Garden comments and pics.

Good wet Saturday to you all.  As I mention in an earlier blog, now is the season for evaluating how last year's gardens went and planning for next season.  I saw a quote from May Sarton on a gardening blog I thought was absolutely right on.  I will paraphrase because I don't remember the exact wording: gardening is a lot of disastrous failures with a few spectacular successes.  The hibiscus was one of the successes.  It did beautifully.  And I discovered three seed pods so I will see what some of them yield next year.  The mother plant should come back unless we have a truly brutal winter--knock on wood that we don't.

 On the other hand, my worst failure was the blueberry.  Actually, the second attempt at growing blueberries.  Next season I will try again after I have treated the soil to lower the pH to suit.  Given how alkaline and hard our water is I will be giving all of the beds a bit fertilizer formulated for acid-loving plants.

The borage was another success.  I will grow it again but in a different spot.  It is a big plant but the bees loved it.  I harvested seeds and will try them out.



And the cypress vine was a a beautiful success.  Not only is it a pretty flower but the hummingbirds often went to it before going to the feeder.  Next season I will put it in the container rather than in a pot on the fence.  I collected seeds from it also.

Bee balm, didn't do well.  I made the mistake of putting it along side the pineapple sage which turned into a much bigger plant than I expected.  But it might turn out a success if a new stand comes up from the roots.  I still have seeds from this year to try again if it doesn't.


This one is pretty, isn't it?  We found it at the big farm market in a town just a bit north of us.  I was intrigued by the unfamiliar trumpet shaped blossoms.  For a while, I toyed with the notion of bringing it inside for the winter but it sheds blossoms all over and it would have been a pain to clean up.  I saw some other types of begonia that might be interesting next year.

The chamomile did not do well at all.  I did not expect the tomatoes to go wild.  I had difficulty getting into that area.  I will put in chamomile nest year--in a better spot.

The tomatoes did as well as last year.  I got a lot of cherry tomatoes--so many we were actually tired of them.  All of the tomatoes were very slow this year and we were left with a lot of green tomatoes at the time my gardens went into shade (after fall equinox).  The did not really ripen.  They went mushy before they turned red. Next year I will reduce the tomatoes to only two sauce style plants.  For the rest we will visit our farm markets more frequently.

And to finish off this garden assessment--the goldfinches that showed up delighted us all season.