My flowers are looking very pretty this summer. I think I have finally found the secret of a prettier flower garden...water them! OK, OK, I knew to water the flowers, but I have been a very inconsistent, haphazard waterer (is that a word?) in the past. Maybe I would, or maybe it would rain. I know morning is better, but I like evenings better. Don't water in the middle of the day? Oh I just might. This year I have made myself get out there, in the mornings, and water. My plants look so much better! I used some old lengths of a cut tree that had holes in it for some super cute planters for my pink vincas. I think they are cute anyway, and that's all that matters to me...
I can't take the credit for the change, it belongs to the lady I bought my purple petunias from, at the greenhouse at Kissee Mills Jct. I went into her greenhouse and there were the prettiest purple petunias with white borders. I wanted those petunias but mine always got scraggly and dwindled away to nothing. She asked me if I pinched them? Yes, I always pinched the stems back like you are supposed to do. She asked me if I watered them every day? Well, at least two or three times a week. She shook her head and rolled her eyes. She asked me if I fed them every week, with something like Miracle Grow? Well.....no. Maybe once or twice a summer. Another head shake and eye roll. She told me that I needed to feed them about once a week and they would be beautiful. Okay, I say, I will try it. I have done very well this summer and they are beautiful. Maybe not Master Gardener status, but so much better than summers past.
I bought some pale yellow petunias at Lowes, on clearance, and they looked rather pitiful, but boy, they were cheap! A dollar for a large pot. I brought them home, re-potted them and they grew out long and scraggly. I took the scissors to them and cut off all the stems and left just a few stems and leaves on the plants. It has taken three weeks of daily watering and weekly feeding but they have grown back out, sturdy and strong and blooming their pretty yellow blooms.
I got some impatiens from another nursery in Ozark that I love to go to. It was in the middle of July when I stopped in there. There is a method to my madness. Usually my flowers look pretty pitiful and almost die through July and August, then come back in September and October and look pretty good. So, I thought, just buy the flowers in July, when they are half price or even cheaper and then they will look good for the fall. Now that I know the secret of watering and feeding, I will buy earlier in the season in the future. I am saying all of this with tongue in cheek, I did know the importance of watering and feeding all along, but life sometimes gets in the way of what you know you should be doing...
I planted three pots full of impatiens and they are starting to spill over the sides of the pots. Pretty, pretty, pretty. I love impatiens! At the same time I purchased a sweet potato vine (on clearance, of course) and a dinner plate hibiscus, also on sale, half price. The sweet potato vine has grown well but some little bug loves it and the leaves are full of tiny holes. I trimmed the hibiscus back and still haven't planted it because it has been so hot and because I don't know where to put it!
I have a big bed of bright pink/magenta vincas right beside my front porch. Note to self. Always buy vincas for the bed beside the front porch. They have grown to about a foot tall and full of beautiful, bright blooms. Alicia got me several of these for Mother's Day, and I got a few more to fill in. The front of the house gets soooo hot in the summer. Vinca can take the heat and they are a perfect choice for that location.
Alicia also got me some bright pink petunias (I guess she forgot I couldn't do petunias) and I put them in one of my planters. Six plants and one survived. I did water and feed them, they just didn't grow. After one or two of the plants died, I bought a container of purple verbena at Walmart and planted in the container with the petunias. It has grown like blue blazes but is just now starting to bloom. I love verbena also, of course.
A few years ago Alicia got me a coral colored tropical hibiscus plant. It is beautiful but I have to move it inside for the winter because it is not cold hardy in this growing zone. Last year it only had two or three blooms on it while it was outside, but when I brought it in for the winter it covered itself with blooms for a good two or three weeks.
That brings up another problem. I think my yard is a "micro-climate". A hot one. When the tag on the plant says full sun and I sit it in front of the house in full sun, it fries the plant. I have to put it in partial shade for it to do well.
I'm learning, slowly but surely. Hope I can figure it out enough to have a pretty flower or two before my time on earth is over.
Ob la di, ob la da, life goes on....
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