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Gardening

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Today's a boring day so I collected some more photos of my garden back in July. After the daylilies are done being orange, a big number of my hostas bloom. Here they are.

Elegans hostas are the first ones to bloom. They hold onto their blooms for a long time.
1. Halleluiah Chorus 2020.jpg
Next come the hostas with white. These are the white-centered ones. This is a common hosta that grows and multiplies fast. It is not a prized possession for collectors, but I'm no collector. I use hostas to create a look. I love these babies.
2. Halleluiah Chorus 2020.jpg.jpeg
I have a lot of large green hostas that bloom at the same time. Their blooms match the white centered ones. This big white rim hosta in the front of this bed is Liberty. It's a fine specimen, a must-have for any collector. I use it as a focal point, and yes it blooms with these others with similar blooms.
3. Halleluiah Chorus 2020.jpg.jpeg
Here you see all those in the same view.
4. Halleluiah Chorus 2020.jpg.jpg
I like these blooms. If I only had single plants, a collector's garden with one of each kind, the blooms might not form clusters. I like the clusters that come from massed plantings.
4a. Halleluiah Chorus 2020.jpg.jpg
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
And more....
Behind the house there's this going on at the same time. These bloomers are the white-rimmed hostas. They are another classic cultivar not loved by collectors. I love them for the same reasons as I love the white centered ones. They are easy to grow, they grow fast, and they multiply. I never bought a single one of these that have the white on them. I simply divided them and let them do their thing.
7. Halleluiah Chorus 2020.jpg.jpg
Beneath my back deck I've got a line of large green hostas, the same ones as behind Liberty. The roses above them are taking a break from blooming, giving the hostas a chance to shine. Some people don't like the droopy bloom scapes. I do.
5. Halleluiah Chorus 2020.jpg.jpeg
Close up views into that big hosta bed out back are good. I've tried to create "vignettes" here and there that have different personalities. Here the white-rims are blooming, but the pointy-leafed dark green Lancifolia hostas to their right will wait another month before putting up their blooms.
6.  Halleluiah Chorus 2020.jpg.jpg
This big yellow hosta is Sun Power. It poses nicely for the camera behind white rims. Those Lancifolias got their crispy edges because I sprayed a toxic chemical on them by mistake. It was supposed to go onto the soil beneath them so their roots could drink it up, but I sprinkled it on the leaves. My bad.
8. Halleluiah Chorus 2020.jpg
These ferns were happy back then. They are not so happy now that we are in a serious drought.
9. Halleluiah Chorus 2020.jpg.jpeg
I like the droopy spent scapes when almost all the blooming is over. I think of them as twirling ballerinas suffering from unrequited love.
IMG_9360.jpg
It's bitter sweet to look back at these pics showing the garden when it looked good. Today in August it's pretty done for the season. The difference is dramatic. I won't show you what it looks like now. Too depressing.
 
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Christy

Angel Diva
I've decided to hire a pro to help with some backyard challenges and also to hopefully build a small water features. Everyone I've contacted is booked 6 months out! Apparently everyone, during the pandemic, has looked around at their yards and thought they need help. So I guess garden design is yet another industry that is booming during the pandemic.
 

Christy

Angel Diva
I call this one, growing tomatoes in the PNW is hard. it is always a race to get to ripe tomatoes before the weather turns cool and/or rainy. In an attempt to make my plants ripen the halfway ripe tomatoes they have on the vine, I pulled all of the green tomatoes off. These I will put in bags and boxes to ripen. I ended up composting a lot of them because I only have so much space inside that I want to devote to ripening tomatoes.

20200919_173922.jpg
 

snowski/swimmouse

Angel Diva
I'll do that here in SC a month from now, not that I haven't been picking them for four months, but I just love them so.... I'm only 19 miles from the NC state line where the mountains begin and slopes there have opened in October a couple times....
 

Christy

Angel Diva
A lot of years I've left them until mid October--nighttime temps are still over 55 right now, and we still get some really nice days this time of year. But we have rain in the forecast this week, I already have mildew issues, and I hate the chore of pulling them up when they are wet and when rain has made a lot of tomatoes drop and get moldy.
 

Powgirl

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I've decided to hire a pro to help with some backyard challenges and also to hopefully build a small water features. Everyone I've contacted is booked 6 months out! Apparently everyone, during the pandemic, has looked around at their yards and thought they need help. So I guess garden design is yet another industry that is booming during the pandemic.

I own a gardening biz...and its been the most insane year I've ever had!!
 

Christy

Angel Diva
I love the plants that just keep blooming until nature says, enough already (aka hard frost, mid December here). Penstemon is one of those. The blooms aren't as prolific as they would be in summer, but they are still going. I have pineapple sage in another location that doesn't even start blooming until late October.

20201130_133102-01.jpeg
 

snowski/swimmouse

Angel Diva
In retrospect, I could have waited one more day, but around 5:00 PM yesterday I went out and picked one final bucket of tomatoes, grape tomatoes and green pepper. Tonight it's going to 22-24 degrees so this would have been it anyway. I've enjoyed tomatoes that I brought in as late as mid February. I did have a tomato sandwich for lunch today, my first meal not of turkey since Thursday....
I also picked four bunches of different flowers such as Nasturtiums for one last blast of color and others for fragrance.
 

Jenny

Angel Diva
I love the plants that just keep blooming until nature says, enough already (aka hard frost, mid December here). Penstemon is one of those. The blooms aren't as prolific as they would be in summer, but they are still going. I have pineapple sage in another location that doesn't even start blooming until late October.

View attachment 14238
You seem to have a really long flower season.
 

Jenny

Angel Diva
I love the plants that just keep blooming until nature says, enough already (aka hard frost, mid December here). Penstemon is one of those. The blooms aren't as prolific as they would be in summer, but they are still going. I have pineapple sage in another location that doesn't even start blooming until late October.

View attachment 14238
You seem to have a really long flower season.
 

snowski/swimmouse

Angel Diva
I was born on March 20th, the first day of spring, so that's usually my signal to start preparing outside!
Last year I was distracted with stocking up on things after my return from VT the 14th, but in the end, my veggies and flowers got more attention than ever before....
 

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