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

A Long Year Passed

I just reviewed my blog and saw that it's been a year since I've published my blog.  An illness took over my life, but I'm happy to say that I am healthier now and able to get back to what I love, which is my garden.  It suffered quite a bit, right along with me!  However, the summer has been good to me and I've been busy getting both myself and my garden back to health.

It is August in South Louisiana again.  We've had continuous rain today and we need it!  The weather has been hot, humid, and without rain for weeks and weeks.  My mornings and evenings have been spent trying to save my plant friends by extra watering and feeding to keep them at their best.

So much is blooming now that it would be difficult to list in the short time I have for this post.  However, my favorites this year have been coleus 'Sedona',  Hardy Hibiscus, Wild Blue Indigo,  a new heat/humidity resistant lobelia (beautifully blue), and vinca (white & fushia).  I've also enjoyed many different colors of verbena, but my favorite is a white & pink variety that is called "Lanai Twister Pink".  It has been a consistent performer all year.  One other plant that I would like to mention is the new "Sun Parasol - crimson" that has been absolutely fantastic, covering an arbor with beautiful true red trumpet shaped flowers all season, even in this weather!

I just finished planting the fall/winter vegetables in the raised planter beds.  Hopefully I will have lots of mustard greens, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, carrots, radishes, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, pumpkins, gourds, and leeks to show you in the near future!

I will be updating more frequently and posting pictures of the garden in days to come.

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy your day in the garden!

Sherri

Butterfly ginger is absolutely gorgeous and the fragrance is intoxicating!

A Beautiful Day!

We are having a fantastic run of great weather in south Louisiana.  Hence, my tardiness in blogging!  I've spent the last couple of days in the garden, weeding, cleaning, mulching, and even transplanting a few things.  It is unheard of that we would have nighttime temps in the low 60's and daytime highs in the low to mid 80's AND low humidity here in August, but that is exactly what we've been experiencing and it is a blessing from above!

So, my gardening friends, this post will be brief so I can return to playing in the dirt!  The fall garden is ready for planting, and I will post about that next week. In the meantime, I will continue to pull weeds and remulch the garden beds, as well as complete a couple of whimsical pieces for the garden that I'm working on.  Will share those later!  I'll leave you with this photo of a cottage garden border that is very happy!

Wishing you all a wonderful day in the garden!




Sherri

Strange Summer

This summer has been unusual in my garden.  As I've mentioned before, we've had lower than usual night time temperatures, which I think has confused my plant friends a little.  For example, as I was walking through my gardens this morning, I discovered my ginger is blooming.  Since I planted it, more than 4 years ago, it has always been the last plant to bloom in my garden, usually in late September.  Normally, the confederate rose, golden showers tree, aster, ginger, bleeding heart, loropetulum, white camellias ("White Doves" always blooms early), and mums are blooming around the same time.  This year, I have daylillies still blooming, and now ginger...  It's lovely and an unexpected treat.  The confederate roses and camellias have tons of visible blooms, but nothing on the golden showers tree yet. 

Another plant that I wanted to mention that has been just amazing this year with continuous bloom since spring, is the cleome cultivar Senorita Rosalita.  This is the first year I've used cleome in the garden and it has not disappointed at all!  It was in bloom when I planted it in May and continues to profusely bloom today.  The flowers are a pink, almost pale lavender and are in clusters atop approximately 24 inch stalks.  It is just glorious!

 

 



Blooming today in my gardens:  daylillies, hosta, verbena (red, white, purple), salvia (annual and perennial), vinca, yellow coneflower, crape myrtle, hibiscus, pink indigo, spiderwort, peace lilly, cannas, mexican petunia, bleeding heart, ginger, alstromeria, hydrangea, melanpodium, lantana (white, purple, rainbow), the odd old-fashioned purple azalea (that has not stopped blooming all season - still don't understand that one, either), and roses (miniatures, knockout, iceberg, and various other floribundas).  I'm a happy gardener today!

Hope you have a great day in the garden and I'll leave you with a picture of my morning surprise, which was a treat for the nose as well as the eyes - ginger in bloom!

 

 

 

Sherri



Rain!

We had a great soaking rain last night, so I've spent the morning pulling weeds.  By far the easiest way to get rid of these pests is to pull them by hand after a good rain.  Didn't get the mulch down yesterday because of rain and we are expecting more today.  I will hold off on on that chore until the weekend, as they predict we should dry out a bit.  Maybe I'll get the mowing done then, too! 

I always love a good rain at night because all the plants look "perked up" in the morning. It also saves me trying to run around with the hose to baskets and planters that aren't on the irrigation system!  Since everything is happy and watered, I will have a few extra minutes on my hands for other projects.  More about that later... 

A few notes today:  Still have crape myrtles just starting to bloom.  It is surprising how they have bloomed over such a long period this year.  The first blooms appeared in May and here we are in August and they are still opening!  I am really not sure why, other than they each have a slightly different level of sun exposure in their location.  This summer has given us cooler nighttime temperatures (70's - 80's) and they have received a little more rain, too.  In past years, the crape myrtles have all bloomed within weeks of each other.  The largest I have are the white "Natchez" variety and they usually bloom first.  They are followed by the fuchsia "Tonto", "Dallas Red", and last are the "Biloxi", with its delicate, pale pink flowers.  The blooms on these usually last between 30 - 90 days, so there should be flowers until late fall.  Awesome!!

This weekend, we will finish getting the raised beds ready for fall planting.  I have tomatoes ready to transplant and all of the seeds for our fall/winter crops.  I'll update on what and when we are planting, and will provide information about the yield of these late season crops as we go.

Hope you all have a wonderful day in the garden!

Sherri

Glorious blooms of the Dallas Red Crape Myrtle