Hackberry Trees, etc, #5

Hi Sharon and Christi,

Love your pictures Sharon.
I now recocognize the ladies (second picture). The hibiscus are very exotic.
Sorry to say Cupcake had slipped my mind, but now he's back.

Was watching a news story on your weather, Christi. Apparently, central southern Texas is in serious trouble (livestock, cotton, etc.), but the situation for more rain is looking up for northern Texas. Hope you fall in the northern area. Looked at Dallas on the map.

My garden (Tim still has my van):
A double balloon flower (Hakone Blue) just starting to bloom.

The very beginning of the crocosmia (must be Lucifer).

As said, am very fond of helenium: two Mardi Gras in front and two Sahin's Early Flowerer behind.

Oh, I've never seen a double balloon, how beautiful!! and speaking of, I haven't seen my blues in bloom this year. Where did they go?
It's a mystery, because they aren't where they have always been.

However they are in a spot where a huge limb lay across my driveway and flower bed for a month or so following that major ice storm in January and February. I wonder if that would have destroyed my blue balloon flowers. They have never been missing before.

Hmmmmm.....

Your crocosmia is Lucifer, looks just like mine.
But mine was through blooming about a month ago.

How long did you have them, Sharon?

I find that balloon flower is relatively hardy, once established, but a large
white one that was maybe 5 or 6 years old, just didn't reappear at the big garden this year. They're definitely sunshine plants and I plant them at the front of deep beds so they're not shaded out. Maybe our wet spring did it in.

Interesting flowering time difference between us. Same plants, but just earlier/later.

Been trying a number of PK flowers: Kim's knee high.

I have had them for years, maybe 10. I just realized they aren't there.
Love the coneflowers.

Assume these smaller and/or fancier PCflowers won't attract Monarch butterfies (as they pass through) as the big old cultivars like Magnus do.
So will always use lots of latter. Assume they won't be as hardy too.

Pink double delight.

Do you have any suggestion for their disappearance, Sharon?

Have planted dozens of balloon flowers over last 15 years and I don't think I've ever seen one last for 10 years. Think perhaps that most of them, if they get established, last for 4 to 6 years in in our climate (on upgraded clay, in a mixed perennial bed, planted at the front in full sun).

Some perennials seem (at least) to go on for ever, e.g. monkshood and astrantia, but plants only have to last three seasons to qualify as a perennial. Of course, people who sell perennials don't talk about this. Think the average person might think that perennials live for ever!

Don't know, Charlie, I just know that suddenly it's gone.

My gayfeather that I have had for about 10 years also met it's demise this year. It came up, but never flowered. just looks like monkey grass and nothing else.

So it is probably time for the blue balloon flower to go. Yet the white, which is full of blooms is also about the same age. So what's the difference?

Very interesting Sharon.

The longest lived platycodons I've seen were white. Think the following suggestion came from David, with another plant and color. Maybe white is the color of the wild type which the horticultural forms were bred from and white is therefore hardier and longer lived.

Gayfeather is a native plant, as you well know (sunshine, tallgrass prairie).
Still obviously plants have a life span too.

Have fun with the guests.

Over at David's today, re plant he is trying to identify ( I put it on Dave's).

Ligularia, PL cultivars and double daylilies.
What you can do when you have the space.

Annual poppies in the knot garden.

I feel as if I have been away for weeks and not days.
Great pictures, Charlie, and I love the knot garden.

We had a massive thunder/wind/rain storm last night and were without power for about 6 hours. It was very strange with out of town company. I don't think of our fast changing weather as strange, but they did. We were standing at an overlook taking photos of the lake, then drove a mile to circle the marina, and in the less than 10 minutes it took us to get back to the same overlook, there was a storm that was so severe we could not see to stay on the road.
Interesting reactions from my guests.

So now I am tired, it's been a long day, but nice to find these pictures when I sat down tonight.
I hope your day was good.

Sorry to hear about the weather, but sure the guests had a great time. You too, I hope.
We have (6) friends coming to diner on Saturday and Carol has been really hoping to eat outside on the deck. Current forecast: 80% chance of 18 cm or so of rain. Great stuff, but as you're saying one can get too much of it at the wrong time.
Power outage doesn't sound convenient, either.
Great to hear from you.
Get some rest.
Charlie

Morning, Charlie, thank you. Nice day outside, and there are sticks that still need to be picked up. I might just spend this day out there playing pick up sticks.

Have a great day up your way, too.

Hi Sharon,
Hope you are getting rested after the visit and getting everything back to normal.
We're still gearing up for visitors (only one evening!). I've spent the whole week of gardening on our own garden. Yesterday, Carol was so tired from preparations that she fell down a neighbor's step. Fortunately, she didn't seriously hurt herself. Tonight, we're saying how much better the garden looks. Of course, we sometimes find guests hardly notice it at all!

Hello Charlie,
Hope Carol isn't still feeling achy from her fall. I have been so tired the past couple of days I ran into tables and other assorted household furniture quite often too. Felt like a drunken something. I think age has something to do with it.

Well I have very few blooms left, balloon flowers and morning glories, and that's about it. Oh and the hibiscus. And things are browning from the heat.

I am sure your guests will admire your gardens. I know I would.
You and Carol ever think of coming south?

Sorry to hear about the heat.
We had a dryish spell for a couple of days.
Been watering to extend bloom times.

'Coming south' sounds a great idea. Problem in the short-term (while I still garden as a small business) is that I pay for any absence of more than a couple of days by having to struggle to catch up. Find the time, during the growing season, when I have the least hanging over me, is fall and still busy then (cutting back, mums, spring bulbs). After early November, I can relax.

