Dear Carol and Mary Ann, et al.,

Can you believe we’ve reached week 17 in our vegetable journey?

This week is all about bugs.  With the extremely warm weather, the insects both good and bad are doing their bit in the garden.  I don’t yet have squash bugs (I hate to type that for fear that I will jinx the poor zucchini), but I do have squash vine bores which are almost as bad.  Now, I didn’t take a photo of the damage because I was up to my waders in muck from the rain soaked soil and weeds.  I was afraid I would get dirt in my lens.  I already broke one Nikon lens this week, and if this other one goes down, I am lost.  Squash vine borers are a real drag because the stupid moth lays an egg inside the leaf stems or the vine itself, and unless you want to inject Bt into the stem (which I don’t), you just have to remove the infected leaves.  Or, you can slit the stem and remove the larvae.  Then, you hope for the best.  You can dust Bt around the plants, but I’ve not found that to be all that effective.

I also have hornworms.  Giant, ugly, green worms that can defoliate an entire tomato plant in a week or two.  I found one today, and with pleasure, I cut it in half.

A tomato stem stripped by a hornworm

I also have dratted cucumber beetles.  So far, none of them have found the cukes.  I don’t know why.

I tied up all of the tomato vines today and worked on Rosa ‘New Dawn’ because she was again trying to take over the garden.  I use both tomato cages & tripods.  I also have a new structure this year which is like a large cage made of those green bamboo-type stakes.  I like how tall it is.  I don’t have to tie the tomatoes to it.  Because it is green, it doesn’t show up like the other metal cages.  It is very sturdy, and once the season is over, it folds up for storage.  So far, it is my favorite.

Dysphania ambrosioides, Epazote, growing next to the beans

I’ll leave you with a photo of a plant which I wish had never placed its roots in my soil.  Dysphania ambrosioides, Epazote a/k/a Mexican tea, Wormseed and Jesuit’s tea, is an herb native to South America and Mexico.  I used to buy herbal plants from a guy in the country, and one year, he said I needed Epazote for my garden.  Well, I bought it along with garlic chives, a plant that I’ve also tried to eradicate, but it has escaped my garden.  Anyway, I was told Epazote was used to season bean dishes in Mexico, and that is true.  However, at the time, some of our Hispanic employees were helping us to build our split rail fence and one of the men was so concerned about my new plant that he went to HH.  He told HH that Epazote was a weed, and it would take over my garden. HH later gave me this information, but being such an expert (ha!) I thought, oh no, it won’t spread here.  It will die in the winter.

Moral of the story.  If you’re about to plant something which is native to another region, and someone from that region tells you not to plant it, heed his/her warning.

See ya next week,

H. 'Indian Giver' (Ferguson 1991)

I am sorry to say that I’ve gotten out of the habit of doing my Sunday Stroll with Aisling from the Quiet Country House.  On Sundays, I have family commitments.  I often miss the stroll, and it is one of my favorite memes on the blogosphere.  So, this week, I’m going to stroll on Saturday instead.  I hope Aisling won’t mind.

Above, I took this photo of H. ‘Indian Giver’ which is a small diploid, meaning it has two identical sets of chromozones in each cell.   Ever since hybridizers discovered how to treat daylily seeds with colchicine, we now have tetraploids.  Thus, daylilies are divided into dips and tets.  I like both for different reasons.  H. ‘Indian Giver’ is a favorite because its bloom possesses the delicate dip form with shades of both lavender and purple.  The colors in this photo accurately represent ‘Indian Giver’ (one of the first daylilies I bought), and it is placed in the garden where it gets enough shade so that it doesn’t wash out on 100F degree days.  If I photographed it in the sun, you would see more of the gray undertones of the flower which aren’t pretty.

If I’d never seen H. ‘Indian Giver’, I wouldn’t have gone nuts over daylilies several years ago.

We are at midseason with daylily bloom.  Some are just now coming into flower, and others are finished.  Some are sending up second scapes (stems), and others still have lots of buds on their scapes.  To me, the garden appears full of floating butterflies, but the daylilies are starting to wind down, and that is all right because other plants will now bloom in their place.

Can you see the lake in the background?

Many daylily hybridizers prefer tets because they believe there is more opportunity to create unusual edges, brighter colors, flowers with strong substance, etc.  Some hybridizers like John Shooter at Marietta Gardens are dedicated to dips, and he has done some wonderful things with the edges and eyes in his diploid introductions.

H. 'Victorian Lace' (Stamile 1999)

‘Victorian Lace’ is a tetraploid.  Compare it with ‘Indian Giver’, and I think you can see the difference in ploidy.  However, also consider that these two flowers are just a representation of their particular ploidy and not directly related to each other.  I love both flowers the same way I love both tets and dips.  I think it all depends on what you want in a particular flower.  Fortunately, there are so many different hybrids that gardeners can find the kind of flower they want.

