fairygarden's Blog

September is winding down and fall is in the air. My back yard is covered with pine straw.

There are still some blooms around-- here is a yellow begonia that has bloomed all summer. I will bring this in for the winter.

A late yellow sunflower...

Here is some perennial agerateum that I got from YardGranny. I love this!

Ok.....on to get some house work done. I am baking chocolate peanut butter fudge from the Hungry Girl cookbook. The batter sure did taste good.

Does anyone remember 'September Morn' by Neil Diamond?

September morn
Do you remember how we danced that night away
Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play
September morning still can make me feel this way

I was talking to Yardgranny (Linda) yesterday and we both agree that the season is changing. I love fall. But.....that means farewell to a lot of flowers. I had to say goodbye to most of my zinnias. I think it was the powdery mildew that got them.

My moonflower finally starting blooming.

 This is a new bed that we started this summer.  I filled it in with hollyhocks, hibiscus, a yellow knockout and scattered zinnia and cosmo seeds. The zinnias and cosmos are coming up and the sunflowers that Wayne  started are blooming! I also dug a clump of lily bulbs and iris to spread through there.

I got this little flag at Kirklands.

Looking forward to snapdragon and pansy time.

Peace and Love.

Hello Friends! Its been a while since I last posted. I fizzled out for a while. The heat and humidity has kept me inside.

I scattered Balsam seeds in late spring. They certainly took well and I am amazed at how many colors they have. I have white, light pink, purplish and red.

The red is a rosy red, not deep.

This one looks like a double.

This next one grew really big, I think to compete with the zinnias. It has been my experience that once balsam takes, it reseeds like crazy.

My moonflower finally took off and is growing through everything.

This Blackeyed susan vine must have a structure to climb next year. It also reseeds to the point of weediness (is that a word?)

It is a little cooler here this morning. Wayne got the jasamine cut and I got Pablos hair cut.

I have had success growing hibiscus from seed, rooting lantana and I think the butterfly bushes have taken as well.  The African Blue Basil that I rooted is in the ground and blooming.

Peace and Love.

My sunflowers are beginning to bloom.  They seem to attract a whole new kind of little bees.

I really like this red one.

I stopped and picked free sunflowers last week. Now that they are droopy, I tied a string through them and put them outside so the birds can enjoy them when they dry.

We have had a wonderful day. Got up early and went treasure hunting and actually found some treasure. Got some great books for 25 cent a piece and a couple of cook books. Also a couple of items to craft with. Wayne went to the Hunting and Fishing Expo then this afternoon we went to Ruby Tuesdays and had a great supper. We had a bogo coupon. Unfortunately our kitchen sink is clogged to the point that we cant fix it but the plummer is here now working on it.

This is a sweet little rose that I got for 1.98 at Lowes earlier this year. I just love the little red blooms. It is squeezed in between the salvia and zinnias. Next year I will give her more room.

This is a tiny visitor that I found while snooping around in my zinnias. Can you see him?? Look on the very dead and dried zinnia head.

Peace and Love

Summertime, Summertime, SumSumSummertime....I am sure you get the drift.

It is hot and humid and mosquito-ey. Today we went to the Farmers Market and got peanuts, watermelon, peaches and plums.  I love boiled peanuts.  Some of you may not know about or enjoy this perfect summer snack (or in my case, meal). Wayne had never heard of boiling peanuts but he caught on fast.

I am still starting seeds and rooting. The other day I was walking about and saw that one of the catmints that I rooted in the spring had grown long stems and was blooming!!  JOY!

Here is a sunflower that is starting to bloom.

I had bought a pack of purple zinnia seeds and was excited to see how they would turn out. Well, they turned out lavender.

The orange zinnias are so big and bright.

We planted out sunflower seedlings and a pack of yellow glads along the brick fence. Hoping for fall color. I am ready for the mums to come to the stores. I do not have any! I want pink and yellow for sure. Maybe some of those burgundy/crimson ones, too.

Went to a yard sale last weekend and got a nifty planter for $3. I filled it with dirt and put some house plant cuttings in it for now. I dont know if I will bring this in or leave it outside.

At this same yard sale, they had potted plants. I got a Texas Star Hibiscus and a plant that I dont know the name of. It is one of those that look like giant sunflowers in the fall. The guy said it wont bloom until around September. The foliage looks like oleander. I will get a pix and post it. It's suppose to get tall. Either way, it's still in the pot right now.

