| Seil Posted on Saturday, July 14, 2007 - 09:01 pm: |   |
Since it's the middle of the season here it's a little late to start this journal but I just found this place so I'll jump in anyway.
Things are growing pretty well considering it's been HOT and DRY here for the last month. But I water, water, water every day (I'm terrified to see the bill) to keep things going. All of the 101 pots are growing well and surviving despite the drought. |
| Seil Posted on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 10:16 am: | |
I finally got a chance to fertilize and spray yesterday. Hope this perks up the roses. It's been cooler the last couple of days but they say it will go back up into the 90s by the weekend again. Oh well I'll just keep watering. |
| Seil Posted on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 09:37 pm: | |
It rained! But I had to water anyway. The surface of everything looked damp but some of the tips of the roses looked wilty so I used my moisture tester and sure enough only the top inch or so was damp. Further down was dry as a bone. I put the soakers on all the beds first and then arm myself with the hose and start on the 102 pots. I have a count I do depending on the size of the pot and that usually works pretty well in normal weather. With this hot dry weather I've taken to soaking the pots until I see water come out the drainage hole. I'm hoping this is enough and praying for rain. It takes between 2 and 3 hours to water everything thuroughly and when it's hot I'm wilty by the time I finish. |
| Seil Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 03:24 pm: | |
Oh my, it's been a while, hasn't it. Well let's see, I had a nice second bloom on most of the roses. Still 2 hold outs, Christian Dior and Peace, that have not bloomed at all this year. If they don't they'll both be goners next year. I've had terrible blackspot and some powdery mildew so I broke down and got some Bayer 3 in 1 which I hate doing. I got half of the roses done the few days it was cooler, below 90, and ran out I've got more now to to do the rest but it's too hot again so I'll have to wait for a "cold" spell. Other than that it's just been water, water, water. |
| Seil Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 07:45 pm: | |
Did finally finish with the Bayer on the rest of the pots about a week ago. Today I did a lot of pot swapping. I had several roses in pots that were too small so I repotted those in much larger pots and moved some of the minis that were in the really small baskets into the small pots the big roses were in. I took the micro mini Cinderella out of the ground too. She was so small that she was getting lost under all the other perennials around her. I put her one of the hanging baskets and I think she'll do fine there and I'll at least be able to see her. I had to up size the pots on my rose seedlings too. I lost 2 more so I'm down to 2 from last year and 10 from this year but they all look healthy and I've buds on a couple of them. The entire garden got Miracle Grow today too. Probably the last feed of the year depending on the weather I guess. |
| Seil Posted on Friday, September 07, 2007 - 02:01 pm: | |
There hasn't been a whole lot to report. Maintenance mostly and still water, water, water. We've been picking lots of tomatoes and peppers and cukes. I replanted the lettuce and radishes and they're coming up. The raspberries are giving me their second crop which is always bigger than the first crop. The corn, unfortunately was a bust. The ears just stopped growing for some reason. I have a half a dozen tiny ears with a handful of big kernels at the bottom and then the rest is just bare cob. Whole thing isn't 2 inches long. I'm very disappointed.
The roses have a lot of black spot. I've sprayed but to no avail. Some how they are gearing up for a fall flush though. We'll see what happens.
I've seen a lot of butterflies. Not in the butterfly bush but on the zinneas. They seem to like those flowers best.
Some of the pots are starting to look really tatty by now. I think I'm going to start consolidating the best of the plants into fewer and fewer pots. Means less pots for me to water anyway. |
| Seil Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 07:28 pm: | |
Oops! I seemed to have lost October completely. Well not surprising I was either sick or not home so there wasn't much gardening done anyway. Started out with a bout of flu which came and went quickly thank goodness because we took a lovely fall color tour up to the UP and Drummond Island to visit friends. I haven't been across the Mighty Mac in many many moons so it was a real treat. Got home and promptly caught a cold. Yuck! A nice lingering one with a good barking cough which I still have the tail end of. Didn't do any winterizing since it was really too warm and everything was still blooming. I did manage to get up some of my Halloween decorations but didn't have the energy to go all out like usual.
