Thursday, September 4, 2014

Here are the Azaleas in September!



Apologies

I'm not sure why my photos are not publishing in my blog, but I will try to figure it out and add them soon!

End of Summer - Well Not Really

In most areas of the country, September brings the end of summer, but to us in South Louisiana, we know we are in for more of the same...heat indexes above 100 degrees F, humidity, and sometimes the appearance of our worst enemy of all, the hurricane.  This year, so far, we have been lucky not to see a tropical system off of our shores.  I stress, so far...  September is the height of our hurricane season, so we really don't breathe a sigh of relief until after the first weeks of October have passed and we get that first cool front.

We've had some stormy weather in the last few days, and the rains it has brought have been a welcome sight to the gardens here at home.  We had been in slight drought conditions, and my plant friends were suffering, as were the lawn and trees.  Everything has greened up again and the flowers are putting on their last big show of summer.  We have much work to do when the weather cools off a bit to allow us to get out and get busy.  My husband is helping me redesign our pool garden area this fall.  The plans are done and supplies are ready to order whenever we get the first break in the sweltering heat.  This time of year it is just too hot and humid to work outside beyond 7:30 a.m...

There will be much more to come on this garden renovation, with lots of pictures that I hope you will enjoy!  We will be installing new pathways, planting beds, and hardscape around our pool and deck area.  This is something that has been haphazardly done in the past, and I plan to have a place where visitors can stroll to view the plants in both shaded and sunny areas around our 1/2 acre side yard where our pool is located.  Selecting the plant material has been fun, and we are going with mostly native plants and lots of pine bark mulch to minimize maintenance, as this will be a rather large project.  The idea is to have a garden that spills over pea gravel pathways, with blooms at all times of the year.  We will be experimenting with some new plants to our yard, but with more than 90% being native, we expect to have great success!

More to come on that later... Today, I noticed a rare sight when I was strolling the gardens.  There is an old fashioned purple azalea, which normally only blooms in spring, full of blooms here at the beginning of September!  A rare treat that I want to share with you.  I have no idea what possessed this beauty to give us another show, because it is not one of the "reblooming" cultivars.

Here it is and I hope you enjoy your day in the garden!

Sherri