Reflections on summer 2012

This gardening year presented its new challenges, like any other- both welcome surprises and not so welcome.  I'll start with the good...

My encore azalea, autumn royalty, bloomed all year!  It sits in 1/2 sun and has wet feet.  I gave it a little azalea fertilizer and it went wild.  It's still blooming now, but was practically in full flush in the dog days of summer.  This is an outstanding performer in my zone 7b garden in the humidity of the south.

Juliet tomatoes did outstanding for me this year.  You have to be careful not to pick them too early though.  They need to have at least 2 days of being fully red on the vine to sweeten.

Prairie sun rudbeckia planted from seed a few years ago had a mass of blooms this year.  In late summer they developed powdery mildew and burnt to a gray crisp.  I'm not sure if they'll come back next year for me, or not.   If not, I'll be buying more seed.  They are worth it for the pop of color.

Come again iris In a deep bluish purple color did just as promised. It's blooming now and has on and off throughout the summer with little to no water on a hill. I'll need to find the variety for you. The yellow and  creamsicle colors didn't bloom as well.

There was a first in my garden this year.  I created a new variety of coneflower!   Or maybe i should say the birds did it for me last year.  Double delight coneflower and white swan coneFlower were sitting on a slope next to each other.  This year I had many come up from seed.  Some reverted to the old fashioned prairie splendor standard coneflower.  Some came up as the puffy pink double delight, and some crossed to become a white puffy double delight.  They look a lot like the "Meringue" variety.  But since I didn't buy it, it's my own version... My own cross... My own variety!!!  I was so proud, I called my mama.   My favorite variety is still my Merlot coneflower.  They are so disease resistant and watching the gold finches on them this year was sweet.

Heaven on earth rose did as well as always.  I've learned to put sevn dust on them early in the bloom season to keep bud worms from destroying the first flush. I have little guilt this early in the year because the bees and butterflies aren't out yet.  I also learned to save my bayer 3 in 1 until after the first flush.  It saves me a bunch of money and roses don't really need help until after their first flush anyway.  If you've never used this product for roses, get some now!!!  It's a miracle.

Also I've gotten some raised beds for veggies until I can get my clay amended.  Exciting!

And now for the bad........

Where to start?  So many issues...  My rhodo 2 years old died on the side of the house.  I think the hose sprang a leak and it got wet feet.  These guys are so finicky.  Two from my wedding died as well, no matter how I amended the soil with great drainage and a mound.

My favorite guara pooped out on me- geyser white.  Now I can't find the replacements and I don't want to settle on another variety.  :(. I guess it just got old after 2 years of blooming all spring and summer.

I had a tiny black beetle that destroyed all my coneflower blooms this year.  I never found out what it was, which drives crazy.  My best guess is a flea beetle, but I never saw them jump.  They were tough little buggers for being so small.  They would sit where the petals met the eye and chomp off the petals leaving just the stem.  I didn't have a single coneflower that was fit for a cut flower this year.  Horrific!  Spray didn't work well and I had to go to the dust to thwart them.  Next year I'm expecting even worse.  They didn't arrive until the rudbeckia showed up... I wonder if they attract them like eggplant

I had total zinnia failure this year. I miss my cut flowers. I wont let this happen again.

My soil keeps failing my vegetables.  I've always been more of a flower gardener, but with the outrageous price for anything without preservatives or spray on flavor at the store, I've decided to make room for food.

Dog Days 2011

It's the end of July and it's been hot as Hades this year, hotter than I ever remember in June and July.  Life in the garden has been truncated to the evenings before storms roll in.  If a plant survives this year, it's not because I've babied it.  It's every man for himself right now.

Here's what's in bloom:
Merlot Coneflower - 2 full months and no sign of stopping
Guara - never stops from spring to fall..i expect this will go until November
Blue Fortune Hyssop - bee's paradise - (Mid June - November
Heaven's Gate- coreopsis
Yellow Perennial summer Snap Dragons - (Antirrhinum braun-blanquetii) - grown from seed
Agapanthus - Peter Pan - purple balls w/ hycynth type blooms
Heaven on Earth rose
Butterfly bush - pink delight - (just ordered this spring)
Rudbeckia - irish eyes - grown from seed
zinnias - i always love these but they just kill my garden with powdery mildew; this year I grew green envy and white giant
tardiva hydrangena
guacamole hosta - white blooms! so pretty w/ the lime green foliage.

Spring 2012

So this spring I GOT MARRIED!!!!!  April 14 2012. I wanted to have a spring wedding with all the azaleas and dogwoods in Georgia.  Mother nature had a different idea though.  We had a very early spring this year.  The entire month of march had weeks of 85 degree days.   The blooms were so far gone that even the garden centers didn't have potted azaleas in bloom for sale!  I couldn't buy my way out of the situation. On the plus side, the day of our wedding we had a perfect 75 degree day.
We did find some rhododendron to use as a hedge behind our alter, so not all was lost!  As you probably know Rhodos are not cheap-  they're way more expensive than azaleas.  But my mama saved the day.  On the way down the weekend of my wedding, she stopped at ingles (grocery store) and found HUGE rhodos in full bloom for 17 dollars a piece.  They were probably 3feet tall and 2 feet wide.  To buy a plant like this at a nursery youd usually pay 40-50 bucks each.  The lesson here... Keep your eyes open for plant deals like this even at the most unexpected places.