Same question to you Sharon, re coming north. Besides the gardens (including David's), think one of most interesting things may be the McMichael Gallery: Group of Seven (and related) art.

We do go to St Pete Beach, Fl, in January or February (currently limited to a month by Buddy).

Well if you are traveling south, you could very easily take a little side trip slightly west and stop by KY. Not so pretty in January and February, but it would be fun. You'd need to break the trip up on the way down anyway. Unless you fly.

We do fly. Carol and I are both nervous winter drivers here. Totalled our former van January before last. A person who didn't know how to drive on ice, lost cotrol, hit another car and that car came across the median in front of us.

When I fold the little business, we'd love to visit you. As to folding the business; on occasions, I'm beginning to feel this should be sooner rather than later. In the meantime, remember you have friends in Aurora too. You wouldn't be bored here!

Hi Sharon and Christi,
Hope weather OK. Been wet and very humid here. Enormous thunderstorm yesterday, with lots of lightening. Driving back from seeing Tim's new apartment and had to drive into a back street for a while; dark and so much rain couldn't see the road markings. Electricity out in parts of Aurora and traffic lights out at major intersections.
Been getting a couple of gardens back in order today, especially requires adding to staking. A few of the phlox snapped off, but is making room for other plants.
Charlie

Still hot as blazes here and just enough wind to dry everything and make it look like a torch hit it.

Eeeeeyyyyiiikkkeeessss.
I can't get caught up. Heat index of 105 here today, and you'd think I would have caught up with inside chores. But no. I piddled around with iphoto, then with Picasa, then with an article, and have I accomplished a thing? No. Not a one.

I am such a loser.
Nothing done, nothing finished, and not a thing to show for the day.

Sigh.

But there was a frog on the door facing tonight. He was outside, I was in.

And too.....

And then....

And Daisy the Diva

And the diva with her nose in the air, as usual...

And Jazz, the Coolest King of the World.

These last 4 pictures were made by one of my visitors last week, Debbie's Daisy. She is a great photographer.

I call that a very good day and disagree that you didn't accomplish anything.
Picassa and iphoto are both not just a piece of cake. If you got either on of them under control, you did a lot.

Been trying off and on all day to download from my camera to iPhoto. Nothing yet. Very frustrating. Read all the online instructions and it is soooo simple. Something is amiss.

Saw the surgeon that did the fusion surgery last Aug. 12th, 2008 today. Released! yay! Everything is doing fine. Bone grafts took and the cages and screws are still in place. This year seems to have gone very fast.

Christi

Sharon, we're supposed to be retired.
We're allowed to piddle around, 9 to 5 and beyond.
Productivity is great, but only when we feel like it.
Means: we need to get beyond our programming!
The outside bit sounds fortunate for the frog, as a meeting with Jazz and Daisy is likely to prove be more than just embarrassing.

Glad for the report.

Christi, if you can't upload from your camera to iphoto, I'd say you have a faulty cable. That part works like a charm for me. Just plug it in and turn your camera on. Zap, it's uploaded. Y

What does yours do when you plug it in and turn it on?

Hey Charlie, yeah, the frog's safe.
And I am worn out with all my piddling.
Sigh.

I have the same drive to "have something to show" for being alive everyday.
Mike keeps reminding we are retired and do not have a deadline. I have a friend of over 40 years (49 actually) who could put the vacuum in the middle of the floor, pour lysol in the bowl, put a can of beans on the stove and convince her husband she had worked all day when actually we had been out running around. One day I realized she had it right. I was one that washed on Monday, ironed on Tuesday, mopped on Wednesday, you get the drift. Realized that less than three days after I am gone, the beds will need changing, the wash will be piled high, no one will ever iron, everything will be covered in dust, and the weeds will be high. So what did I do that made my life worthwhile? Now I spend as much time as I possibly can with other living beings and look for a way to be remembered as more than a char maid. You have made yourself a magnate to others, Sharon. All of your life you have been like that and it has only gotten better. After a week of houseguests, you need a little breather, maybe tomorrow too.

Love the pictures: particularly the one of Daisy and the frog: it looks like there's the frog and a nice Dr Jekyll Daisy, and between the two (in the glass), a not-so-nice Mr. Hyde Daisy.

Christi's got it right. I should also add that whatever the two of you are doing with computers, you're both way beyond me.

Christ, that sounds like very good health news!

Sharon,
Again wise words from Christi.

Christi.
Don't.
I can't live up to those things you say.
I do thank you, but please just understand that I break like everybody does.

But you are right, Charlie, I am tired, and have been for a little while. I do need to take a break. But I have one more article to write, and I just have to get it done, otherwise all these words are going to drive me nutz.

I get things in my mind and can't let go of them till they are finished.
It is almost like I have something to say that can't wait, it has to be said right now.
I can't take a break from that when it overwhelms me.
My mind would be an explosion of words if they didn't get written down.
It's an obsession.
Hard to explain.

Tomorrow is Tuesday and we will once again be the beneficiary of this obsession.

I do love you, sweet Sharon.

Ha.
Thank you Christie.
Very much.

Tomorrow's is a rather trite little thing. But funny. One of those useless bits of information that clouds my mind, and has no value at all.

I live with a lot of junk like that.
Baggage in my mind.
Maybe in writing about it, I am ridding myself of it.

I had chocolate today. I am as hyper as my cats on catnip.
but I haven't yet rolled in the floor.