Tag Archives: sage

Ye Olde Garden

Warning: hot July days ahead

This week has been a string of 100+ temperature days. Even the early mornings (by early, I regard 6am-8am early) tend to be muggy. I haven’t gotten out to tend the garden, like weed, prune, or take pictures because of the heat. Earlier in the week I had pruned back one of the purple salvias in the purple bed–hard pruned by 50%. It had gotten so happy in its spot that I was afraid that it might choke the rose out, or seriously affect circulation. Of course, the rose contradicted me by putting out new buds, and one even bloomed yesterday. Pic forthcoming.

If I spend any time outdoors, it’s in 15-30 minute increments…doing little stuff like putting seedlings and starts into the planters for their own protection. A few days ago, I even put the tricolor sage into the ground–it had been sitting in a 4″ pot for long, and one of the clones died from the heat, so it was about time. The other sage clone seems to be doing fine. I added the golden oregano into the trough where I’ve sunk the Sea Breeze salvia, which incidentally are such slow growers right now. Like all salvias, they seem to prefer a lot of room to spread their roots and hate pots. With this in mind, I even got the rest of the Lady in Red salvia starts out in the tree ring.

I drench all the pots and planters before I go into work–when I remember. Yesterday, I noted that the salvia bed wasn’t looking hot, and it had gone 3-4 days without water. So, for at least an hour before work, I just let the sprinkler water the bed. This morning, the salvias greeted me with a mass of blooms. Sometimes they can be instant gratification shrubs. Again, pic forthcoming.

The bell pepper wilt hasn’t been resolved yet. I’ll probably try the peroxide-spray method next, and probably get a bag of cornmeal this weekend to amend the bed. But beyond that, next year’s pepper crop will have to be potted.

Oh, hey, I found a source online for bhut jolokia seeds. I still have time to start the fall pepper plantings.

Ye Olde Garden

A Saturday in June

That time of year again when all the remaining plants you had left on your to-do list finally get planted. Since the temps in North Texas warm up in the vicinity of 100, anything not in the ground tends to bake in their thin plastic pots. I got around to planting the rest of the Purple Star verbena, the majority of the ornamental pepper seedlings, felicia, tricolor sage cuttings, leftover marigold seedlings, and a few of the lemon thyme cuttings. And because I couldn’t bore a hole in my last ceramic pot (a freebie from Kathy), I had to transplant the Aztec red verbena, a dusty miller and the last red-eyed white vinca into a planter box.

I spent the day ducking in and out of the heat, clearing debris and dried out plantings (leftover violas), trimming vigorous plants (zealous Thai basil), and weeding wherever I could. In some places like the tree ring, I tamped down loose and exposed plantings and filled holes dug by industrious squirrels. Tons of the cosmos seeds are coming up now, and I am waiting eagerly to see the results of this week’s cosmos sowing.

While gardening, I made some exciting discoveries. The one remaining thai chili pepper is bearing fruit. It had been flowering for the past week, and today I found 3 fruit on it, with several more nubs showing.

6/11/2011 Thai Chili Peppers fruiting (1) 6/11/2011 Thai Chili Peppers fruiting (2)

A couple more of the vincas have bloomed; one from my February starts, while another from the outdoor starts. Both seemed to be in the pink color family. Several more vinca seedlings are already budding, including the two I left in my planter box. The neighboring Confetti lantanas have nearly tripled in size since planting, as well as the Purple Star verbena which get the most exposure in the front yard bed.

6/11/2011 Vinca Intdoor started seedling 6/11/2011 Vinca Outdoor started seedling

The daylilies are still flowering strong. An observation I made of the front bed Dallas Stars is that they are a good 1-2 feet taller than the Dallas Star in near-full shade. Still a no-show however is the Hyperion daylily, though I did notice it had a single scape on it. Whether it had already bloomed or planned to bloom is a mystery.

6/11/2011 Dallas Star daylily in shade 6/11/2011 Dallas Star daylily in shade closeup 6/11/2011 Hyperion daylily scape

I’m so disappointed that none of my home-started Easy Wave petunias are red. I was hoping for a patriotic planter bowl for the Fourth of July, but currently everything in the bowl is either blue or white. I expected at least 1 out of the 10 seeds I purchased to be a red petunia (I sowed 9, and 8 are currently planted), but it seems that this wasn’t the case. Next time I plan to purchase the colors separately–and yes, I will grow them again since they were relatively easy to start and grow as it warmed up. (Just keep them covered during the first month as tiny seedlings.)

6/11/2011 Easy Wave Blue and White Petunias 6/11/2011 Easy Wave Blue and White Petunias 6/11/2011 Easy Wave Blue Petunias

6/11/2011 An all-white branch of a pineapple mintI hacked down a lot of the wildly growing pineapple mints and hot & spicy oregano. A shame I didn’t get to use most of them, but right now they are strictly ornamental. I have to wonder: if I took a purely cream-white cutting of the pineapple mint, would it continue grow white or will side shoots revert to green or variegation? I’m intrigued because despite the heat, this solid white shoot remains happy, if a little crisped on the edges.

