Who else has the midsummer gardening blues?

It alwasy seems to happen to me around mid-July. Just when the phlox is starting to bloom, the lower leaves shrivel and turn brown. The Japanese beetles start attacking the raspberries and roses, and a few of them find their way to other flowering plants. The clematis have either bloomed already or aren't due to bloom for a while. The spirea and astilbe flowers have turned to brown skeletons. The salvia border is scruffy and between blooming periods. A number of my perennials are turning yellow, a sure sign of some kind of nutritional deficiency, but which one? I realize I didn't feed the roses (or anything, for that matter) over July 4th weekend, and will I be weakening them for the winter if I fertilize late?

In short, my spring garden dreams have turned to the reality of summer maintenance and battling against bugs, critters and diseases. I start wondering why I garden. Maybe taking out all the perennials and replacing them with a few large easy-care flowering shrubs would be better. I just want to have some fun while summer's still here! Go to the beach! Ride my bike! Anything but continue taking care of this out-of-control mess of sad, needy flowers!

Yet hope still lives somewhere inside me. I start striking mental bargains with myself. If I don't plant anything new next year, I'll finally have the time to properly maintain what I already have. I will prune and trim and feed and water everything just the right way at the right time, and it will all look as I envision it, as I know it can look. Like the typical Cubs fan, I tell myself: Just wait till NEXT year. :D

So--anyone else out there feel this way?

Oh yeah..same place for me. With the early heat that we had, everything exploded before I could really get in and weed (if I was going to, that is). Heat is not condusive to me getting into the garden.
I didn't get things treated with the wonderouse food that I have been saving for 2 seasons.
For your roses, would fertilize with diluted food and maybe limit the # of blooms so that vitamins can go to the plant and not the flowers.
Cannot remember about the yellowing-how about a dose of general Miracle Grow or something.
I did some major cut back on some plants that looked icky..didn't want to see them and if they don't come back..too bad. I have discovered this season , that not everything in the garden is "special to me" anymore. So have given away, cut way back to end the uglies, or Compost!!!
It was tough, but I didn't bid on a plant last night...was pretty..but I still have stuff in pots from a month ago.
With the state insect being mosquitos ( loads of them) and gnats by the billions..being outside is not the idyllic paradise that I planned to have. Years worth of willy nilly planting has not helped the gardens be the gracious glory that I want.
And family is due in 2 weeks..being me...I will force myself outside to whip it into some shape. Ego overides disinterest..sometimes.
On the other hand, the fireflies have enjoyed my garden and unmowed (on purpose-for their benefit) back yard. Their evening dances are exquisite to watch.
Have fun, ride your bike, go to the beach. You can fix and edit the garden on days that don't fit for the fun stuff. The garden exists for your enjoyment...unless it gives you a paycheck!!! that is. :)
I going back to read my book.
Have fun.

Goldenberry, were you spying on me?!?! LOL - you are describing my gardening life exactly!

And while this years plants have dried up and shriveled away still in their containers, tired of waiting to be put in the ground, I am already dreaming of what I can grow and plant for next year!

What is wrong with us?? Too funny!!

The best way to beat the garden blues is to hit the summer sales. You can get things for next to nothing that just need a little extra TLC but will be back bigger and better the following year if you stick with perennials. It is a good way to keep busy and a great way to save money. I buy perennials in the summer, trees in the fall and get them for 50% to 90% off. Last year I bought a bunch of $50.00 16" mixed perennial display pots from an expensive garden center here for $5.00 each. I picked up thirty 10" hanging baskets of geraniums for 25 cents each. I put petunias, impatiens and more in those pots this year.

When the blues hit, I go shopping and the blues just go away.

But when do you get all those plants in the ground..... ??

No perennials for me at mid-summer! I'm going for the annuals on sale. A couple of bargain pots of geraniums to brighten up the bedraggled border. They can stay right in their pots, too. The last thing I need is more perennials to tend. :D

Jeannie and Marcia, sometimes just knowing there are other gardeners who share your same brand of craziness is enough, LOL!

I baby the plants during the summer heat then plant when the temps come down. I just picked up three 18 pack flats of wave petunias for $2.00 per flat on Saturday. Regular $54.00 per flat. I potted them all up on Sunday. They look a little messy today but in very short time they will look nice. I stuffed as many of them as I could fit into a stack of clay pots and made up a bunch of hanging baskets. I bought two huge hanging baskets for half price. $35.00 for the two.

This pic is the petunias in clay pots taken yesterday. 12', 10", 8" & 6".