 Here is a cuphea that I got from Yardgranny.

I have had my 10 year old nephew for the past 2 weeks. That has left precious little time for blogging. The "men" are going fishing early in the morning so I can stay up tonight and sleep in tomorrow. We have kept him entertained with daily swim parties and I have done my best to teach the boy a little about gardening and house keeping. His swimming skills have improved but I dont know about the rest.

One more thing--this is the first year I have seriously saved seeds. I cant believe what I have been missing and wasting all these years!!

Peace and Love

It is raining right now. We have had a quarter inch this evening. It's a good thing, because last Friday, I went by the Farmers Market and got me a few new plants. I had a great idea last week to make a new bed by the low brick wall the separates my yard from the neighbors. Here is my start-- I have a trumpet, salvia, rudbeckia/coneflower yellow plant and a few wee babies that I started from seed.

This is how much I have to go--

LOL.....that is a long way down. I am just starting this summer. I will do more next year.

I love before and after pictures. Here is my pool bed last year-

Here it is a year later--

Last night we started seeds in the BioDome. We put columbines, asters, zinnias, broccoli, brussel sprouts and something that I cant remember. Wayne started me a whole tray of sunflowers that are almost big enough to plant out. Maybe some of those will go against that brick wall.

My favorite spot in the yard right now is my new bed, full of cosmos, which I am now deeply in love with.

Peace and Love.

Happy Happy  Joy  Joy!! Rained about an inch last night and so far tonight we have about another inch. What a blessing!!

With the rain came an opportunity for me to transplant zinnnias. The big zinnia patch in the front needed a new color added, so I found a small red rose at Lowes for $1.98. Needless to say, I planted it right out, despite the heat and dryness. Well, it's not getting enough air and the 'zinnia trees' are blocking sun light.  So today I started digging them out and transplanting them to bare spots. And by bare spots, I mean any little piece of dirt that I could dig in.

 The transplants wilted a little this afternoon, but with tonights rain, should rebound. I plan to move more tomorrow. I love flowers that self seed. Less work for me. I will get a picture of the new rose. I think it will be very  hardy...I grow mostly shrub type roses, the ones with few petals in the flower. I find the fewer the petals, the easier to take care of the rose.

My desert is filling in and really doing better than I ever dared to hope.

Wayne started me a whole tray of sunflowers because I have NOT had luck with them this year. I have a few volunteers and a few that I started but nothing like as many as I want. I have transplanted some from under the bird feeder but they dry up and die. He also planted me a row of purple and white coneflowers in the raised bed to see how they germinate there. Here is one we started last year that is growing up in the desert with zinnnias and cukes.

 Here is the view I have from the backyard gate. I enjoy it. There are feeders on the clothes line and usually lots of birds on the ground.

Love and Peace.

The Red....

The White--

The Blue-

It has been a quiet and  peaceful 4th for us. Wayne baked a cake and we watered our beds. Hoping for rain tomorow. I will leave you with a few lyrics from a favorite song by Lee Greenwood....

And I'm proud to be an American
    Where at least I know I'm free
    And I won't forget the men who died
    Who gave that right to me
    And I gladly stand up
. . next to you and defend her still today
    Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land
        God bless the USA

Peace and Love

This is what is happening in my world:

1. Lost another tomato and a pepper to wilt. Dang!

2. Went to a local daylilly farm and found 5 that had to come home with me. They are so pretty and they dig them right up out of the ground. Good big clumps. Most of the ones I got had buds so I will get pictures as they open.

3. I continue to plant out and now I am rearranging a bed. The bed by my back door is full of gerber daisies. This is what the former owner planted. I enjoy them very much BUT Wayne fed them with Miraclegrow and they look like giant collards or something.  They are way too crowded and so I am transplanting them. But honestly, I have the worst luck when I move them. They just wither up and die within days. I know it is too hot and too dry, but I gotta do something! I am watering carefully and trying to baby them along. This is one of my favorites.

As I move them out and make room I am putting down a new rose--Julia Child-- and transplanting some zinnias to add more color and attract the butterflies. Here is my zinnias and phlox patch. There are new zinnias coming up so I have plenty to move around.

This same bed has a 4 oclock that is finally opening some. It was partially open this morning.

4. My hibicus is blooming and I love it.  This is another bed I have been working on and it is looking better.

5. My little fat dog suffers in the heat (as all little fat things do, especially me).  I have to keep his hair short. He thinks he is so cute.

