Dog days of summer? What's up in your yarden?
from
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1399659/#new
This message was edited Aug 2, 2015 9:47 AM
Yardening August 2015
Thanks for the new thread Sally.
Seems my yardening efforts will be keeping things alive (water) and presentable! Mean while pollinators are enjoying despite 'appearances'. Feels like early mid Fall more than beginning of August. Even the bumper crop of tomatoes ripe on the vine think so!
The last thread had Muddy's receipe for rabbit/deer deterant. Just a reminder that what ever is deterring critters today may not work tomorrow as critters 'learn' or ignore. Might be best to keep em guessing and be ready to change things up some, so what they learn is that "It's always something!" in that yard or with that plant...
While milorganite . for instance may work, I doubt it will provide much protection for tender trees/shrubs as Critter is hoping, as winter generally means at least some days/weeks of snow cover. There are some products that suggest hanging bags among the branches if it is an aromatic repellant.. Any way I'm sure there will be many more discussions later on in the season.
Milorganite DOES work to keep rabbits away but my main use for it is usually after snowmelt when the spring bulbs are emerging.
I finally finished my new shrub garden in the back yard. I started it sometime in June but haven't worked on it super fast. Here are some pics. There are 21 shrubs.
I'm having a hard time keeping up with the harvesting of cherry tomatoes. I only have two plants, but they have gotten gigantic, and they're so prolific! Next year, I'll read up on pruning suckers. and also plant them elsewhere to avoid blight.
Something is taking small bites of the ripest tomatoes (squirrels?), but I don't mind since I can't eat them all anyway.
I just harvested my very first cucumber! Yay! I'm so glad we don't get deer on my street.
good job Jeff. It will be fun to watch them grow up. I wonder how many items you'll end up moving later, haha. I hate when some thing grow faster and closer, while others leave gaps. Then I am itching to rearrange.
ssg, I did read a good piece about suckers and am more dedicated than I used to be. I held myself to two Sungolds, and so far, keeping up with pruning and tying, but they are really tall, topping the six feet of stake and heading for the hills. If the cherry tomatoes pile up in the kitchen I'm going to freeze them whole.
Got a few beefy tomatoes, yum! I wrote Mortgage lifter and German ( Aunt Jewels Noid) but one sure looks Cherokee Purple. Maybe I did two of them also.
Summer squash is such a waste here. I got one batch and the plants are all dying from borers. Might as well just buy that, it's so common.
clerodendron (Peanut butter shrub) is perfuming the yard!!
Jeff, are all those rocks from your yard? Do tell some of the names of the new 21? Will you do anything else there or just the shrubs?
SSG I have 10 cherry tomato plants! Gold, yellow, orange, red, green and black! Evidently some of the large heirlooms have decided to produce this year, too. Congratulations on that first cuke!
This message was edited Aug 2, 2015 8:55 PM
I made a batch of my repellent and sprayed the few things that need to be protected. One advantage of the baking powder spray is that it deters by taste (ever taste baking powder? yecch!), not by smell, so only the hungriest of deer eat through it. If only it repelled cats.....
Oh, cat-repelling plants sound great!
Jeff, 21 new shrubs! Wow!
Sequoia, I remember you posted the names of those shrubs way back when, but please do refresh our memories.....
Nice work, Jeff. That bed will be a breath taker when all those shrubs mature !