This shows the two big hanging baskets I got for half price. One on each end. $17.50 each. The red petunia baskets and white petunia baskets were leftovers from doing the stacked pots. I put 3 plants in each hanging basket and threw some periwinkle starts in with the white ones. All of those 10" hanging baskets were the ones I bought for 25 cents each last year that had the geraniums in them. 54 four inch pot wave petunias for 6 bucks. Can't beat that price! I love a bargain.

I spend a lot of time propagating everything. As soon as I emptied the flats of wave petunias I filled one flat back up with potting mix and dug up some Ajuga reptans Valfredda “Chocolate Chip” and now I have 18 new starts. I started with one 3” pot of it last fall and have some nice clumps of it at the curb even with digging out these starts. I also dug up some of the larger leafed Burgandy Ajuga and filled a flat of 4” pots with starts. Pretty much every time I buy a new plant I remove all of the potting mix and divide every single plant and pot them up or plant them. Once they start multiplying, I dig them up and make more. I turn one plant into hundreds. I have given away thousands of plants over the past 25 years. I only started doing trades just last fall.

Last fall I had a 6 pack of Golden Creeping Jenny. This spring I made up a flat with 72 starts while keeping the majority of the original plants in the yard. I love to propagate. It saves me a ton of money that I can spend on new plants and projects. Right now I have 241 pots of perennials sitting on the driveway in growers pots. About 20 are new things and the rest is just from propagating. I had about 400 on the drive over winter and had about 700 there last fall. I donated about 150 pots to a local memory garden that was in dire need of donations. I filled their garden full.

I always have some part of gardening that I can do that helps keep the blues away. Something is always blooming somewhere in my yard even though my main focus is Hostas. 100 varieties. I had 12 varieties last summer but quite a few of each of the smaller fast growing varieties from propagating. If I can’t do something for myself that can make me happy, I can do something for someone else that makes them happy which in turn makes me happy. You can always find joy in gardening in some form.

This pic shows the plants I donated to the memory garden last fall just before I laid them out for planting. The row is about 30’ long. If I can't afford to do something for myself, I can always do something for others that won't cost me anything just by using my gardening skills.

Franknjim, I haven't seen any great bargains where I live yet. You are a more dedicated gardener than I am, for sure!

I look for the clearance section, I ask employees where the biggest bargains are, I check websites for specials. They see me so often that they just point me in the right direction and even give me free things becuase they know I will be back and will take many plants off their hands. The key is to buy as much as possible when they are trying to get rid of things as quickly as they can. End of spring, middle of summer and late fall. I very rarely pay full retail for anything unless it is something I must have. Visiting garden centers while just looking is nice but when you find those exceptional bargains, it is even better.

Plant trading online is another fun way to liven things up. It is like Christmas getting a box of new plants in the mail. I have received about 30 new varieties of hosta so far this year by participating in secret hosta swaps and private trades. It takes a little practice and work to do it but when the mailman comes it is all worth the effort and the postage. You can trade plants, seeds, bulbs or anything.

Quoting MarciaGeiger --

"With the state insect being mosquitos ( loads of them) and gnats by the billions..being outside is not the idyllic paradise that I planned to have. Years worth of willy nilly planting has not helped the gardens be the gracious glory that I want."

That would describe my place to a "T" !

My poor perennial garden is a mess, but at least I'm happy with the veg garden; and I'm aspiring to having a 4-season garden (ala Eliot Coleman) so I'm starting some cabbage etc. for a late-season crop. Really need to take some time to weed the perennials, though!

Ah Goldenberry - I share your sentiments exactly. Shriveled up hosta flowers, tan Astilbe flowers (not desirable here), tired Hydrangea lacecaps... the list goes on. Hard to accept that anything I do will not have the desired result of restoring that spring glory. With the temps and humidity lately, seems I have to grit my teeth and resign myself to be miserable outdoors just to do the "necessary chores". Good time though for shrub cutting propagation.

Yes, it's that time of year when dousing oneself in "Eau de DEET" before venturing outside is necessary to avoid being eaten alive by the skeeters, and a bandanna around the head keeps the sweat out of the eyes.

Good times. :D

"Good times" - snort!
Since our lot backs up onto a wooded wetlands bordering a creek, my backyard is mosquito heaven. DH does spray for the boogers every once in a while (can't do it too often) and then I can venture out. DD is into beekeeping and I'm tempted to go for one of those hats with the netting. You can buy some of those "cool" bandannas at safety supply stores. Get em wet, pop them in the freezer and it's wonderful. They're really cheap enough to buy several.
I ventured outside today only long enough to shake out some rugs and water some potted plants. Indoors for me today with 90+ temps and high humidity. Random rain showers making it even worse. I vow not to sweat after bathing.