6. I have my neice, Madison, with me this week. If she isnt talking she is singing. Me and Wayne are use to peace and quiet. We could hardly hear the ball game tonight on TV and you KNOW LSU is in the College World Series. This is serious TV. In reality we love keeping her. She entertains us.

7. For years I thought flowers came in pink or purple. Now I am learning to use other colors. I love this black eyed susan and plan to save seeds so I can mix it in with my pink next year. Yardgranny has a large patch of these and they are so nice.

We have to get up early to go out and putter around and water the containers before it gets too hot. I enjoyed the way the sun hit this area this morning.

Peace and Love.

Can I just tell yall how much it rained Sunday night?? 3 inches.It is now Monday night and parts of my yard is still under water. (we do have some drainage problems). Still, I cant complain. I am always thankful for the rain.

The next part of my yard that gets attention is the side on the right (I guess it is the east side).  Full morning sun, afternoon shade. We havent done a whole lot and it shows. I have a big gardenia that is going to get a big prune job once the flowers quit. It was infested with white flies in the spring.

To one side is a stand of daisies and a very poor rose bush.

I worked some last year on this other side of the gardenina. I have a hibicus, daylily, butterfly bush and a few little plants.

You can tell it is neglected. I spred a few seeds around in there the other day but the rain may have washed them away. It is my mission this week to fill this poor little bed up with something!! I do believe I will have to divide some sedum and iris and maybe dig a few lilly bulbs. I have some zinnia and sunflower seedlings that are ready to plant out. I dont even have a statue or bird bath over here!! Maybe a lantana would help...wonder if I can get one on a bargin table?

Peace and Love.

The heat is on here in sunny SC. The good thing is we are getting thunderstorms pretty frequently and that is making things jump.

Now how am I suppose to study the seed sites and make a wish list with this big orange cat in front of the screen? She likes to help me pick things out.

Wayne made another raised bed frame last weekend. We will probably get dirt next weekend and save this for a fall planting..

This is my volunteer zinnia patch beside the driveway.

I started out with Thumbelina zinnias and most seem to be pink or lavender.

Except for one cream and two whites. I havent ever  had white before.

I have fallen in love with daylilies again. I have done some research and was amazed at the colors that are available. Here is one that came to me from my mama.

I dont know the name of this lily, but it is great. This is her 3rd year and she made a lot of new stems this year. I plan to move bulbs from this around the yard when the blooms finish. It stands about 7 ft tall.

My neighbors hydrangea sticks through the fence. We saw this little critter on our 'round' tonight.

Lastly, I cut a few flowers to bring in and enjoy.

 Peace and Love.

Well here it is June 11th. I have flowers blooming and yet I continue to plant more. Went to Wally this morning and got a bag of 3 "guacamole" hosta roots and a bag of 20 gladelous bulbs. The glads will be a pinky purple. That is one plant that I have neglected to plant enough of. I love them. From seed we have started Sweet Williams, more hollyhock, coleus and coreopsis. I had a bag full of coreopsis seeds in the shed that we had forgotten about. We tested a few and sure enough, they sprouted. I plan to have many of those.

Here is a red/orange lantana growing beside a yellow yarrow and a tomato. It is in a bed by the pool and seems to like it there. I love the bright color of it.

These are in the same bed. I just got this daylily and put it beside the orange coneflower.

This pink hollyhock has just opened up. It's in the same bed as the first 2 pictures.

Our beans were suppose to be bush beans, but they are vining.

This is tomato row. Plenty of green, no red ones yet. With the tomatoes we have basil, marigolds and volunteer sunflowers.

Next is pepper row. They are doing good, lots of blooms and a few baby peppers.

My hycinthia beans that I got from KeyWee are sprouting. Oh joy. Cant wait for those to take off.  I have a large patch of volunteer black eyed susan vines that I am thinking of making a teepee for. Also, we had a thunderstorm tonight that gave us half an inch of rain. We had a half inch last night too.

Peace and Love.

Friday night was kinda tough here. I was keeping my nephew for a few days, which was fine. He is 8 and a huge helper. Then Daddy needed to come for the night. OK...not a problem. Daddy is 80 and has alzheimers and has to be watched constantly. He doesnt sleep too good away from home and spent a good part of Friday night roaming about the house  looking at things. He is very pleasant just confused. I stayed up with him. So when Wayne got up Saturday morning, he watched Daddy and the boy so I could lay down and sleep a while. I got up at 11 and went out to see what they were doing. This is what I found.

