Everybody is saying hello again

(I've been listening to a lot of Nat King Cole lately.  And everybody else, on my new music machine aka iPhone.)

You may have noticed (or, painful as is it for me to say it, perhaps you didn't) that I haven't been posting a lot recently.  This is because I haven't been gardening a lot (gardening being the excuse for this blog), which in turn is because I've been fatigued, short-winded, tremory, heart-poundy, and not interested in food, which are all symptoms of hyperthyroidism, which I was diagnosed with in mid-September after months of weirdness and exhaustion.  (The hot summer had something to do with the lack of gardening too.  Sensitivity to heat is, of course, another symptom of hyperthyroidism.)  It's not dangerous when kept under control and with medication I am already feeling much better and I can write my name again without looking like I'm drunk.

So I have been back in the garden a bit (my own; I never stopped going to the demo garden though it wiped me out for the day when I did), but I have so much to catch up on, and a lot of the projects I planned for this year have just gone by the wayside.  There is always next year.  One thing that is happening right away is that my request for a community garden plot please anytime one's vacated has been rewarded, and as soon as I pay for it I can start clearing and planting (a place for all those herb plants I started for some reason! around the border I think).  Can't do much in the way of veggies this year, since it's very much fall, but in the spring I will have food crops in sunshine.  My home veggie garden was a shady mess this year.

Anyway, more on all that later.  For now, have some pictures of things I didn't grow.

Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco:

We were out there a few weeks ago to see our son who is doing an architectural internship, and, you know, make sure he had furniture and stuff like that.

Saturday was the big Harvest Festival at the Farm Park where Extension and the demo garden are, and the National Capital Dahlia Society folks were there as always (they have the garden beyond ours) selling bouquets, which I always get one of so I can stare at these amazing flowers for a few days.  Ladies and gentlemen, my dahlias:

They are even more impressive in person.  I should have provided something for scale.  Six to eight inches across, I'd say.  It was a very fun event as usual and I talked to so many people and gave away so many hot peppers and mouse melons and I was exhausted, but it's all worth it.

I'm not planning to do Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day this month, because I will be in New Hampshire on the 15th.  Unless my mother still has flowers and I get inspired.

I am, however, going to visit Longwood Gardens on the way.  Yay!

More soon, I promise.

Bloom Day September

Oh, dear, I haven't updated in a month, which means it's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day again.  I have nothing really extraordinary to share, but I did have fun trying out the camera on my new iPhone, so here are the results.

Sweet little nasturtium.  Actually, I should say bitter little nasturtium, but it belies its taste.

The developing flowers of the hardy begonia.

Beautyberry with sweet autumn clematis crawling over it.  This is right at the front of the yard.

So is this incredibly bright aster.

Goldenrod being all dramatic just behind the beautyberries.  I didn't have to plant this or anything, in fact I have to pull out huge amounts every year, but it's nice to keep some.

An adorable little caryopteris I planted last fall.

The developing flowers of Limelight hydrangea.  Last month, green, this month with a lot of pink added.

And finally, not a flower, but I love milkweed fluff (this is from one of my orange butterfly weed plants).  I remember discussing with a teenage boyfriend the idea of collecting the fluff and using it for insulation in jackets and vests.  Just makes me feel warmer looking at it.  And there will be more plants next year from those seeds.

Okay, not bad from the new phone.  I need to remember that I can turn it the other way. *g*

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day August

It's the 15th again, and the Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day post is up at May Dreams Gardens.  I'm posting both here and at Grow It Eat It today.  And here is some of what's blooming chez Smith this August.

I think this is Eupatorium serotinum, late-flowering thoroughwort, a rather aggressive native that's one of the best attractors of beneficial insects out there.  I'm letting it grow in small quantities for that reason, but I'll have to pull it out before it goes to seed.  It's about 4 feet tall.

Oregano is also good for attracting those small wasps and other useful insects.  Oh, also good for pasta sauce. *g*

Knockout rose 'Sunny' getting into the blooming act.  Ironically, I think I planted this in too much shade, but it's managing anyway.

I have a lot of sedums of various heights and flowering times in the bed by the road.  The fall bloomers are turning color now.

And another one.

The Limelight hydrangeas are blooming their early color (they'll get pinker later) on the northeast side of the house.  They're not quite as out of control as usual, thanks to the droughty summer, but the flowers are as huge as ever.

See?

If we get any more rain the branches will be on the ground, as they usually are this time of year.

Hardy begonia is starting to bloom too.  I have a lot of these now, thanks to a generous benefactor.  I intend to be a generous begonia benefactor myself in a couple of years.

And that's about it for August!  We do seem to have recovered from the drought now; very happy to have rain!

Record-keeping

I'm not writing much here, because summer gardening is just depressing what with the weeds and the heat (yesterday morning when I got up it was 79 F. and 78% humidity), but I wanted to note two things from this week just for the record.

First (well, actually, second, but I'm recording it first) I started seeds for a number of fall crops: lettuce, kale, pak choi, kohlrabi, daikon (which will need to be transplanted early, so its roots can develop), endive, mustard, and collards.  All for the demo garden, most likely.  I may start some stuff directly in my garden, but I don't trust it now, because someone got in this week and ate a whole lot of sweet potato leaves.  Groundhog, possibly deer, probably not rabbit because of the volume that's gone.  I was not having great hopes for the sweet potatoes anyway.