Oh, I do hear it---high heat and humidity..same old, same old words from our weatherman,
And then...I take what garden trash I have (3 bags) to the compost site and find more than 2 Bushels of cannas with a few callas that someone dumped (probably after finding them starting to leaf out in the basement. The starting leaves were white and after I Filled my trunk, I put them in the garden cart and in full shade to ease them into the season..hopefully I can get them in pots during the 13 minutes of OK weather each day.
Too good to pass up!
I have No willpower!

Great find. Better than the "distressed" shelf at Lowe's.
Going to be nasty again today. Not a bit a breeze out there. Grocery shopping day so a bit of an excuse not to work outside. Tomorrow - a different story. Need to try to do some grooming out in the gardens. Resolved to sweat.

Free flowers, no willpower needed! Amazing what some people toss out.

Cindy, those cool bandannas sound great. Even from my air-conditioned office at work.

You could also stash them in the fridge instead of the freezer if you're prone to "brain freeze". My head sweats terribly in the heat so those bandannas are heaven-sent.

I just decided to take a gander at this site. Boy am I ever with most or all of you. The weeds are taking over, I know I should be out there more. My Shastas need deadheading and the delphiniums and foxglove should have been cut back already by now.

Roses need deadheading by why so they can make new buds for the Japanese Beetles eat?????

My daughter found the JB;s in my DGD's pool. At lease there they might drown. But DD flings them in the yard.........to only fly to one of my plants.

Yes thoroughly mid-summer depression. Not exactly what I had dreamed of when spring finally arrived.............

I did spend a couple of sweat-soaked hours yesterday dead-heading and trimming and it did make me feel better about summer garden beds. About the only thing I can really do is keep them looking tidy though and getting them some supplemental moisture. I'm also thinking about doing some minor editing next week. The "rejects" will be potted up to pass on to DD.

LOL, if she needs more rejects, let me know; I've kind of run through my friends and family with the extras this year (basically hostas and sedums that I had to rescue from an area we penned in for our dogs last summer; I was surprised anything even grew back this spring!)

Crispy, dusty, weedy, torn - yeah, it gets me down around this time of year. But I just make peace with the bad times . . . sort of . . . knowing nature doesn't understand beauty in exactly the same way we do. For example, if there's a bare patch, nature will fill it with whatever the birds poop out or the wind blows in. Dusty? Torn? Nature says "So what? As long as it attracted its pollinator, it's done its job!" Crispy? "You put it in the wrong place, silly! Try again next year . . ."

It is what it is and IT IS NOT the pictures in the gardening magazines. I swear I see evidence of Photoshop and staging in those things . . .

Yep, I'm with the rest of you. When it gets to be this time of year my enthusiasm fades. I've been known to take advantage of some of the great perennial sales this time of year...only to leave the plants dying in their nursery pots because I could never muster the energy to fight the bugs, heat and humidity in order to plant them. The reality is that I'm NOT a summer person--I love spring and fall, but the heat of summer gets to me after a while. By the time the cicadas start singing, I'm done.

Still, I agree with what Sherri said above--nature doesn't care about dusty torn leaves. To me, there's beauty in every garden, and the person who sees it with the most judgmental eye is never the people viewing it but the person responsible for tending it. And unless your garden is one big dead and brown mess, there's always going to be something beautiful to see.

Today it has been raining and cloudy but I got a box of new plants in the mail. I was out in the yard looking around and noticed this little one inch tall plant in some Creeping Jenny. I looked closer because I thought it was a weed and I was going to pull it. It is a little bitty impatient seedling. Nothing special but it makes me smile when I see something like that growing where it wasn't planted and it was so small but I still spotted it.

I have a big garden center type mess going on the driveway and I was setting up a second stock tank because my water hyacinths were taking over the first stock tank crowding out the water lily. I look down at weeds growing in the seam of the driveway and see two plants of portaluca growing out of the crack. I like finding little things like that. It makes me feel good and also makes me think about the people that have to struggle to grow anything. I don't just get enjoyment from the biggest and nicest looking flowers and plants. I enjoy all of it down to the smallest seedling.

I am at over 250 pots on the drive now with more boxes coming in the mail this week and next. My gardening doesn't slow down or stop until I get that first hard freeze and even then I am still not done. There is always something in a garden to enjoy, you just have to look close enough or stand back far enough. Some of my hostas are not looking there best right now but that is ok because I know that next year they will be bigger and better plus there will be more until I have every square inch planted except for a couple paths through them.

