Started on 8 July
3-H (Hazy Hot Humid) weather has returned. Temperatures are in the low 90s F today in my area of metro Boston with heat indices around 100 F. Walking outside from A/C is like slamming into a brick wall. I’ve watered the smallest pots three times and still they droop, just like yesterday. It’s been a week and a half since I did more in the garden than water or deadhead or fuss. I miss working in it. I’m so tired of hot and humid weather.
[More photos from mid-June follow; however, I think I'm close to fixing camera/computer problem]
Another salpiglossis (AKA “painted tongue”)
I know most people in the US don’t grow these and I still don’t get why. They’re such a pretty summer bloomer in a climate like mine, they come in interesting colors and patterns, and the petals feel like velvet turned into a flower. They are rather a pain to grow from seed, but it seems like not too many American gardeners start anything from seed any more anyway. Many of the people I know here even buy their nasturtiums pre-started, even though they’re just about the easiest plant in the world to grow from seed.
Sundial lupine
This was its third bloom (it’s fading in the heat). There are lots of raindrops on the leaves in this shot. Lupine leaves hold rain so well!
Buds on sunflower
This is the gift-plant sunflower that adjusted fastest to transplant out of all the gift-plant sunflowers (it was pictured in my entry “Sunflowers, Reborn”). It turns out to be the cultivar ‘Vanilla Ice’ (which is, to me, a rather unfortunate name, but I’m guessing whoever named it didn’t have the musical associations I do). According to what I’ve read, this is in a separate species called cucumber-leafed sunflowers (Helianthus debilis), which explains why its leaves don’t look like those of the common annual sunflower (Helianthus annuus). The rest of my annual sunflower cultivars are in the latter species.
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Continued on 11 July
The hot weather broke yesterday. Wednesday (the 9th) was the farmers’ market but the plant sales are winding down since the flower farm is no longer in business (they used to sell perennials into autumn) so it’s the first week this year wherein I did not buy a single plant. Last week I bought another six-pack of the marigold ‘Honeycomb’ since the first six-pack has done so well, and I got a morning glory with beautiful marbled leaves that look more like ivy leaves than typical morning glory leaves. I had forgotten its name but I just looked it up online and it is ‘Mini-Bar Rose’. It is a Japanese morning glory, Ipomoea nil. (Ipomoea sure is a huge genus, isn’t it?)
I think I’d best post this now since it’s taken me so long to write any more in it. I’m hoping to make another post later today with what I did in the garden today, the first time in a couple weeks that I really got to get down and dirty in it for a good while.