New wishlist plant: variegated lantana camara Samantha aka Lemon Swirl, lantana camara Greg Grant, and variegated lantana montevidensis.

Ye Olde Garden

What a difference A/C makes

5/28/2011 First Dallas Stars daylily bloomsYes, the cooling guys finally arrived and installed our A/C today. Timely, given that temps rose into the high 90s today. The heat hit like a brick wall when I stepped outside, and it wasn’t any better indoors until the new unit started pumping in cold air. Thank goodness…it was the motivation I needed to get out and start planting.

5/28/2011 More Navona BloomsI picked up some more plants today…I swear this is the last time (until we pick up our Route 66 coreopsis next weekend). At Grow It, I snagged a red trailing verbena, a White Nymph salvia coccinea, 2 rose-eyed white vinca, and 4 dusty millers. At Strong’s, we gathered an 18-count flat of bedding plants: 9 Silver Dust dusty millers, 4 Victoria Blue salvias, 5 petunias (in denim, purple and yellow). To wrap it all up, we stopped at Lowes to pick up a bag of StaGreen garden soil and Hapigro organic compost.

5/28/2011 Coreopsis bloomingWhile the man proceeded to get his haul of Victoria Blues and dusty millers established in the front yard bed, I worked on potting up several of the newest additions, along with some plants waiting for a home. Thus I was able to plant dusty millers, petunias, sweet potato vine, white nymph salvia, a couple of the Lanai verbena, pesto basil, thai basil, and the seedling genovese and lime basils. I’m taking a chance with the seedling basils, since the genovese are barely 2-3 weeks old. I also repotted the eggplant in its own pot, as well as a calla lily which had fallen out of its very confining quart-sized home. Lastly, I situated my Moonglow salvia in its new home, in front of our rosemary topiary, in a deep hole full of good garden soil. I hope to see it prosper.

5/28/2011 Dallas Star blooming in shadeI still have more verbena to plant, as well as 2 Dixie Chip ajugas, tricolor sage, ornamental peppers, petunias, common chives, dusty millers, and vinca. I’m unhappy to report that my lemon verbena appears to have perished after going without water for two days. It’s possible I can take a cutting and coax it back to life, but I’m skeptical at this point. Also, because of the rain last week, 2 of the peppers (jalapeno and thai chili) in the vegetable/herb garden appear to be suffering from serious wilt. I suspect that the ground compacted and exposed roots. One of them even had a pepper already growing; so I added more soil mix to their bases in hopes of rescuing them.

5/28/2011 White Pansy lost in the weedsFinally some blooms observed in the garden today: the first Dallas Stars (3 blooms), more Navona Asiatic lily blooms, another yellow marigold, coreopsis, and pansies discovered in the most unlikeliest of spaces…in the weeds and between the rocks.

 More planting scheduled for tomorrow…and perhaps I’ll finally get some use out of my ceramic pots.

5/28/2011 Pansies growing between the stonework

And wow…I’m sore and exhausted. Thankfully the house is 70 degrees cold. Time to pass out in nice cool room in a nice cool bed. The puppies are happy too…they’re burrowed beneath their blankets again.

Ye Olde Garden

Late May seed sowing

5/26/2011 Basil and Sage Cuttings 1Timing may be late since we are on the cusp of summer, but the ground is wet enough for seed sowing. I dumped all the alyssum packets in the shade bed (Wonderland White) and on the bald patches of ground surrounding the fence door (Deep Purple and Mulberry Mix). I’m not holding my breath that the seeds will take, but it would make me happy to see the empty areas disappear under some kind of color.

I put all of the cosmos seeds in, after scraping the tree ring soil into a trough. My honey finished the sowing mission by dumping the rest of the Durango marigolds and Lady in Red salvias also in the same ring. No point in hanging onto them; most seeds have a shelf life.

As a side mission, I also planted out 6 columbine seedlings that have long sat under the grow lights. They appeared to be browning–from age, I hope–so I went ahead and potted them up, put them out in the lily bed.5/26/2011 Basil and Sage Cuttings 2

While I was inspecting the cutting planter boxes, I was pleased to discover that one of the Tricolor sages has a healthy root system breaking out of the jiffy pot (should be about 4 weeks old now). All of the sage and basil cuttings appear to be putting on new foliage–a great sign! The Thai basil seedlings in the same planter box are taking off, growing several branches and heavy foliage. I think with all the warm weather the rest of the week, I will bring out the basil and salvia seedlings from the bathroom greenhouse. Heck, I might just bring them all out.