Beautiful, clear, warm, calm day today. The temp has gotten up into the eighties now with night time temps finally reaching into the sixties.
Since I started the new beds down in the bog, it has become more important to control the weeds, so this morning, bright and early I got out and started spraying before the wind got up. Turned out the wind never did pick up much for a change, stayed calm all day. I sprayed the worst part of the weeds, still have some more areas that need treating, but they are not too bad because at least they are where I can mow them and keep them down.
Being I had the sprayer out decided it was just one day from spraying day for the roses, and they were already showing some signs of black spot so I went ahead and sprayed them. The two roses I got from my mothers house are doing fantastic, they are showing the least black spot of all the Roses planted in the beds. They may actually be as black spot free as the climbing roses and that is pretty darn impressive, plus one of them is just super loaded with buds.
The 'Street Find' rose I picked up last year is looking better every day, the blooms keep getting larger and larger and smelling better too. I am having trouble with some of the rose blooms having very dark petals before they open then being malformed when they finally do open, I have not yet figured out what is causing that. I suspect it could be the spray I used to kill the rose worms with.
I had planted a few marigolds down in the corner of the inside the fence bed and most of them had grown large enough to transplant to their permanent location. I dug them up and transplanted them, forgot to water them before I did and they wilted very badly. I had to go back and water them twice and spray them three times trying to revive them. I think they will look much better in the morning (I hope).
My neighbor gave me three starts of Butterfly Iris, which I planted yesterday, she also let me take some cuttings off the Butterfly bush she had, mine both froze in the cold this past winter but hers was not. I think it is recommended to take cutting later in the summer after they bloom, but I am trying some now. I ended up with probably close to a dozen cuttings, and when I last checked on them they were still looking fresh.
I checked on the Blue Bedder Salvia cuttings I took the other day and so far they are looking good.
Sitting on the back deck today I was visited by a Lunar Moth, snapped a quick pic thinking he was going fly away at any minute, he stayed there all afternoon and was still there last time I looked.
Finally a nice clear warm day, tomorrow rain predicted.
The Armadillo has destoryed all my Cucumber, Squash, and Melons and today I replanted more seed in containers. I will grow them to a decent size then place them in the garden. If I have not trapped that critter by then, I will fence that area off better. I had not planted any Sunflowers in that bed, last year a former Armadillo tried to destory all of those, but I did plant some Mammoth Sunflower seeds today in places I can't fence off, might not have been to smart.
Also found a pack of Black-Eyed Susan with some seeds left, so I planted them in the little cell packs.
Seeds Planted:
Cucumber, 'Picklebush'
Cucumber, 'Poinsett 76'
Squash, 'Yellow Summer Crookneck'
Squash, 'Early Prolific Straightneck'
Watermelon, 'Crimson Sweet'
Watermelon, 'Sugar Baby'
Dahlia, 'Rainbow Mixed Colors'
Rudbeckia Hirta,'Black-Eyed Susan'
Got my new Stair Rails installed today, and I love them:
We had another huge rain, everything is soggy wet. So I used today, cloudy windy but not raining to plant some annual seeds.
These were mostly those 4 for $1.00, packs sold at the Dollar store, but some were larger packs for $1.50. One pack of Sensations Cosmos only had six seeds in the entire pack! That was the exception however, most of the 25 cent packs had a pretty generous number of seeds in them.
I planted today:
Cosmos-'Sensations'
Coleus-'Rainbow'
Marigold-Large pack of 'Sparky'
Zinna-Large pack of Pompon
I also took cuttings from the Salvia I have grown from seed and stuck them in a pot of compost with some perlite mixed in. I need to cover them with a plastic bag tomorrow.
I am trying a new experiment, I am using the plastic 1gl.plus 1qt. ice cream containers with the lids and sitting two six pack cell containers in each one, planted mostly with Zinnias as a trial to see how well they will germinate. It offers protection from all the torrential downpours we have had lately and protection from the critters who love to dig up all my seedlings.
I went out late this afternoon, and cut back the majority of the dead Jasmine off the fence. The cold winter pretty well killed most of it, the first time in 10 years this has happened. I think there is enough left alive for it to make a comeback, but I don't think it will happen quickly. The Jasmine growing on the trellis on the screen porch did fine, the house blocked the cold.
Also while I was out late this afternoon, I pulled all the blackspot leaves off the roses, and deadheaded them. I hope the spray had been on them long enough before the rain came to do some good. They look pretty good right now, and I had less leaves than I have been having that needed to be removed.
The bog area is really just sopping wet now again. I am surprised the daylilies have not all drowned. The water table has risen to within an inch of the surface in most places and is up to the surface in a lot of places.
Checked on the new compost pile, after all the rain, it was heating up nicely. I am always amazed at how much rain a compost pile can absorb. Hope to have pictures of my little short Amaryllis with the big solid red blooms tomorrow.
Oh, almost forgot, I did have my first Afraican Daisy bloom today, not very impressive, they will get better. Hope to have some yellow ones by tomorrow also.
Cool and very windy today, I had to wait until 6:30 pm for the wind to die down enough to spray the roses and it was still blowing more than I would have liked.
The Roses are looking pretty good this year, the buds on some of the roses had been destroyed by what I think were rose worms, but I pulled off the infested buds, and sprayed the rest, today I sprayed them for a second time and treated them for black spot also.
I also treated the Canna lilies with the same spray, trying to get rid of the leaf rollers. I could tell the first spray did a lot of good for both the Cannas and the Roses, no sign of worms this second spraying so maybe they are taken care of for the year. I am also trying it on the daylilies, trying to avoid rust and leaf minors.
Speaking of daylilies, I had my first bloom of the year today. It was a NOID, but still I think it is pretty, and does and a liitle more color and helps brighten up the garden.
Today I planted more Zinnia seeds:
1 pack Lilliput
1 pack Pumila
2 packs Giants of California
2 packs Candy Cane
All were mixed colors
Found a Fasciated scape on one of my daylilies today, I will watch it and see what the blooms end up looking like.
