all-in dance. Loverly!

Time to pinch, poke, repot, dig, store, debug and dedirt it all. Now, why are husbands/in-laws/neighbors/basic non-gardeners so slow to learn the yearly garden ritual of ItMustAllBeSavedOrTheGardenGodsWillExactTheirRevengeNextYearOnTheEntireYard thing?

And then there's the IMustNotFailToGetTheseSuckersToOverwinterOrI'mATotalFailureAsAGardener rule.

And, the IfIOnlyStartOneCuttingItWillSurelyCroakAndI'llBe'WhateverPlant'PlantlessInSpringSo
80MustBeStarted rule?

Lets not mention the MustStartEverySingleSeedICanGetMyGrubbyLittleHandsOn rule as it isn't quite time for that ... yet. (the saving of seed part is a whole 'nother ritual/rule thing entirely!)

Look, I like plants much (oh, so much) more than I like people. Yeah, so plants are a dime a dozen and cheap. So are people (yes both a dime a dozen and some I know could be considered to lean toward the tacky, cheapish side), but would you throw one of them on the compost pile because they were looking a tad scraggly? Aside from the arrest and conviction thing, I mean.

Heh, thought not.
:)

Flipped Off

I guess even the veg get a bit disgusted with the neglect they begin to suffer around this time of year. How not cool is it for them to flip you the bird?

Of course, my oldest daughter just couldn't resist messing with it :)
I think that even our pond residents are a little disgusted that our daily conversations have become a lot shorter these days. Then again, maybe they're as depressed as I am that fall is here - which means winter can only be closer than we'd like it to be.

The tomato sauce is cooking.

:)

I'll end up being able to freeze about eight gallons. Not bad! I was finally able to get ahold of some vinegar, so I'll be able to put up a few quarts of pickles tomorrow. Yay! The only things left to get into the freezer are the brussel sprouts and we're still waiting on the corn from having to wait on the weather and getting the seed in the ground late. Zucchini are still coming in at the rate of a couple a day.

Oh, and the popcorn is still to come!

The flowers are trucking along as if it'll be 80 F forever. Now that it's fall, we've finally arrived at summer. Stupid weather! We ended up only getting three very small Moon and Stars watermelons. It was just too cold for them to grow worth a crap. On the bright side - for some reason, my son's hot peppers produced great! Go figure. My green peppers didn't do crap.

I'm at that early fall 'don't give a crap' point. It'll pass. It always does.

The Unknown

I started this begonia from a leaf I snitched off the floor when the landscape crew at a local touristy-like place was ripping them up last fall. The flowers were beautiful, mostly double pinks and yellows from what I saw, but not sure what plant this exact leaf came from. (I wasn't bold enough to ask). The plants must have been a good 2 foot tall and quite bushy. The leaf was a little smaller than my hand and a nice, deep green.

The flowers looked like 'Non-Stop', but the leaves don't look the same. Heck, I don't even know if its a tuberous type or not. Ok, so I don't have any experience with begonias!

Any ideas from what the leaves look like?

I'm not even sure of how to get it through the winter. It's looking ridiculously healthy at this point, and I'd like to keep it that way. I didn't even think it would work when I slit the leaf and plopped it on some soil, but I'm happy it did.

Help. Anyone?

*Edit 8/28 : I posted these same pics on the Begonia forum, and they don't think it's a begonia at all! Hmmm...I used fresh potting soil from a new bag, scored the leaf a few times, layed it on top of the soil and covered it with a ziplock. And this is what popped up! Now, I'm kind of weirded out about what it might be.

Someone suggested geranium, but I don't have any of those anymore (and there aren't any for miles around - I live in the boonies), so doubt it was some sort of errant seed. Especially considering it was a brand new bag of potting soil. Well, then...I hope it lives so I can see what kind of gift plant I got! :)

*Edit 9/3 : Someone guessed it might be a Ranunculus - and they might be right, as the leaves look darn close! Now, where would that have come from?! I better be able to keep this thing going until it blooms. It's driving me nuts...

