Bogless seed beds - End of Summer Photos....

Thought I would post what my seed beds now look like. Many plants that have been growing for months have finally put on a blooming show. I never know what to expect when I go out into the garden in the mornings or evenings! Such a delight! No one who sees it can believe all of this was grown from seeds planted in March of this year! (Me either, for that matter! lol)

This thread is a continuation from this thread link:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/732433/

Here is the latest exciting blooms. My Datura finally bloomed and what a show it was!

More blooms in the seed beds. My newest passion is Morning Glories. Seems the moths and skippers like to pollinate them along with the bees! I think the White Peacock Butterflies do too! I have seen a LOT of the WPs in my backyard lately!

Now some wide angle views of the seed beds. What fun I've had trying this for the first time ever!

Another bed along the back fence.

I can't believe how tall the Giant Orange Cosmos gets! I see Skippers and White Peacock butterflies on the blooms quite often.

Y'all remember that area up against the back of my house that I couldn't get anything much to grow there? Well, ta da .......!

One of the container ponds. The canna has gotten so TALL!!!

These tall plants are called Lion's Ears!

Deb - Here is one of your White Rose Mallows in bloom!

A Pink Dahlia in bloom among orange zinnias.

Remember the Purple Porterweed bush I dug up from the front yard and transplanted to the backyard? It's doing great among the Golden Dewdrop trees!

Blooming Firespike just waiting and waiting and waiting for the hummers to find it! LOL!

The other container pond with blooming water lilies.

And my favorite water lily this summer, Sulphurea. I think the White Peacock butterflies and the dragonflies were laying eggs on some of these plants (water Bacopa) and in the water of my container ponds. My yard has tons of dragonflies now! They fly around in the late afternoon catching knats! :-)

This is the front garden bed now. Totally got lush from all the plants and seeds I threw in there! LOL! The canna may have to go though. I'm thinking about putting a Brug in it's place.

wow Becky looks like you have had a great summer and everything thrived for you. I love the Giant Orange Cosmos and Lions Ear. 2 of my favorite plants. I plants lots of them. Pictures really don't do them justice either.

Here's the TWINS! Two Giant Swallowtail cats that seem to like the Wild Lime bushes in the bush bed.

I love them too, Donna! Thanks for the kind compliment on my gardens. Here's a photo of the Lion's Ear bloom up close. Love it!

be careful collecting those seed. Leaves a good length of stem to hold and put in bag and tap with the end of your scissors. they have no see'm stickers that you can't get out ouch!!!!!!!!

And last, I had to show a photo of my least favorite bug .... the killer wasp drinking water from a water lily pad. I have a LOT of wasps in my yard right now. I have destroyed so many hives/nests and they keep coming back like the Milkweed bugs! Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

Donna - LOL! I learned the hard way already about those sharp thorny flower heads on the Lion's Ear. Ouch is RIGHT!!!!

once you do it you'll never forget lol!!!! I learned the hard way too

Wow Becky. You should be so proud. Great job you did and boy are you getting the pay back aren't you? Everything is so beautiful.

I have a question about picture 6. What is the light orangish/yellow flower blooming in the left bottom corner of the picture? Is it Lantana? It is really pretty and would love to know what it is. Your salvias look awesome and your cannas, awesome. Everything is pretty much awesome. I CANNOT believe you are not having more action in your yard from hummers and butterflies. They are crazy. I would hang out there in a heartbeat.

Leslie

Wow Becky, your garden is so pretty! It's really filled in! That Firespike should attract the hummers!

You know if you get a Brug, you willed be hooked on those beauties.....you'll be pulling stuff out to fit more Brugs in.....that's what I do! I cannot fit another Brug in my yard.....I may have to ask my neighbors if they could keep some for me. lol

Honestly, you have done a great job!

Oooh. I hate to even see a picture of a wasp. Those terrify me. Wasps, bees, yellow jackets. EEEK. The only ones I don't mind are the dirt dobbers (sp?) and sometimes I am running to fast to be able to identify those. LOL.