Come into my house
Spooky things here
See my lovely haunted garden
November already. Where did the season go? We started to winterize this weekend and yep, it got warm again! Oh well, tis more than time now. Brother, Al, is mulching and bagging leaves for the winter protection of my roses. I started to cut out the dying brown perennial stuff and emptying all the ceramic pots of annuals. I took some special annuals and put them in plastic pots to put in the picture window bed in the hope that I can over winter them there. An experiment but nothing really lost if it doesn't succeed. I would have ended up tossing them anyway. I have to tackle the veggie garden next. That's where I winter most of my potted roses so I need to get it ready for that. The roses are in a sort of suspended animation. They're still green and leafy but just sitting there. I did cut all the buds and blooms off to bring in for a bouquet last week. I'm thinking we'll start stripping the leaves off and tucking them in Thanksgiving weekend weather permitting. |
| Growit Posted on Monday, December 24, 2007 - 07:47 am: | |
Seil just wanted to wish you and yours a fab Christmas. It has been great getting to know you. You have a wicked sense of humour my fellow [OoGBoO] member.
Love Moira xx |
I agree with that. You are a riot! I'm so glad you joined our clan of wacky witty fish heads. 
 |
| Flowerfreak Posted on Tuesday, December 25, 2007 - 07:34 pm: | |
Merry Christmas [OoGBoO] Seil 
[OoGBoO] |
| Seil Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 05:20 pm: | |
Oh boy, missed it by that much didn't I, Well thank you all for the good wishes and I hope you all had a great Holiday too and here's to a very Happy New Year for all of us!
I'll start out 2008 with a few pics I took this morning in the yard.
First a lonely rose hip with an ice cap.
One of my new bird feeders with some hungry visitors.
The squirrels need to eat too.
Some snow covered Holiday decorations.
It's time to start thinking about processing my rose hips and starting this years batch of seedlings. They're in the fridge waiting patiently for me. Last year I didn't get them shelled and stratified until sometime in February and the seedlings were very small yet when I got them outside in the spring. I'll start other seeds too, tomato, peppers, cukes and a lot of flowers but they can wait a while yet. Last year I saved seeds from several of the flowers I had and I'm excited about seeing how they'll do. I've never done this before. I usually just buy my annuals but since being here at Gardenbuddies I've been inspired to try some new things out.
It's a whole new gardening year and I'm already getting excited! |
| Growit Posted on Thursday, January 03, 2008 - 10:01 am: | |
ROFL!! Cups on here too Seil. Maybe they are morphing rosehips! |
| Seil Posted on Thursday, January 03, 2008 - 03:32 pm: | |
What a dummy I am! Oh well, here we go again and this time I'll post them correctly. I hope!
Rose hip
Birds at new feeder
Squirrel
Decoration
I hope these are right now. I'll have to keep watch and see what other pictures show up above. I understand they could keep changing as other people use the Buddy photo sizer. |
| Growit Posted on Thursday, January 03, 2008 - 03:46 pm: | |
Much better. Love the shrivelled rosehip pic and your pictures of birds in flight going for the feeder are brilliant! But if I saw that squirrel  he would need to be afraid...very afraid!! I have had more problems with darned squirrels this year than ever before. |
When I first heard that, I was tempted to play with it and see what sort of damage I could do to the storyline. LOL. It's funny enough with the tea cups, though, and I've been thinking that a year from now, or even a few months from now, some new person will be reading these threads, sans rose hips and tea cups, and wonder what on Earth we were all smoking for the holidays. LOL. Glad to see you got this last batch under control, Seil. Your squirrel's tail is so bushy that I was expecting to see a Husky dog. Hahaha! Great shots of the birds and I love your basket deco.  |
| Seil Posted on Thursday, January 03, 2008 - 10:31 pm: | |
Well no need to play with it now. It's changed to chicken stew!!! |
| Growit Posted on Friday, January 04, 2008 - 04:36 am: | |
HAHA! Just too funny. Can't wait to see what you get next Seil. |
| Seil Posted on Saturday, January 05, 2008 - 11:09 am: | |
It's a really adorable little Christmas tree fairy now! What fun! |
| Growit Posted on Saturday, January 05, 2008 - 12:22 pm: | |
That is Denises' fairy. Wonder if she made her/it? |
Oh, darn, I missed the fairy. I see a pretty red Cardinal now, though. |