They had put down mushroom compost and made me a path through my "desert"!!! I couldntn believe he had done that. It doesnt look like a desert any more. It looks like a real live flower bed. He is the greatest. 

We are still having luck with the BioDome. We now have more zinnias, red sunflowers, bee balm, gaillardia and black eyed susans started.

It is a lot of fun to watch the process.  Oh and I do have a new black hollyhock this year. It looks short because the stem runs along the ground for about 2 feet from the base of the flower. Strange...I am thinking it was wanting more sun, maybe?

Here is  a happy daylily.

And finally, my hydrangea. She has a passion flower running through her branches but it doesnt seem to bother her too much. However, I am finding little passionflower vines under the hydrangea and in other plants. Wayne told me they were weeds, but I wanted one so bad. We both think it is beautiful.

Peace and Love

My BIL gave us a mess of zucchini and squash. We cooked them up tonight with some onions and they were absolutely delish. Daughter made a pot of red chicken stew... this is chicken (whole or parts) cooked in a pot with equal amounts of ketchup and coke. The liquid must cover the chicken. It cooks up tender and the gravy is good on rice.

We went to a local nursery today (in the pouring rain) because we had some discount coupons that had to be used. I got a couple of yellow flowers. The first is a rudbeckia, called glorisia daisy.

I planted it in. I dont know the name of the other. It wasnt labeled and I didnt think to ask.

I thought about my dry desert area a lot today. I have decided to make me a path through the bed and then just fill it in and keep it watered. I put down 3 rosemarys that I had rooted, a red daylily, lambs ear, mint, ajuga, and a black eyed susan. Most of these were divisions from plants around the yard. After it had rained, the holes were much easier to dig. I am pleased with the results. I pulled a chair out there to sit and study the area and enjoyed the view so much I will leave the chair. It has a great close view of the bird feeders...which had a lot of activity this afternoon. I am going to do as Yardgranny suggested and use pots to fill in and maybe try to put small birdhouses in short posts for decoration. This is the view from the front of the bed after adding some more plants.

There are some oak leaves in the bed. We are going to rake them up and add mushroom compost over the dirt. Then we will run the lawn mower over the oak leaves to try to shred them some and put them back down. It takes so long for oak leaves to break down on their own. Here is another view of the bed.

This looks like a daylily alley. They do look nice blooming.

Yardgranny gave me this beautiful yellow one. It was a large clump and I divided it up to get it started in several places. I love it.

Finally, here is my broken eared rabbit peaking through the volunteer zinnia patch. This is the view I get from my kitchen window. It wont be long before he is hidden.

Peace and Love

I do have a problem area that I need to discuss with yall. But first let me tell you that I went to YardGrannys house today and oh how I love her gardens. I think she may be magical. She sent me home with 4 bags of goodies.....green goodies.....flowering goodies!!! My nephew is 8 and he helped me plant all afternoon. However--we did have supper at a decent hour. We had balogna (or as we call it, baloney) sandwiches and red seedless grapes and washed it down with pink lemonade. For a bedtime snack we had watermelon....yeah, I know, we will all be up using the bathroom all night. Nothing new here.

I have an area in my back yard that butts up against a brick wall and has a fairly large oak tree shading it for part of the day. It does get afternoon sun. It is DRY......every bit of moisture gets sucked right up. I have mulched it heavily. I call it my desert. So digging is next to impossible because of all the roots.  I have wondered and pondered on what to really do with it. Along the edge I was able to get some flowers started, mostly from 6 packs and seeds. This pix was taken about a month ago and has since starting filling in.

Here is the back wall. I do have a rose that has topped the wall (8ft) to reach straight up and get sun. The fig grows to the left to get as much sun as possible.

I am always thinking of my flowers when I go to sleep. The other night, it finally struck me to make an herb garden here. I bought a lavender and stuck it in and it's doing good. Dusty miller will grow there and I already have parsley under the rose. I will have to grow as many plants as possible from seed so I can plant them in without having to dig a giant hole. What do yall think? Farther away from the tree its easier to dig and we grow cukes there. I will try to get a better picture of the whole bed tomorrow. Any ideas for hot dry partial shade?

Love and Peace.