BLOOM THYME FRIDAY: Summer Care and Summer Blooms

In many areas extreme heat is the order of the day and our roses are showing the signs — curled leaves, slow growth and smaller than normal blooms that sometimes look distorted. All these are normal under these conditions. While I was away in May the temps soared to the 90s and haven’t come down much since.

WHAT I’M DOING…

WATER
Do keep watering if you can. A good deep soaking once a week should be sufficient except for your containers — mine need water everyday unless we get rain. Resist the temptation to overwater!

FERTILIZER
I fertilized them when I cut them back in June. And I’m usually on a every 6 weeks schedule. I’ll see how the weather is then. If it’s too hot still, I’ll be careful about doing much. When they are under stress, I find that too much of anything just contributes to the problem.

Maybe we will get lucky and July or August will be the May we missed! I just received a notification from the Weather Channel that Tropical Storm Beryl has formed in the Lesser Antilles – who knows what that will bring! Don’t you just love real time notifications!!!

Back to today–managing all this heat is tricky as it is a first for my neck of the woods – so time will tell.

Several years ago we had a severe drought and had no measureable rain for 7 weeks. I was in a panic as we could only water very minimally. I assure you the roses looked horrible at the end the drought. However, it was amazing how quickly they bounced back once regular weather returned. Praying the same thing happens this year when “regular” weather returns.

JAPANESE BEETLES
We are also dealing with Japanese Beetles — who came very early to my garden. They usually show up around the first week of July. This year I saw them the second week of June. I made my decision that day to cut back all the roses (blooms & buds) to make them less appealing. I was leaving for California so it seemed the perfect time. The result has been fewer JBs! WIN. The roses are now starting their second flush of bloom now and we’ll see how the “population” of beetles go!

To control JPs simply have a bucket of soapy water to drop them in. If you bend the cane down, their tendency is to drop and the soapy “bath” will be waiting! I received another tip this year from good friend, Dr. Mark Windham … trim off the damaged leaves! It seems it is the “damage” that encourages other JPs to come. Resist the urge to squish. I hear that process sends out a signal to others JPs to come visit via pheromones released. Yuk!

BLOOM THYME THIS WEEK

There are some lovely blooms coming this week and the butterflies are loving them!

Watch the butterfly run through the coneflowers and daylilies in the video below…

 

As much as i want to be in the garden, I am limiting my time and you should too.

Grab some ice tea or lemonade to help you beat the heat and have a lovely

Bloom Thyme Friday.

Bloom Thyme Friday: Nips and Tucks

Yes, is it summer thyme and time to trim up the perennials and annuals that have been beautiful companions to my roses and clean up the beds of debris and fallen blooms and leaves. There are areas that are definitely moving into the jungly stage. I also like to add a bit of mulch this time of year. Fresh mulch just looks so good and it is so helpful in moisture retention.

Some of the roses need a good hair cut too so they can move into making a beautiful fall display of blooms—which we will get to enjoy now that the Japanese Beetles are in their final decent! (Here’s a bit more on pruning.)

To add to the excitement of the summer trim, we have a fall rose show coming up in our ARS Illinois Indiana District to be held in St. Louis (more information on that here). If all goes as planned, I will have some fresh blooms to take to the show. Now I am not the most competitive or competent horticulture exhibitor, but it is quite thrilling to see a blue ribbon on one of my babies. It does happen from time to time.😉 I’ll have a better chance in the arrangement category. I love that best! But, there are so many talented people in this district! #stiffcompetition

Here’s a bokay I picked last weekend to take to a friend’s dinner party...

TIMING

Most roses will repeat bloom in 40 – 50 days after a trim. So wish me luck. It really is a win win situation … I’ll take the beautiful blooms anytime. But, if I have an award winner at the show, you will hear about it. 😱

JUST BE

Wednesday I had a day off and a chance to “just be” in the garden. No real agenda.  A little work, but mostly plotting and planning. There is nothing quite like taking some time to “just be.” So grateful for that day.

BLOOMERS THIS WEEK

Here are some of the pictures from this week…

Lady Ashe

Happy Bloom Thyme Friday from my jungly summer garden!

It was one of those days…

Today has been one of those perfect days … the kind of summer day that memories are made of.
Blue skies.
Big fluffy clouds.
Plenty of garden blooms.
Extra time with my honey.
No plans.
No agenda.
Just summer fun.
I am grateful.
We did a little gardening, a few household chores, made a quick trip to Lowes and a local garden center to look at hydrangeas. You’d think I have enough. But no. There is always room for another rose and another hydrangea! And, Country Harmony had just the hydrangea I was looking for – Little Lime. He joins the other 5 Little Limes in my garden. I know. I know. But, I just love them! I am also crazy about Bobo and Pinky Winky and Annabelle and … well you get the picture! 🙂
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 Rose:  Aloha
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 Rose: Flamenco Rosita
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 Rose: Olivia Rose Austin
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 Rose in front: Campfire
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 Rose in front: Beverly
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 Rose: The Generous Gardener (DA)
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 Rose: Black Forrest
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I hope you had a wonderful day that was filled with the things you love best.

