"Learn to be an observer in all seasons. Every single day, your garden has something new and wonderful to show you."
–(Author unknown)
8/3/16:
I never quite know what I'll find when I step out the door and into the yard for a bit of gardening. Last week I discovered little mushrooms growing in the lawn. These spring up once in a while, usually in autumn, but I'd never seen this particular variety in our grass before. They look somewhat like a button mushrooom, but the gills are a lovely salmon pink.
I examined the blackberry bushes, and found a few ripe berries. There are twice as many green or red ones, so I could have enough for a small dessert in a week or two, if more than a handful will turn dark purple at the same time. Birds might find them before I do, but I don't mind feeding them, as long as they leave some for me.
Clicking on the small images below will bring up a larger version.
Mushroom found in the lawn.
Blackberries and rosebush leaves.
Petunias in a container with roses.
On Sunday, Steve got out the electric trimmers and ladder to cut back the large hedges surrounding three sides of our yard. The privet hedge was done flowering for the year, and the bottlebrush bushes had only a couple blooms on them. All of these are now a foot shorter, and don't stick out into the pathways. I had to move my container plants out of the way along the north side of the house. It was a good opportunity to sort the pots, check out how each plant was doing, then clean up dead leaves and such.
I also decided to take an inventory. I consider my gardening efforts to be small-scale, and in limited space, but evidently I have 72 non-empty containers! 28 large hedges, small shrubs (such as oleander and rosemary), trees, and rosebushes planted in the ground are also part of the landscape. Additionally, I now have 15 indoor plants. No wonder I seem to spend five or more hours a week on watering and other maintenance. Is this too much? Should I stop buying plants or planting seeds?
Yeah, not likely to happen.
But I will combine geraniums and nasturtiums into only 10 pots instead of the current 15-20. Then I could use the containers for separating out other flowering plants such as recently-sprouted columbine. For spring-blooming annuals that are starting to die out, I might replace most with fall flowers, but not all. It's okay for some pots to sit empty after the main growing season. I'm still aiming to have at least 4 different things blooming throughout the year, but that should be no problem with all the hardy petunias, geraniums, snapdragons and daisies. They have long and frequent bloom cycles.
