Sunday, May 23, 2021

spring gives way to summer


While we had two days in a row with no rain, it returned Friday night. The tropical disturbance in the Gulf made landfall so we had bouts of heavy rain which continued yesterday and predicted for today. The ground is well saturated now, so wet all I can do is look at the flower beds before scurrying back inside. The big ass black mosquitoes have been joined by tiny black mosquitoes.

The yard is transitioning from spring to summer...poppies are gone to seed, love-in-a-mist done blooming and going to seed, the larkspur is still blooming but they started a little late, the rock rose has started up,


some of the orange cosmos are starting to bloom and the begonia, 


the yellow clasping leaved coneflowers are past prime but still pretty, the purple coneflowers are in full bloom and as mentioned the day lilies have started up and so have the altheas aka rose of sharon. 

Also the black and blue salvia and the yarrow, most of which of both I will pull out after it blooms, stuff is invasive.

A few of the zinnias I started from seed that sprouted and then never grew have finally decided that maybe they will grow now that they're in the ground while others are still just sitting there. I did throw out the handfuls of zinnia seeds I collected from the pink and white ones from last year and with all this rain they are sprouting thickly while the four small zinnia plants I bought at the feed store are being heartily consumed by something. Snails would be my guess but they aren't bothering anything else.

And I have one more survivor! The desert rose trumpet flower vine which is really more of an unruly shrub that bloomed so beautifully last summer, fall and even into the winter has put out new growth from the roots! I'm really happy about that so truly I only lost the hibiscus, bougainvillea, star of india gardenia,  the pink crinum lilies, and the rosemary which I always forget about.

So, of course, after I dithered about what to do with the 8' tall bridal bouquet plumeria...repot it and cut it back, put it in the ground, repot it but don't cut it back, which is what I finally did because it had such a pretty crown...the big rain and wind storm that came through last Monday night blew it over. Normally that doesn't do much damage, just breaks a few leaves off, but this time it fell on the two wheel hand cart and totally trashed the crown even breaking off one of the branches. Well, fuck. It will recover but it's not nearly as pretty a plant as it was. And speaking of the plumerias, some of them are already putting out bloom stalks.

I suppose I was a little premature boasting about my arm because it was fairly sore yesterday, though it feels pretty good today, and I don't know why which makes me unhappy as I'm wanting to start my yoga routine up again. I'm waiting til Monday evening when the next yoga class is so I'll see how it goes. 


the corn in the field at the end of the street




13 comments:

  1. Wow, between your southern latitude and the heavy rain, you're so much more advanced than here. Day lilies have three or more weeks before they get going in bloom. Iris is still appearing. Pansies still going strong.

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  2. I saw some corn fields like that last week, and nearly died. I'm an old Iowa girl, and grew up in the days of detasseling and DeKalb hybrids. Our saying was, "knee high by the 4th of July." It still startles me to see corn like this in May.
    Now -- if you could turn off the rain spigot, we'd be obliged.

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  3. My zinnias have two big first leaves now. They will be beautiful.

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  4. Your neck of the woods has had a lot of rain. I hate mosquitoes. Back when it used to rain, we had them in Tucson. So far we have not. It's good for me, because I welt up so bad, but rain would be better. Glad the arm is better.

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  5. Send a bit of that rain out west, would you?? ;) We're dying of thirst out here! Our hills should be as green as that corn field by now but they're still just as brown as a graham cracker. :/ Another warm summer ahead, no doubt. Your plants are all so lovely. Thanks for sharing...

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  6. Your flowers are so beautiful. All that rain really helps. I wish we had a bit of spring rain here. Sorry about your shoulder. I hope the pain goes away and you can get back to yoga.

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  7. That's some good looking corn! Your flowers seem so happy.
    I, too, have that blue salvia. The color is gorgeous but it's not an overly attractive plant, is it? Love your Rose of Sharon!

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    1. no it isn't and it doesn't bloom enough to justify all the foliage. I think about getting rid of it all the time.

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  8. That corn looks like it withstood the wind just fine! Too bad about the plumeria, though. I'm glad to hear your plants are still waking up!

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  9. When we got home from Mike's dad's yesterday we saw that one of our daylilies was BLOOMING. Seems awfully early for around here! It was a consolation because the peonies are just a raggedy mess now.

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  10. Thankk you for that rich garden visit. I live in a condo whose board blands things.

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  11. The begonias! Do you grow them in pots or in the ground? Outdoor all year round?

    Hope your arm gets better, properly so.

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    1. the begonia is currently in a pot and I did bring it in during the deep freeze. I've been thinking about putting it in the ground though as it really needs to be repotted if I keep it in a pot.

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