Leslie

Hey Fly-Girl, are Brugs not hard to grow? They look like they would be very complicated. And also I have read they are poisonous. Of course I know a lot of stuff in the garden is poisonous but are they any more poisonous than anything else? I have two dogs and I get a little iffy about those things. And do they grow good in Texas? Probably better in your zone than in mine, huh? I think they are so cool but just think they would be really hard to grow.

Leslie

Now I have a SERIOUS question for all of you who do seed beds .....

How do I amend the beds in winter/spring without destroying any perennial plants? I know some of the plants like the Zinnias and Marigolds are annuals, but many of the plants will come back from roots and I don't want to kill them when I add compost to the garden beds before my Spring planting of new seeds.

HELP! I need advice about this.

AND my coneflower plants have still NOT BLOOMED! I have fertilized them with Bloom Booster regularly but still not a single bloom! Very frustrating!!

Becky many perennials don't bloom until the second year if grown from seed.

Amending the soil around your perennials you have to stay away from the roots and work your compost in with a little hand rake claw thingy. If you can get your hands on leaves this winter fill your beds with them and let them break down. best if you mulch mow them first to chop them up. Work them down into the soil in spring. They release micro nitrients into the soil

Leslie, Brugs aren't that hard, you would have to bring them in to the garage or house for the winter, but you could grow them in pots. When I cut mine back in the fall, I'll send you some cuttings, and you can try them. I have a huge unnamed yellow and pink one that seem to love the heat.

Becky, every spring I add a couple inches of compost. I don't dig it in, I let the worms do it for me. It doesn't seem to bother the perennials, they come up through it.

I have some coneflowers that are getting ready to bloom, don't give up, I think it depends on the species.

Thanks everyone! I'd love to take credit for all of it .... but I think Mother Nature deserves the kuddos!

Leslie - the orangish flowering plants in photo #6 are Crossandra. I love them and had horrible luck with them last year. Low and behold they came back this year out of the blue and are thriving. Go figure! I have learned not to dig up any "dead" plants because many times the roots are still alive and they will kick it into gear the following year. I can't tell you how many times that has happened to surprise me!

Rox - Donna sent me some Brug starts. Didn't know if they would survive, but they have. All need to be transplanted either into the ground or a large container. We had a few hard rain storms here the past few days and my front yard Canna literally got knocked down. So I am thinking one of the Brugs might like a new home there. :-)

And yes! Leslie - the Brugs are poisonous and I have been debating about where to plant them. I think the corner of the front of my house might be one safe spot to plant them.

Thanks, Donna about the info for amending of the soil. I was also thinking of waiting to amend until the plants start popping out of the ground in the Spring. I really wanted to add some compost in there. My soil in those beds have lost most of the good nutrients from the original good soil I started the beds with. The sun here just bakes everything. I don't know what kind of leaves would be best to mulch in the beds. I have Oak trees that drop their leaves in winter. Would that be good to use?

Oh yes .... I forgot to tell you about my newest project! And a PROJECT it is!!! Back-breaking is an understatement! My sweet dh and I have been using a concrete mold to create a cobble-stone (country stone) patio from my screen porch to the end of the house. Right now we have an 8' X 12' section completed, but still need to do 10' more out and 12' more across. We try to do a 4' X 12' section every weekend.

I gotta tell ya .... lifting and mixing 60 lb bags of concrete is NOT fun at all !!! But we love the results! I think if it was about 15-20 degrees cooler, it wouldn't be so bad. But trying to do it in this heat and humidity is awful! Just call us dumb die-hards! LOL!

But I do have some personal good news ......

We got another cat! I couldn't stand being without a pet. So my daughter and I took a trip to the local Humane Shelter and found this little cutie, Penny. She's 1 year old and a sweetie! :-)

Aahhh, she's beautiful! I'm so glad you did that! Rescued pets are the best!