As I’ve mentioned before, it is really hot here with temps of over 100F for over a week.  However, that hasn’t hurt the garden.  In fact, everything continues to bloom well.  The irrigation system helps.  The beds and borders are irrigated with a drip line system which makes my job easier.

Echinaceas in full bloom

I get to enjoy the garden more than in years past.  The one good thing about the heat is that the weedy grasses, with the exception of the Bermuda, are slowing down.  I’m going to try a natural herbicide in the paths today.  I’ll let you know if it works.  Keep your fingers crossed.

C. Tiny Mice with a native Gaillardia

Pam, I’m not sure about Cuphea llavea Tiny Mice.  It seems to really like this spot, and is growing larger everyday.  It is still not as large as its Bat-Faced cousin, but may achieve that later in the season despite its tag.  I’ve also looked around the Internet, and they may be the same plant although Proven Winners shows this as a different variety.  It does look more floriferous than the Bat-Faced one in a container on the deck.  The above combo is unfortunately planted in front of a pale pink daylily and could have made it in Elizabeth’s garish combo parade.  Fortunately, they didn’t all take off at once, and this daylily is finished for the season.

Rosa Carefree Delight

Most of the roses have retired to their queenly chambers until fall, and those that haven’t are crisped and faded from the sun.  One exception is R. ‘MElpotal’, a/k/a Carefree Delight, which is beautiful spring to fall.  If you decide to plant this big girl, better have a lot of room for her to spread her thorny canes because she will snag you at the slightest opportunity.  I learned not to take it personally.  I have deadheaded nearly all of the roses and in a month or two, they will look good again.

H. 'Annabelle'

Hyrdangea arborenscens ‘Annabelle’ is in full swing and what a dance it is.  Like I wrote last year, I did plant the other shrub I have on the other side of the arbor.  You can’t see it in this photo, but it isn’t as large as this ‘Annabelle’ and still looks a bit out of balance.  Next year, they will be more copasetic.

Dear Carol and Mary Ann (and all of our gardening friends),

I do believe this is the latest I’ve prepared my weekly gardening letter.  As you know, it was delayed because my mom had surgery Monday, and I was preoccupied the day before.  I started this letter at the hospital, but couldn’t concentrate enough to finish.

Here’s what I wrote:

I’m at the hospital.  Waiting.  In the 20 years since my mother’s car accident, my sister, Mom’s best friend, Shirley, and I have become professional waiters.  I have a bag filled with fruit and gluten and dairy free snacks, including Vienna sausages (I know gross, but they are “safe”) and dark chocolate.  Really good dark chocolate.  Dark chocolate is an essential antidote to waiting I think.

Potato plants in the compost pile

But, back to the garden wherein peace doth reign.

Everything is growing, but we’re still in a holding pattern.  Above, you can see the potato plants steadily growing in the compost pile.  They haven’t bloomed, so I can’t rob them of  new potatoes yet.  Nothing else is producing, but there is promise on the vine in the form of tiny cucumbers, tomatoes and even tinier beans.  I can hardly wait.

Cucumber blossoms lead to . . .

The heat is horrendous with highs over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  For my Canadian friends, that translates to 38 degrees Celsius.  Every freakin’ day for over a week, and today, tomorrow and Friday will be no different.  We don’t usually get this kind of heat until late July and into August.  Also, this is a huge jump for the plants which enjoyed a cooler than usual spring.  Hello Summer!

Baby cucumbers!!!

With the horrid temps, it seems as though all of the insects get an attitude like a teenager when reminded of his/her curfew.  The wasps are especially vicious protecting their nests.  I’d be glad to give them a wide berth, but I don’t always know where their nests are as they hide them under my log home’s eaves.  I confess I finally brought out some spray when they wouldn’t let me water a container next to the house.  Enough is enough.

Garish plant combo for Elizabeth

Okay, I’ll admit that this photo isn’t as garish as some of the combos I’ve come up with over the years, but the red does stand out like a fire truck on parade.  I love these glads up close, but like the divas they are, they don’t want to share the stage with the other flowers.  Why am I putting my mistakes on display?  Elizabeth from Garden Rant asked bloggers to post photos of our color combo blunders.  Here are a couple more:

Ick. H. 'Killer' with H. 'Rachel's Tea Party'

There are a lot of things wrong with this grouping.  The colors don’t blend, and they don’t complement each other either.  Also, there’s a height problem with H. ‘Killer’ having tall scapes, and H. ‘Rachel’s Tea Party’ is a much shorter daylily.  Also, the flower sizes don’t work together.  I’ve got to change this next year.

H. 'Reflections in Time', H. 'Tropical Love', and H. 'Ivory Parasol'

Although I love this garden bed, it has many of the same problems as the group in the previous photo.  They just look horrid together if you think about it too much.  So, I don’t believe I’ll consider it at all.  Have you ever tried to move a bunch of daylilies.  It’s really hard work.

Bye for now and see you Sunday, I hope.  My mother is supposed to have surgery on Monday, so we shall see what we shall see.