Choice Morsels

It's warm and somewhat muggy this week with a little rain. I was thinking I doing a little pick-up of limbs and pinecones after lunch. A frost last week killed the zinnia's, some of the vinca depending on where it was, most of the marigolds, though some struggle on, the salvia in a pot (not the one in the ground next to the house) and nearly all the basil.  The Thai Basil survived, which is interesting. I have a hosta up front, which gets Eastern sun, so it stays green all winter and is currently blooming. Go figure. Today's Pics of the Day are a few I took yesterday: Pretty purple and red Petunias: Next, pot bell peppers sporting fresh green leaves and new blooms! (Spraying with Epsom salt water helps!) This pot is outside the front door and gets southern sun all day, plus this location is somewhat sheltered from the cold winds. The back garden wall project as it now looks: I decided not to do a third row of blocks, but just two. That gave me...

The garage door people called yesterday to schedule a time to install the new garage door---which caught me completely off-guard! I wasn't expecting to hear from them for a couple weeks and thought that because the guy who inspected the garage opening said it might be 4 to 6 weeks. The good news is, "Yay, we get the door tomorrow!" The bad news is, "Oh goodie, now I have to clean up the garage!"   So, that's how I spent the last 3 hours. I needed to clear the area near the door opening and under both slide rails, so the installers can get to everything. My cluttered metal shelf of garden tools and all my various bags of garden soil, lime and weed & feed were sitting right up front, right under a slide rail, so all that mess had to be moved! I don't know about you, but moving things around to give the garage floor a good sweeping just doesn't happen often and I figured if I'm doing a little, I might as well do it all. (Single car si...

Since for July 4th, 2012, I thought this pic of my red and white petunia's would be appropriate! You can also see my pretty miniature roses below it. (The petunia's are in a pot; the rose is in the ground next to it.) Petunias need frequent dead-heading and tend to get long and leggy as they bloom out.  I snip those legs and "train" them to be bushy with a limited drape. This forces them to sprout new growth. The next photo, below, is a shot of one of my Hardy Hibiscus I have in the front yard next to the parking spot. Notice one bloom is red and the other, pink. Yet this is one plant from a single root. It's uniquely bi-color. The pink portion of the plant didn't bloom last year, so I didn't know. I plan on trying to save seed from this Hibiscus to see if I can luck into more.