Quick Update

This post is a little pic heavy.

:)

My daughter stopped in and I got her to take some pics for me with her cell phone. The plants would probably look much better with a real camera, but I'll take what I can get and be glad. The sun set before she could take all she wanted to, but she got over 50 for me, so I'm very happy!

Everything was looking so fabulous . . . and then we got slammed with a devastating storm. The blue borage was lying totally flat on the ground and had to be ripped out. It was looking so good and was in full bloom. Our 12 foot sunflowers got blown down. The celosia was almost 4 foot and taller than the rose of sharon, but is now lying almost flat to the ground.

At least we didn't get hit quite as hard as some people did who got hit by lightening along with the wind and lost power, siding and shingles off their houses and roofs. My Uncle couldn't milk for 14 hours! Poor cows.

:(

The new (this year) front bed. There are tons of plants crammed in here - that's what happens with wintersowing - more plants than you know what to do with. Here's what is crammed in there, somewhere...

Mammoth Sunflower

Sunflower - vanilla ice

Sunflower - cinnamon sun cross

Borage (was)

Nicotiana

Foxglove

Celosia

Coreopsis

Balloon Flower

Canterbury Bells

Rose of Sharon

Gloriosa Daisy

Blanket Flower

Sweet William

Black Eyed Susan

Cleome

Cosmos (regular and seashell)

Lavender

Snapdragon

Portulaca

Chamomile

Nasturtium

Marigolds

Spirea

Fennel

Parsley - flat leaf

Parsley - Italian

Calendula

Strawflower

Blue Fescue

Aster

Zinnia

(and probably a few more I can't remember)

Shade bed. I'm in love with the balsam impatiens this year!

Blanket flower with a very happy bee.

Cinnamon Sun sunflower cross. (and another happy bee)

Center of the front bed - everything got blown flat :(

Asters and snaps. I adore the purple against the yellow snaps.

Black Watchman hollyhock (thanks Kim!) backed by the weeping pea tree. Between the bugs and the hail, the leaves don't look so hot, but the blooms are fantastic.

One of the Rhodos I started from seed. Or maybe it's an azalea. I didn't do so hot with the tag organization. I know - dumb, dumb, dumb!

The impatiens in the bench planters were wonderful this year. They looked so nice combined with the snaps until the storm showed up and made the snaps lean and blew their blooms off. The petunias popped up all over the place in the pathway, so I just left them to do their own thing. The Balsams stood up to the storm very well!

These Poinsettias are cuttings from the ones I got last year for 50 cents. (3 plants for 50 cents - can't beat that!) They aren't doing too well with the crappy summer we've had, but it will be a nice winter experiment to see how well I do getting them to bloom. I think I've absorbed every tidbit of info I can get on doing it!

Sweet Pea (white) and Spot (red) with a few Golden Orfe. Everyone else are usually the camera hogs, but were nowhere in sight. The water looked like crap all year with this awful weather, but I don't use chemicals to clear it - I'd rather have happy, healthy fish.

Gloriosa Daisies in the second front bed. I got quite a few doubles this year that I'll be saving seed from to see what shows up next year.

Zinnias in the front bed. Some got broken and blown flat, but most made it. For once, I'm glad I really packed them in there! Surprisingly, the Cosmos behind them made out well as the Zinnias worked as a grand wind break.

My daughter's favorite. The stem got a little bent from the storm, but it's still a gorgeous bloom.

The tree bed. The Lobelia was very happy here this year. The foxglove and columbine should bloom next year. The Polka Dot plants are some I got from a hanging basket (that had tons of stuff crammed in) on clearance at Lowe's for 50 cents. Go me!

My son's hot peppers. Damn storm! They looked so wonderful before they got blown sideways. At least he'll still get peppers! And yeah, they're hot. :)

I have more pics, but I'll save them for another day.