Hey, Mr. G is working on a new project for me! I think it will be ready soon for the big reveal.  Maybe even tomorrow. I am so excited about this I am practically jumping up and down. Actually I am jumping up and down.

About all this rain…

The weather man says 90% chance of rain today and it is sure coming down. ☔️ It rained yesterday. Wednesday we had 1 1/2″ of rain and Monday (or was that Tuesday) we had 4″ of rain. It’s getting hard to keep track!

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. I’ve decided to learn a bit more about rain. Next I may need to read up on jungles and rain forests!

For now, here are some rainy facts…

  • THIS JUST IN: In my next of the woods July broke the 1835 record for rain!
  • The highest amount of rainfall ever recorded in one year is 25.4 meters (1000 inches) in Cherrapunji, India.
  • Antarctica is the driest continent on Earth.
  • The umbrella was originally invented to protect people from the hot sun.
  • Louisiana is the wettest state in the U.S, which records an annual rainfall of 56 inches.
  • On average there are over 1500 thunderstorms occurring on earth with 100 lightning strikes per second
  • Rain drops do not fall in a tear drop shape, they originally fall in the shape of a flat oval.
  • Rainbows are caused by the effect of sunlight on countless millions of raindrops.
  • Annual averages for rainfall plus snowfall in my neck of the woods (Indy) is 42.4. No doubt we are breaking records as I type!


Blooms in the rain

Here are a few rain-soaked blooms from a quick garden walk in the rain…
Belinda's Dream
Belinda’s Dream … Yes, roses love the rain!
Phlox
Phlox

 

Stargazers ... I love these!
Stargazers … I love these!

 

Campanulas - Bellflowers
Campanulas – Bellflowers

 

The first bloom of Aloha
The first bloom of Aloha

 

I think tomorrow we have NO RAIN in the forecast … let’s just say I am looking forward to that.

I am itching to get my hands dirty!

☔️☔️☔️



EXTRA! EXTRA!

I was so honored this week when a local paper, The ICON, ran an article about me. If you’d like to read it, click here, open PDF and go to page 12.
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Does the heat get to you?

With all the rain we are getting, things are very jungley here! And hot. And humid.

I had the day off, so I went out in my usual July fashion and started taking some control! Things were moved, things were added, some things “are on the fence” and some things were eliminated!

While I am easy breezy on the plants in May and June because I am so excited that they came back from the dead, things begin to change in July … plants have to PROVE themselves to me in July. Do you get a little crazy in July? Maybe it’s the heat. There sure was plenty of heat out there today. In an attempt to “beat the heat,” I wore a very large hat that is supposed to protect from UVs. I don’t know for sure if it did protect, but I can tell you for sure that it made for some interesting hat hair! 😳😱

Regardless of the heat and the “prove me” stage, these guys were rocking my world…

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David Austin’s Albrighton Rambler

 

Albrighton Rambler
Albrighton Rambler

 

David Austin's Boscobel
David Austin’s Boscobel

 

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Annabelle Hydrangea

 

Gemini HT
Gemini HT

 

Leilani Coneflower is AMAZING!
Leilani Coneflower is AMAZING!

 

Rose companions
Rose companions

 

Anna's Promise
Anna’s Promise

 

DIck Clark
DIck Clark

 

Mr. G's first tomato of the season. Can't begin to tell you how good it was on our BLT. :)
Mr. G’s first tomato of the season. Can’t begin to tell you how good it was on our BLT. 🙂

 


COMING SOON…

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Lilies coming soon. Look at all those buds!

Question of the day …

Do you like things jungly in your garden?

Summerthyme

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Summerthyme Blooms……

Wow, the first day of summer is here. Doesn’t it seem like only yesterday that I was driving you crazy counting down the days until spring through the Polar Vortex. 🙂 You can flash back to that here.

We have had an almost perfect spring. I have hardly had to use my new Flexzilla garden hose or even a watering can!

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Flexzilla demo at Garden 2 Blog… If you  haven’t heard about this amazing NO KINK garden hose, read about it here! http://www.flexzilla.com/

Summer is coming in with a near perfect day that will hover around 80 and the garden is responding with some super blooms.

In thinking about summer I began to wonder just how many Popsicles are eaten every summer. I didn’t find the answer to that question, but I did find these yummy looking Popsicle recipes…

Yummy!
Yummy!

Find the recipes here.  And, if you find out how many Popsicles are eaten each summer, let me know. 🙂

Flowers celebrating …

These are the flowers that are helping me kickoff summer! (Click on any of the pictures to start the gallery feature.)

 


Stay cool and have a Popsicle or two!