Tuesday, June 4, 2019

the summer garden


It's summer. The humidity is as high as the temperature and it doesn't cool off in the evening. I think our low tonight is supposed to be somewhere around 75˚. The tomatoes may bloom but they won't set fruit in this heat. No matter as long as the ones we have continue to grow. I worked for an hour yesterday morning from 7 to 8 with the long handled nippers out by the gate to the shop, the area that I recently had cleared, cutting the stumps of the trash trees and noxious vines which were already starting to sprout again and squirting brush killer on them and by the time I was through sweat was dripping off me.

The yard has segued from late spring to early summer to summer, the only remnant of spring is the brown mature seed pods of the love-in-a-mist and the last late larkspur blooms which are also going to seed. The day lilies and nile lilies and altheas and elephant garlic and purple coneflowers and black eyed susans have all been blooming, the plumerias are all sending up bloom stalks and one of the yellow angel trumpets is blooming and so are the zinnias that fellow blogger Shelagh Duncan sent me seeds for.

elephant garlic

althea

argentinian vervain

black eyed susan

rock rose

penstemon

plumeria

angel trumpet

zinnia

Progress has been made towards getting my butt back to work. Yesterday I finally altered a garage sale dress, a long gauzy thing with an embroidered bodice that if I had even medium sized boobs I would have filled but as it is I took it up on the sides some, so I could put away my sewing machine and got set up to measure a mold for volume and then fill it, today's main activity, starting with the thing most near completion.


Tomorrow I have my first appointment with the 'special' specialist, the cardiac electrophysiologist. He's already got my chart sent over by the cardiac RNP though things have been pretty calm the last several days. So, of course they are predicting heavy rain and flooding for the time I'll be on the highway heading to my appointment. I can only hope their track record for prediction continues and they are wrong about that.




15 comments:

  1. Your flowers are so lovely, Ellen. Truly they are, even in this heat and drought. Did the phlox I sent withstand transplanting? I can send you more.
    I hope that the special specialist has good news for you. Keep us posted.

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    1. thanks, and yes. I planted one clump in mostly shade and one that gets more sun. They're growing, maybe 12", but no blooming yet and might not til next year.

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  2. Safe driving!! I remember what rains were like when I lived in Texas. Lovely yard and it shows all the work! Looking forward to watching your art get created, as I always do.

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  3. My thought go with you to the specialist. Your garden is gorgeous.

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  4. What a beautiful garden! I hope all goes well with your appointment.

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  5. As mind did I do hope that your results for your heart will be alright. I was shitting bricks for almost a whole week wondering the worst when it wasn't. I do love your garden. Have you gotten any bananas from the banana trees that I saw there? I had three trees that gave me some really great bananas but then we had a really bad windy rain storm one night and they were torn to shreds. I think I cried the whole time David and I were digging them up.

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  6. Your garden is looking so nice and not as if it's baking. I suppose the humidity helps some. The best of vibes for the appointment tomorrow, and for the trip in good weather (from my lips to god's ear).

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  7. We have the heat and humidity in North Texas, too. Miserable. Then, if it cools down a little in the evening as the sun goes down, the mosquitoes are thick from all the rain we have had. Your flowers are beautiful. Your work shows. Good luck tomorrow, with the drive in and the doctor visit.

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  8. Your gardens are lovely.

    The weather predictors are wrong most of the time, and I hope that you miss those storms.

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  9. Your garden is fabulous Ellen. You have so many different things growing. Glad the zinnias are doing their thing. The mexican Petunia you sent me is doing well, three clumps and a single plant; a few blooms also! I'm digging up this year as several plants a friend gave me have taken over and are covering other things. Thugs!! Love seeing pics of your efforts in the garden. Have a great day and good luck with your appointment.

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  10. Oh, whoops! You're apparently in the bull's eye for flooding already. I hope you don't have any trouble on the roads, if you even decide to make a go of it, and I certainly hope you don't have any flooding on your property. It's a total mess around here, with the usual freeway chaos. We really lucked out yesterday. I'm attending the North American prairie conference, and we had a field trip to east Texas. There wasn't a drop of rain, an NO mosquitoes. How that happened I'm not sure, but it was the most pleasant day I've had in a swampy/boggy/generally wet area in a long, long time.

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    1. had to reschedule because we were surrounded by water and was still raining when I would have left. see the next post for pictures.

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  11. beautiful garden! Be careful driving! Hope you are right and they are wrong.

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  12. I LOVE that picture of the elephant garlic - so cool! I hope your appointment with the specialist wasn't fraught - in any way.

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  13. It's nice to see everything blooming! We planted penstemons too, but ours haven't bloomed yet. We also have verbena (which I think is the same as your Argentinian vervain) and of course we've had zinnias in the past, but not this year.

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.