Most of my plants are in containers as our ground is either rock hard or filled with clay and gravel. By some miracle, the things that do grow out of the ground or through the pots thrive quite nicely.
5 years ago, I spent over 2 weeks prepping some ground to grow my own artichokes, the effort paid off. But next time I'm getting a professional.
My mom has a "green" thumb and can grow just about anything, even where she lives in the desert. Below are some tomatoes and a white egg plant fresh from her garden. I coated the eggplant with olive oil and Italian seasonings before laying it in slices on my indoor grill. Yummy!
Here are some Alpine strawberries I've been growing. They are smaller than your store bought berry and so full of sweetness!
Above you can see the strawberries, which I usually save for Dyllan unless there is more than one, and then we all get a treat.
Below is the best you'll see of my sweet pea bush. Sigh. So sad. We enjoyed the peas very much, but then suddenly the leaves were being munched on, ( I hand picked those buggers off) Aphids were colonizing on it and now with this sudden dreary weather we've been having, it's got mildew. I don't use pesticides, so unless we get some good California sun soon, it looks like this one is a goner.
I have two full sized rose bushes.
One is a "double delight, love the colors but the fragrance is short lived. The other is a "Mr.Lincoln" (it's my Mom's Dad's favorite) The rose bush definitely stands up to it's name. TALL! But has massive thorns that can shred you in seconds. For the thorns alone, I was once ready to chop it to bits, but then came up with the idea to de-thorn the bush. I swear some of the thorns were as big as shark teeth! So now "Mr.Lincoln" is blooming nicely and the blooms (as you can see below) are the most beautiful deep red with a ever lasting fragrance that makes you want to bathe in it's scent.
My cherry tomato bush is doing nicely! I love snacking on the ripe ones when I'm watering!
In this one large pot I have basil, cilantro and oregano...smells so good when I brush by it.
Same with the peppermint & spearmint that grows wild out of the ground. When I step on it, the whole patio smells minty fresh!
I was so looking forward to getting rid of this honey suckle that had long ago busted out of it's pot and has been thriving like a weed. I wanted to put morning glory in it's place and make that corner space be a little "secret garden", but we now have old Tortoise that Brian had when he was younger and we are the new keepers. (I'll post about him another day. ) He loves to eat the honey suckle and my hibiscus. Guess my morning glory will have to wait.
Look at my plumeria, just waiting to bloom...
Speaking of hibiscus, check out this one from my friends garden! It's as big as Dyllan's head!
I kept this for me because it was so pretty!
My hydrangia's are comming in niceley. The bummer about them is they cross breed. One was pink, and the other was blue when I first planted them. Now they are both pink!
That's all for now, thanks for coming by to see my garden!
Your hydrangeas haven't crossbred, their color has to do with the acidity of the soil. If your blue hydrangeas are now pink, you just need to add some acid to the soil to get them to bloom blue again.
ReplyDeleteHere are instructions I copied from a grower's site and what you need to do to get your blue blooms back:
Flower colors only vary on some lace cap and mophead hydrangeas. Many varieties are only one color such as ‘Forever Pink’ and ‘Sister Therese’. But most blue flowering varieties such as ‘Nikko Blue’ will produce blue flowers in acidic soil and pink flowers in alkaline soil. If your blue hydrangeas are flowering pink you can make your soil more acidic using Aluminum Sulphate fertilizer. This is the best way of turning your hydrangeas blue. Using an all-purpose fertilizer like MirAcid will maintain acidity but will not change the color very quickly. To turn your blue hydrangeas more pink, add lime to your soil. These techniques will work gradually. Lime, especially, take weeks or months to work in the soil.
Well Cottage way covered how to turn your hydrangeas blue again but I must say I love that you garden. . . I know I have a very small one on a raised bed but have not tried pots maybe net year. . .
ReplyDeletethanks for the info on the hydrangea's! I will definitely do that! Can't wait to have some pretty blue flowers again!
ReplyDeleteThere are some 'natural' things you can try to get rid of the bugs on your sweet pea bush.
ReplyDeleteCrushed garlic might help, and for a hearty plant, a chili oil/water mixture in a spray bottle does a very nice job!
I know about that one because I've used it on a few things and it worked great on the hearty plants, and killed our fragile cilantro!
Good luck with your garden Michelle!
Pam Hoffman
http://seminarlist.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/PamHoffman
Great photos!
ReplyDelete