Frank

Yes, I love when the little volunteer plants happen! This year, in a patch of weeds behind the garage, I found a flower I recognized. I thought a bit and realized it was the flower of a cinquefoil I had planted about ten years ago, then got rid of for some reason! Last year, in a crook of our maple tree was a tiny 1/2 inch thing that looked special, but I couldn't make it out. Moss, maybe? I carefully lifted it and planted it. At 1 inch, I realized it was a blue spruce! It is now a whopping 6 inch perfectly shaped little spruce tree!

Frank - you are ambitious for mid-July!
I get little volunteer impatiens also since I plant them every year. Can always tell a seedling - red in the midst of pink and white??? I keep hoping for volunteer Browallia but it never happens.
Very neat about the perfect baby spruce tree!

The moss rose thing.............they do grow anywhere. I have NOT purchased as much as ONE plant in 4 years and have them all over...... Love them but you know? there's just so much you can have. I, too, had it growing in the cracks of my drive.... LOL

I'm not ambitious, just a bit nuts and I suffer from an addiction to hostas. I have been seen out there watering and weeding when it is raining!

Weeding in the rain = much easier. uh watering? in the rain? Sorry but I have been known to, on the East end of the house where the rain never reached UNTIL my dea,r sweet, loving hubby made some make shift rain chains over each plant on that side and when it rains the plants get all the water they want.............

I am ready for some rain. You'd think with all of the humidity and heat that we'd get some but no - just cloudy skies and not much wind. Every day I check the weather channel which forecasts the rain that never comes so consequently don't water. I don't do much garden work in the rain because if involves tramping all over the grass. Grass in the shade is a wimpy thing that doesn't take much abuse.

The rain has been just to the south of you for the past two days and keeps on coming. It is heading due east. I watch for the big storms because they usually end up leaving a ton of broken branches in the yard from my icky Silver Maples. There are quite a few big dead branches laying high up in the trees just waiting to come down and crush my babies. I had a nice new from last fall intense fuscia tall garden phlox that was crushed a few weeks ago when a 2" dead branch came down and broke off most of the stems while flattening most of the others.

SE WI has certainly had enough rain. Unfortunately, with rain comes standing water, and with standing water comes...mosquitoes. I have around 80 mosquito bites from spending just one hour outside last weekend to watch fireworks. I'm going insane from the itching. I wouldn't mind a dry spell just so these little buggers will die off.

Can't win. Dry = no mosquitoes, but isn't very good for growing green things. Plentiful rain = wonderful for growing green things, but makes the mosquito population so high that you can't go outside and enjoy them.

This message was edited Jul 20, 2010 9:01 AM

I'm with Kayly on this one..........

Seems like most of the rain headed our way breaks either to the north or south of us. Normally I'm not really looking for rain but it's been so hot here that supplemental watering is needed, especially under the tree canopy. I had vowed to stay clean and dry today (sounds like a diaper commercial) but might go out to spread some compost and mulch since I'm now feeling guilty. At least it's only in the lower 80's today.

I just found a new source of garden distraction! A plant co-op. I joined and was bad. LOL I just ordered 65 new varieties of hosta starts! A DG & GW member runs it, Woodthrush, and they have so many things much cheaper than anywhere else. I am so excited. It took me 3 hours to go through all of the hostas and narrow it down to just 65.

My eyeballs are about to fall out from reading so much and compiling my list but I have something to look forward to. I still have a trade coming in tomorrow and another set up for next week as well. More hostas! Sad thing is that I won't have room for many more unless we can buy the house next door!

Frank

Cindy, we had the same weather phenomenon for a couple years running--everything would go north and south of us and we never seemed to get any rain. This year I guess we're making up for it.

p.s. - Frank, I'd happily take any stragglers you can't find room for. ;)

Well, here in Des Plaines, we got about 10 huge drops of rain. The fact that they were huge did not make 10 any better for my garden AND they prevented me from watering for fear my neighbors think me nutty! Franknjim, I will also take any stragglers - it is REAL easy to get hooked on hostas!

Last Spring I had about 12 varieties of hostas that I have had for over 10 years, last Fall I had 64, today I have 105, later this week I will have 110, next week 115, shortly I will be up to 180 and I will probably break the 200 mark later this year. I have to slow down a bit since I don't have much room. I love the giant hostas and they take up a lot of room. It will be a very tight fit but it will take some time before everything gets full size.