Motley Monday - September 2, 2024

 I feel like Lisa's Garden Adventures has been less Garden than usual.  Things just don't seem to be growing well, and the weather has turned hot again.  It's also nearly the end of summer and the plants are feeling it.  Most perennials are finished flowering, a lot of annuals are done, and the vegetables, also annuals, are dying before producing much.

Here's the Toss Garden area.  A lot of it needs to go to seed for next year.  All the green on the fence is wild grape.

I have just one warty French winter squash.  It's really not worth the effort and water anymore.

Sun Sugar is producing so slowly.  It's not Sun Gold, that's for sure!  

My one zinnia plant.  Late, but pretty.  As a rule, I don't do well with zinnia from seed, however I usually do better than this!  I think it must be Ice Queen Bi-Color, which is supposed to be double-flowered.

Milkweed aphids on the native Narrow-Leaf Milkweed.  I'd rather it be here than on the Butterfly Weed. 

The four o'clocks are slowing down the flowers...

and putting out plenty of seeds for next year.

Angel Shasta daisy is one of those that blooms again if you cut it back the first time.  Get those stems all the way down to the ground though, or you'll have them sticking up all ugly.

This gladiola surprised me, I thought they'd finished. 

I don't know what this is.  It has square stems, so a mint family member, and identifies as a sage.  No blooms, yet.  I didn't plant any sages in this bed though. I did plant the contents of those seed bomb eggs here though.  

The garden sage is looking nice.  At least in this bed, the old wading pool with the bottom cut out.   It gets more shade than the other sages, and in this heat it helps.

I really need to cut back the wisteria!

The change isn't very obvious in the photo, but my son spent along time weed-eating the overgrown grass in the far back. It still needs a lot more work, and mowing.  I bought oil instead of fuel by mistake.  The bottles look the same, both say "4-Stroke," and the store was out of fuel, so I got the wrong thing.  We'll need the oil eventually.  You can see the blocks forming the beds now at least!

That's it for this holiday Monday morning.  Maybe I'll tackle some weeds in the front yard.  Or ants. Last night a neighbor two doors down knocked on the door to tell me my rosemary bush (only he didn't call it a rosemary, just a bush) was "infested with fire ants."  We don't have fire ants in Oregon, however we do have biting carpenter ants.  It was too dark to take a look, I'll do that at a more reasonable hour this morning.  He wondered if he had a dead cat under his house.  I wonder too, as the very sick stray hasn't been seen in a few weeks.