Love the cobblestones! I bet that would be work, especially in this heat. How'd you talk DH into it? Bribes? Steak dinner every night? Football tickets? LOL I could use some ideas.

LOL, Rox!

Nah ..... no bribes. DH wanted a patio out there too, but he wanted it done cheap. So that is why we are using the mold. We figured this 12' X 18' patio is gonna cost us less than $175 to do ourselves. That was the motivating factor. And I even talked him into letting me put a vinyl 4' high picket fence around it with a 6' wide arbor as an entrance out into the herb garden and the rest of the backyard. But that's down the road. Not something we will do anytime soon. The fencing sections are $50 a pop. So I'm saving my pennies. I will be using the mold to create 4' wide paths around the garden beds and throughout the backyard to pull it all together. Though I don't know if he will help me with the paths. He's ready to get this patio done. It really does a number on both of us to add those sections each weekend. It takes us about 4 hours to do each 4' X 12' section and we are both wiped out afterwards. Not for the meek or weak! LOL!

This message was edited Sep 3, 2007 12:16 AM

awww, sweet new kitty,, rescue babies are the best..
your yard is lovely,
Elaine

Hi Becky! Everything looks just beautiful! I'm so glad your Porterweed is doing so well! I still don't have a big one and my small ones are just now starting to come up from seed. They are so s-l-o-w at first then they take off.

Love the new kitty! I had a Calico cat once that I named Penny too. I guess it's a good name for red (copper) cats. Speaking of, love the Lion's Tails!

Your coneflowers will probably be blooming next year. I just collected a ton of seeds from mine.

And I thought I had mutant cosmos! That's huge! For the first few years mine have been small, average sized. Then they started getting bigger and this some have really thick stalks and are 3-4' high. Sheesh!

Hope things are well with you! :) I'm trying to get back involved after being busy and learned that you had been busy with a few things too.

Paige

Thanks Elaine and Paige!

It's good to see you, too, Paige! Life happens, doesn't it?!

I am still hoping that the Coneflowers bloom sometime this Fall. The leaves are HUGE!

And those Giant Orange Cosmos are over 5' tall. I've been growing them and cutting them down and growing more all summer! LOL! I love them, but they get so tall that when we get strong winds it blows them right over. And they don't die, they just lay down on the ground with the tips growing up again. LOL! I bet they could grow to 7' tall if they were strong enough to stand up on their own! They are amazing and grow so unbelievably fast. I love them! Something that I will continue to grow in those garden beds. But I may need to think about growing them up against the fence trellis and tie them to the trellis for support next year! :-)

Oh Becky....WOW!!!! Everything has grown so much, and is just beautiful. You have been one busy young lady. : ) Love the cobblestone, too. Where did you get the mold?

And Ms Penny,....... is just perfect. I have no doubt she will be soooo loved at your house. : )
~Lucy

yes Becky my Orange Cosmos I have up against the duck cage are 7' + so they have support. They bloom non stop too until frost. The patio looks fabulous and means so much more when you do it your self too. Big congrats to you and your DH. Glad you decided to get a new Kitty ;-)

Yes Paige life happens to us all

Between Becky and I we will both have plenty of the Lions Ears and Giant Orange cosmos. I have collected a ton of seed from both already

Lucy - Thanks! I wish I WAS..... one busy "young" lady! Nothing "young" here! Though I bet this concrete job would be much easier if I was 10-15 years younger! LOL!

Here is where I bought the mold. Each mold uses a 60 lb bag (unlike what the instructions say to use an 80 lb. bag - WRONG!!):
http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1296049&cp&kw=walk+maker&origkw=walk+maker&sr=1

Ms. Penny is in the middle of a "custody battle" between my daughter and I. My daughter wants to keep the name she had at the HS which was Peanut. But the HS had her listed as a "he". LOL! And we both claim to be her new mommy! LOL! (Though she does sleep with me more .... but shhhh don't tell my daughter! lol) Her name IS Penny! ;-)

Donna - Sounds like some good seeds to add to the Round Robin in two months! :-)