Thanks guys. They will probably all grow into a dense monster shrub but that was kind of the point. I want our yard to be attractive to birds and hopefully it will provide some nesting sites as well as food in the future. I know you all probably think I plant too many things but I really enjoy sampling many different plants and seeing how they grow. It's fun for me. Coleup, the rocks are from a nearby construction site, as are all of the rocks in our yard. A few of them were pulled up when digging here and I thank God I find all those when trying to plant something. I go in an ask the builders or excavators and they are usually happy to let me take them. I have a few perennials in there but not much. Most of the brunnera I got from Donner were planted there. Here's the shrub list:
Hamamelis intermedia 'Jelena' - Witchazel
Hamamelis intermedia 'Diane' - Witchazel
Corylus americana - American Hazelnut
Ilex opaca - American holly
Viburnum trilobum 'Bailey Compact'
Hydrangea quercifolia 'Ruby Slippers' - Oakleaf hydrangea
2 Calycanthus floridus - Sweetshrub (1 is from Sally)
2 Viburnum acerifolium
Viburnum trilobum
3 Lindera benzoin - unsexed and I have 2 more close by also unsexed
NOID deciduous azalea from Aspen - I suspect it is a 'Mandarin Lights'
Viburnum dilatatum 'Asian Beauty'
Viburnum dentatum var deamii
Viburnum dentatum 'Northern Burgundy'
Viburnum dentatum 'Red Feather'
Viburnum dentatum 'Autumn Jazz'
Viburnum trilobum 'Winter Rubies'
The Asian Beauty viburnum will help pollinate my Cardinal Candy that isn't far away. The Viburnum acers are seed grown so they will pollinate each other. I could have gone with only two dentatum varieties but, like I said before, it's more fun to sample =) There are two sets of pollination partners there.
"I know you all probably think I plant too many things..."
This is US you're talking to. There is no 'plant too many things'!!!!
But I think you'll be wise to keep a little space to get around in there. I have spent many hours (years) fighting the things that grow up under old shrubs from bird droppings - Celastrus, grapevines, Virginia creeper
Oh yeah, I didn't think about that. Well if I'm lucky, the rabbits will eat off the bottom 15" of stems and foliage and I'll be able to shoot some RU underneath. I'm going to wrap all them with caging for a couple winters because they will be rabbit candy. After that though, I'm sure the rabbits will happily prune the lower parts for me. That's what they do to the pyracantha and the birds leave a ton of surprises under there. I had a bunch of poison ivy growing. Only seedlings though because I'm pretty vigilant at spraying. There is a lot of poke berry seedlings that get started too.
I don't think I'll ever be able to sell my house once everything is full grown because of how much maintenance it will be...LOL
Wow, that is a fantastic list of viburnums.
My V. dentatum is full of berries but I don't have a pollinator anywhere nearby. I have no idea how they got pollinated.
There must be a secret one you don't know about somewhere. I don't know if dentatums can cross pollinate with another viburnum type.
thanks for the link Jill. I must have been distracted when I was trying to fix it, bottom of the last thread. I DID try to fix it, honest!
ssg, perhaps your Viburnums were pollinated while still at the garden center (if you bought them this year, that is).
"Dense monster shrub" - I like that image! That will be a bird paradise, Sequoia!
I got this viburnum about 3 years ago, and every year it's fruited a little bit, but this year it's just loaded with berries. I don't have another viburnum that blooms at the same time (arrowwoods are such late bloomers), and I haven't seen any in the neighborhood. It's a mystery!
Have to pass on to you all a great fix for bug bites and itching.
This is from my Pakistani neighbor--who has many medicinal ideas that she
believes in. This one really works.
****Got bit bit a bug? Or by anything else--big or small?
Rub a raw onion asap over the bite. It REALLY stops all itching
I have had a bug bite on my stomach (???) that has been itching like crazy
for 2 days. Almost as bad as Shingles....
Rubbed some raw onion on it today--and I don't feel a thing!!!! :o)
g.
Good tip, Gita, I'll try it. Ticks give me an itchy bump. I'm trying harder this year with repellant.
I just can't believe it IS August.
I had earmarked some iris for division, and now's the time. I could also think about fall greens in the vegetable garden, getting started.
I think the beginning of summer just few by but July just drug on and on. I never thought I would see August.
I think this whole summer is flying by. It seems like only a couple weeks ago we were at Muddy's spring swap!
I think July really dragged because it was so much same oold,,,same old
weather wise. Hot and humid.....hot and humid.....no fun going out to garden
I can't wait for some breathable, cooler air....
Something odd with my brugmansias.
They have grown big, semi healthy, the srems have "Y"-ed...BIUT...
there are NO flowers!!!! So weird!
The Maya has been yellowing leaves for a long while now. They look awful--and drop off--
or I pick them off. I bet the whole bottom half of the plant has lost all it's leaves.
