(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol. 20.29 - Mid-July Surprises in the Garden [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-07-20 There's finally tomatoes on my vines. The cold weather delayed development and then it got hot. So I have no tomatoes to show you. What I do have is a few surprises that popped up. I moved my pincushion plant to the back last year but it didn't make it. What it did do, however, was throw out some seeds. Maroon scabiosa, growing well. The rubeckia is going strong and starting to pop up in some side patio cracks. Cherokee sunset black-eyed susan The lilies are almost done. I have some in a pot on the back sitting area and they have orange lilies! I thought they were all pink, but I guess not. I do have a few red ones and one pink one did bloom. These need to be divided badly. But wow, that orange was a surprise! MOGA (Make Orange Great Again) Surprising that all these rhubarb starts were healthy and grew. When I left on vacation in June, they were just little rootlet transplants with maybe one leaf each. Mr. Light watered for me. I ended up with 99% success. I gave them to a non-profit which teaches people how to grow and use food. Babies from a 60yo plant. Wowsa Poppies in the chaos garden. I'm taking out the larkspur and the poppies since they are going to seed. I found most of my lilies, which had had put up at least one leaf (new transplants) and I have a few summer flowers like tickseed and sweet william in there. Plus a ton of dill, some of which found its way into chicken salad. Along with the one one small tomato on the Early Girl and some lettuce from the garden. Poppies going to seed I got a bunch of canna corms from Malarky Matt and look at them! They're huge. No blooms yet, so I hope to be surprised soon with some buds. Any tips? All of them sprouted, Matt! I'm sure they'll bloom soon. I throw seeds into pots and they don’t all germinate. Then I’ll take all the dirt out of most of them for the winter and re-use the dirt the next spring. I also sometimes just leave the pot out for the winter with the original dirt. I get lots of surprises that way. This year I got moss roses and a volunteer petunia. A very robust volunteer pentunia. From Select Seeds, likely an heirloom Balcony Petunia. My neighbor moved to Albuquerque. She had early Alzheimers and was obviously going downhill, and no family near. So her son came one week in March and moved her close to her sister, which we all were relieved about. She needed more than just neighbors. Since the son planned to rent the house out, he was willing to give some items away. I got the coolest pot. Charlie and Mr. Light observe my photographic angle and critique. It’s made from a blanket! Look closeley. See the band on the side on the right? That gave me a clue. It was kind of falling apart, and the bottom fell out. There’s a plastic pot inside, with red lilies. So I got online to see if I could find the DYI about this type of pot. And I found it! www.homecrux.com/… There are several versions of this project on the intertoobz. I bought a bench and a new birdbath at work yesterday. I brought the bench home, and I’ll have to get the birdbath today. I work at 1pm, even though I had asked for the day off to host the diary, but I don’t go in until this afternoon. I volunteered, since they are very short staffed right now. The nursery workers are quitting a little earlier than usual; some have other jobs and some are traveling before school starts. One of our high school kids is headed to Croatia with his family. We are all thrilled for him, it will be a fun trip. Needs a cushion, otherwise it’s perfect Now I have to break the news to Mr. Light that I’d like to put our old, heavy cement birdbath in the front garden, which means hauling it from one end of the huge yard, through the side porch and down some stairs. The old bench is retired, it is an old slat bench. Someday we’ll fix it but not now. It will go out in the front as yard art. That's what's going on in my garden. What's going on with yours? [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/20/2253281/-Saturday-Morning-Garden-Blogging-Vol-20-29-Mid-July-Surprises-in-the-Garden?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/