Cardinal Climber

A great hummingbird flower, cardinal climber blooms from August into frost.  This year I got it to grow in a second location but check out the difference, one vine in both places... 

Farmers

I am so thankful for farmers!  I cannot imagine how with my green bean bushes turning brown and providing small handfuls of beans that they can grow bins full successfully!  What a lot of work for a very iffy success rate, especially for the organic and natural growers.  When I looked up the worms for my lettuce it said spray nasty poison frequently, up to three days before harvest.  Sort of sounded like either spray routinely or lose your crop.  Farmers deserve our full admiration, prayers and blessings, not to mention whatever we can do politically to keep them going. 

Worms

My second sowing of lettuce is decimated!  I could not figure out what happened.  I have chicken wire over it to keep out the birds, and I could not find snails or slugs.  Finally this morning I found teeny weeny green worms, the same color as the lettuce.  I wonder what they might become should I allow one to live and finish off my lettuce? 

Japanese anenome

I have the standard white Japanese anenome 'Honorine Jobert' and in the back garden I finally resorted to Round Up as it had spread so much.  I noticed today it is still putting up new shoots!  Shoot!  ; )  But a couple years ago on vacation at Pismo I saw a double flowered one and the nice hotel people let me take a bit.  I like this one so much better, and the flowers are lasting well in water, which the other ones never did.  I do not know the name of this one.  This is the first year it has flowered. 

Fuschia

My fuschia is the best it has ever been right now.  It seems impossible to get a good photo, but here it is.  This is the one plant I baby.  I snuggle the plant up against the house for the winter, and cover it with an umbrella if it gets freezy out.  By doing so I have kept it going a good six years.  One reason I like it so is for the memory.  Our state homeschool convention was at the Disneyland Hotel for years, including all the years we went as a family.  That is where I first saw these, planted en masse on a bank.  I was delighted when I saw them for sale in quarts here and bought one. It is lovely to grow something so
reminiscent of Southern California.  I do like fuschias and this is the only one I have been able to keep year after year.  I like the contrast between the red stems and the mercurochrome flowers.

No no, little snail!

Sleeping snail; cute, but no, he cannot sleep on my impatiens!
Interestingly, he was in a pot which is on a multi-pot stand, so he had to slime up a metal pole, across another pole, into the pot and up the plant.  Quite a feat for a baby. 

Wherefore, oh veggies?

I see a month ago I had my fall veggies planted and some sprouted.  Why is it that nothing grew?  Beets especially need to be in the ground 12 weeks before first frost.  I did that.  Either none came up, or they did, only to be eaten or killed by the heat.  I have resown this week, but who knows if anything will come of it?  Is it worth it?  I am not sure.  I bought a pack of cucumbers and got several quite long ones, Japanese this year, but the vines shriveled while I was gone so that season is over.  So, say $2.49 for a six pack of cucumber plants and I got three or four cucumbers.  At the farmer's market they are about a dollar each, so yeah, maybe it was worth it, in that sense.  But why oh why can't I grow veggies? 

More sad

My artichoke bush got Rounded Up.  : (   Accident.  We had a half dozen or more artichokes this year, and it was already putting up new growth for next year.  Oh well, I will plant a new one. 

So sad

You just can't expect to leave town for almost two weeks and come home to a happy garden.  Apparently it got quite hot while we were gone and in spite of care by caring neighbors some plants died.  The biggest hit was to the three flats of campanula I have been babying along for Rob and Candace the past six months.  : (   Half are dead.  That is just the way it goes.  So sad!  : (  

September 1 flowers

Continuing from February 1:
Alyssum
Wax begonias
Carnations

Continuing from March 1:
California poppies
Roses

Continuing from April 1:
"little tree" Solanum atropurpureum
Gaillardia
Impatiens

Continuing from May 1:
Clematis
Verbena bonariensis
Pomegranate tree
Annual Lobelia
Gerber daisy

Continuing from June 1:
Hydrangea macrophylla
Pelargonium
Echinacea 'White Swan'
Annual red coreopsis
Dahlia 'Bishop's Children'
Fuschia 'Gartenmeister Bonsteder'
Lavender

Continuting from July 1
Rudbeckia
Cosmos
Veronica
Hydrangea paniculata
Verbena, ground cover
Chocolate cosmos
Crepe Myrtle
Moss rose
Yarrow 'Walther Funke'
Phlox paniculata
Agastache rupestris
Maltese cross

Continuing from August 1
Cardinal Climber

New for September 1
Cilantro
Garlic Chives
Helenium
Budded up and ready,  aster 'Purple Mound', Japanese anenome, hosta
Still to come, mums and Eupatorium 'Chocolate'