Back At It

Over the weekend, I finally got some gardening done! It had been about two weeks since I’d been able to get out there, and it gave me some time to think about what to do next, which was great. The truth is, the garden looked pretty good -- all that planning and work in early spring really paid off. But you know how it is: it’s always easier to see the flaws or holes in your own backyard, and I constantly see a million things I need to do.

So here's what I got done on Sunday.

• I moved all the sunflowers. As I wrote about earlier, I was a little apprehensive about their size, and already their leaves were so outlandishly huge that they didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the back bed. So I dug them up and moved them to a couple of other spots. They seemed a little stressed that afternoon, but I’m hoping they come through.
• I potted my "Red Beauty" pepper plant. First, in their new location, the sunflowers would be blocking the pepper’s light. Second, I didn’t do nearly as much to amend the soil where the pepper plant was, so I think it will do much better in the nice soil of a big container. And finally, the lettuce finally gave up and bolted (we finished it in a wonderful salad on Sunday), so I had a few spare containers to fill around the birdbath area.
• I repotted the orange mint and peppermint. I wasn’t happy with the goofy little homemade watering system (read: an upside-down Gatorade bottle with holes poked in it) that I’d put in the mint pot. It just didn’t drain as well as I’d hoped. So the mint went into another of the now-available lettuce pots. (Mint is one of the rare herbs that actually likes a little shade, so I hope this won’t be too much sun for it.)
• I gave away three way-too-pink coneflowers to the Awesome NeighborsTM. They’ve now found a happy home in their front yard, and one is in bloom. :)
• I pulled up some of the pansies that had given up in the heat. I still have a little more of this to do, but I need to get my thoughts together on exactly how to rearrange things to take their places.
• I put some deep purple petunias in a little corner by the patio. I’m not actually convinced I like this, but I’ll try it for a week. I can always move them again.
• I added more morning glories around the back fence. The removal of the sunflowers took a lot of green away from the back bed, thus exposing more of the horrible chain-link fence. So I found some cheap morning glories (quicker than starting from seed) at the farmer’s market, and added them back there. I’m hoping that Awesome Neighbor Seza and I don’t regret how many morning glories we’ve planted. I understand that they can be a little invasive, but damn, we both want to get that nasty fence covered.
• (Tangent: It’s sooooo nice that she and I have such similar gardening taste! Obviously, we don’t have to match everything, but it’s easier that we both, for example, like sunflowers. As the owner of Mother Earth said, “It’s pretty hard to pull off an informal cottage garden when there’s a formal Japanese garden right next door.” Too true.)
• I also moved around some of the annuals (and one perennial) in that same back-bed area. The Ageratum had become huge, and it just looked like one big mass of purple. So I spread it out a bit (which also helped fill in some of the spots left by the sunflowers). I then moved some of the Salvia, as well as the “regular” Agastache, which was getting smooshed behind the very-happy-and-spreading-like-crazy Agastache “Golden Jubilee.”
• I picked up and planted a couple more Thunbergia. I know it seems like I spend half my garden time and budget on these, but I’ve got one trellis on which they just haven’t taken, and it’s really noticeable.
• I potted a small but lovely Dianthus for the veranda, taking the place of some very tired looking pansies. I never got excited about Dianthus until I bought up a bouquet of them at the farmer’s market. I swear, those flowers looked perfectly fresh and full of color in a vase on my desk for almost two weeks. So when I saw this one at Mother Earth -- with deep, blue-red blooms over gray-tinged foliage -- I knew I could find a place for it. My thought is to leave it potted for the summer, and plant it in the ground this fall after the annual Salvia (which clashes with the Dianthus) is done for the year.
• Finally, and unfortunately, I gave myself a little heat exhaustion. I thought I had done everything right: drinking lots of cold water and Gatorade, taking a couple of breaks to sit down, doing all the potting-type chores in the shade, etc. But toward the end of four hours of gardening, I was talking to Seza (who was also gardening that day) and noticed I was completely out of breath and having trouble concentrating. I went into the house for a minute, and when M saw how red my face was, he ordered me into a cold shower. Later, we looked up “heat stroke” and “heat exhaustion” in his first aid book. The recommended treatment would have been making me lie down in the shade and then spraying me with the hose. M was pretty disappointed that he didn’t get to do that part. :)