The other inside task was to transplant the rest of my little herb plants into bigger pots.  I started them in May or June, I can't remember, maybe I noted it here:  a whole lot of lavender, rosemary, and Russian tarragon.  The intent at the time was to eventually set out the plants on the sunny side of the vegetable garden, outside the fence, with the intent of keeping invaders away with the strong smell.  I'm just not sure that's going to happen, given how awful a job I've done of keeping the weeds down and my plan to apply for a community garden plot next year.  (Of course, I may not get one; there's always a waiting list.)  I can certainly stick in herb plants in other places (though this is a lot of herb plants) including on the driveway side of the bed I'm hoping to put in between the mock orange and the pagoda tree.  The question is really whether they will be big enough to plant in September.  Keep watering them, I guess.

Also, one of the more successful starts has been Lavendula viridis, the yellow French lavender, which I was hoping would bloom this year, but that's not going to happen, and it's not really hardy here.  I happened to have seeds, not that I managed to germinate them last time I tried, when I actually did it in the early spring.  I suppose I can have lavender under lights all winter...

July sizzle

Happy Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day!  It's been hot and mostly dry in Maryland zone 7a (though we've had a little rain) and this is the time of year I think I have no flowers.  But some of them hang on, loving the heat or fighting through it.

Here's my most dramatic bloom, a hardy hibiscus (Disco Belle, I think) that I grew from seed ages ago.  Unfortunately it is being dramatic in the direction of the neighbors' yard, but at least they can enjoy it.  It really is huge (balloon flower for comparison).

Also a drama queen, this green gladiolus.

Purple coneflowers are reliable in the heat.  They do insist on seeding themselves in inconvenient places, but I don't mind, and I love watching the finches feeding on them in the fall.

Daylilies are still in bloom - here are the red ones I forgot to include last time.  They may be 'Black Knight' but I had several dark reds and they've been moved around, so I don't know.

Calendula, with bee.

This is in the MG demo garden, not my yard, but I'm including it anyway.  It's tithonia 'Aztec Sun.'  Mexican sunflowers are usually orange, but I like this milder yellow as an alternative.  Next year maybe I'll combine the two.

This is a flower cluster from Sophora japonica, Japanese padoga tree.  It's nice to have a tree that flowers this time of year, and it's a pretty tree, but I wouldn't recommend it, because it self-seeds with a vengeance.  We also made the error of planting it next to the driveway, with this result:

Constantly - it's like a snowstorm whenever I drive away.  And they leave a sticky residue.

Hope your gardens are flowering and flourishing!

Worms Survive Despite Unforgivable Neglect: News at 11

I finally got around to putting a new level on the worm bin today.  In recent weeks months all I've been doing is chucking an occasional food scrap in there (worms eat much less than one thinks in the beginning) and not even renewing the bedding.  But they are still alive, and in fact there are baby worms, so things must be going fine.  The Worm Rebel Alliance continues to operate at the top of the bin, but perhaps this impulse to climb will get them through the holes and into the new bin, which has been provided with lots of bedding and some pieces of cantaloupe rind.

Worms, I promise to gaze on you more often.  Now keep making compost.  And please don't climb up the sides between the two bins, or you will be squished.

Scorch

I suppose I should write something about the horrible summer.  Every year I get rather depressed about gardening at this time, and this July is worse than usual.  I believe this is the 11th day in a row with temperatures at least in the 90s and mostly in the upper range of that (we are spared the city heat, but it hit 105 in DC yesterday), and nasty humidity until it gets really hot, and very little rain.  What rain we had came in the form of a derecho, which is a storm that comes straight at you (opposite of a tornado, you see), last Friday night: furious winds, intense lightning, like a thunderhurricane on speed and hair straighteners.  Trees were down all over, people died, the region declared a state of emergency.  We lost only branches and our power was only out for two days, which was lucky (some people are still without power 8 days later).  And my rain gauge recorded only 1/2 inch, although a lot of the rain came sideways, so who knows.  The whole thing lasted less than half an hour.  We've only had a gentle shower on 4th of July morning since then.  (It was the lowest-key 4th I've experienced in a while - most fireworks displays were canceled because of the heat and power loss and the need for emergency personnel to occupy themselves elsewhere - though there was a gorgeous moon.)

We have no water when the power goes out, but since Sunday I've been trying to keep things watered: the seedlings still on my deck, the pots, what little is in the vegetable garden, the young trees.  Luckily I forced myself out last Friday morning (before the storm) and rescued the trees from encroaching weeds, mulched, and placed unfortunately bright blue buckets (the new Lowe's color; I was counting on their old gray ones) with small holes in the bottom on the soil.  They can be filled to let the trees soak up water slowly.  (Though not slowly enough, since I put too many holes in.  I may transfer these to the tomato bed and get new ones for the trees, with just two tiny holes each.)

I waited too long to rescue the winterberries I planted last fall; their area had never been cleared out properly and is full of pokeweed and wild grape vines.  I think the two females may survive, but the male looks like he's had it, so I'll have to get another.  This is the problems with planting things in our Way Back; the weeds have a huge head start.  The whole back slope project I wrote about last fall is not looking good; pokeweed is winning there too, though a lot of the daylilies are up and blooming.  In other depressing news, the pomegranate may be alive but I can't see it producing anything this year or surviving another winter.  (The fig looks great, though.)  The viburnums are still in pots and will stay that way until fall.  I'm hoping to manage some weed control and some transplanting into larger pots when the weather clears, which should be tonight.  Temperatures in the 80s will feel positively chilly.

More soon, I hope - need to get back in the habit of posting frequently.