The Dr. Seuss, just a few feet away--is doing OK. But--no blooms either.
I have sprayed the Maya with all kinds of things. Even mixed up a new batch of
"Forbid" (I have some of this). Leav-by-leaf--bottoms as well. It helped a little bit...
I went through this same thing 2 years ago. same yellowing of leaves--getting mottly
looking--but I could never see any insects on there--unless they are microscopic,
I wonder if the NO blooms has anything to do with all my spraying? ????
Or--maybe the weather? I have heard that brugs don't like overly hot weather....
but this summer is not so different from many otheres--is it?
Pic #4 & #5--I just went out and took these. Look at the poor "Maya"...
My brugs aren't blooming yet, either, but that's pretty normal for me. It's amazing to me that donner gets blooms so early in the year. I think I usually get them in September/October, and rarely earlier than that.
Pics 2 and 3 look like they could be spider mite damage.
June and July flew by for me; I'm really looking forward to catching my breath in August!
hahaha I don't seem to have caught my breath this summer either, not sure it's going to happen in the next couple weeks before school starts.
SS-
I agree that that is what it looks like Spider Mites--but--
I have gotten a magnifying glass to see if there are any insects
on the leaves--but I cannot see any. Two years ago--I had this sane issue.-
Maybe I should spray with Horticultural oil? What do you think?
Two more leaves fell off today. I am so frustrated!!!
The other brug (Dr. Seuss) is just 5' away--and is doing fine--but NO BLOOMS either.
I am NOT used to having any insect-Mite, or whatever problems on my plants,
as I usually garden pretty insect/disease-free all the time.
This is really "bugging" ME!!!! G.
I think the extreme amount of rain we have had this summer took its toll on some plants; maybe your brugs are stressed from the combination of high humidity and high heat. All this rain could delay blooming in some plants, too; they're putting their energy into growing instead.
While spider mites are really tiny, you should be able to see cobweb-like webbing on the plants, certainly if using a magnifying glass. If present, insecticidal soap is easiest, cheapest, and easy on thee plants.
No webbing---and no small, dark spots. Jusr a 'dirty", mottled look
on the bottom of the leaves.
Some kind of mites may be more likely......they can be invisible.
The upper newer growth is OK--but the bottom of the plant is now pretty bare.
Will take a macro of an affected leaf later in the day. Will fish one out of the trash can.
G.
My Salvia 'Black and Blue' is just getting around to blooming. Normally, it would be half again as tall and covered with blooms and bees by now. I don't know whether to blame the cold spring, or my failure to fertilize, or both. Have any of you other B and B owners noticed differences this year?
My B&B Salvia is nowhere to be seen..Of course--it WAS growing for
just 2 years in my YUK bed.
It is hard for plants to thrive in this root-infested, dry bed.
I don't think they are totally winter hardy around here....
g,
I think one of my plants died this past winter.
Loved the article Sally. I have seen places that have no lawn and they look very nice especially small yards lend themselves very well to this idea. I must also say that I do like our lawn. I could see it being pretty easy to get rid of the lawn in the upper back yard but not out front. Ric does spend a lot of time mowing. We could let the pasture go back to being pasture and not mow it but it is the easiest to maintain. Ric just hops on the tractor and goes round and round.
I hate spending time on the lawn. I rarely feed it and never water it. I spot treat weeds but not much else. I do try to keep it looking as nice as possible with a minimum of time so it doesn't detract from our beds and plantings.
'lawn' takes zero skill to maintain in ok or good enough condition. Mow it and be done. May not be a great lawn but it looks passable and tidy in the conventional view. Easy to hire help for. - unlike these labor and skill intensive beds we all keep!
And it comes in handy if you have kids or adults that still think they are kids. LOL
Yes, it wouldn't go over too well if kids did somersaults, cart wheels, etc. in flower beds!
Thanks for sharing the article, Sally.
No argument here for a lawn. The lawn is a chore and a time suck. In previous years I used to enjoy mowing the lawn but now I view it as a chore. I do try to get the lines straight though and enjoy seeing it after it's mowed. It would be way cooler though to have it all garden.