You have such a big garden with so much variety. It's beautiful, one wouldn't know you're having a heat wave. Take care, don't got out there if you don't have to.

Annie, I can't believe how good things look in that heat! I just heard some town in Oklahoma was 117° today! I was mowing and just gave up before I finished. The humidity was too much for me.

I love the new glad color and all the echinaceas. You must be keeping things well watered. My bed across the drive is suffering terribly but I am torn about watering it. We are on a well, so it is just laziness I guess.

I am trying to keep the vegetable garden watered.

glenda

What are you talking about Annie?! Your garden looks lusher than mine and I can't even plead drought! Your Echinacea are three times as big as mine! That willow makes a wonderful backdrop...
thanks for the pics
CMK

Thank you both so kindly.

Two weeks ago or three I went to the county fair grounds and got two trucks loads of "used hay" - urine soaked and full of dumplings! Yahoo! They have been having horse shows, so it is great stuff. You can put it right in your garden with no worries of it burning plants....as long as you water.

There is shaved wood and wheat straw. Great for mulch.
I have been mulching EVERYTHING.
And I am now going to start loading up the wells around the fruit trees.

That has cut back on the amount of watering I've had to do and it continuously feeds my plants. When I water, I run the sprinkler for an hour in each area so that it soaks way down deep. So once a week they get a full hour of water. It has helped a great deal. I was flat worn out dragging the hose around EVERY day.

I even spray up into the trees so that it cools the air like a swamp cooler. It works! The birds love me.

However, the heat is still scorching flowers and I am having trouble with the tomatoes. My big Beefsteaks haven't make one tomato yet - not one. The Romas and San Marzanos are finally making fruit and I am starting to get ripe fruit. The okra is growing well. The hay and manure has really helped them. I layed down cardboard between their rows and then piled on the hay. The Jalapenos and Hatch peppers are finally making fruit, and the Hot Hungarians, although they are slow. No zucchini yet, but they are now flowering. The musk melons are finally blooming and the Crookneck squash is covered in bloom buds - the hay mulch has been the trick, of that I am certain.

I just came in from moving the sprinkler. Having well water allows me to use the sprinkler, thank God. As long as you let it run a good long while, it does really well. I trimmed the grass paths. It sure looks better! I hate it when the grass starts touching my ankles.

Two of my cats were following me around meowing their heads off. I took them inside and they laid down on the cool kitchen floor and cooled off....and then went right back out there. Goof balls.

I don 50 Sport sunscreen on my nose and arms and top my red hair with a big brimmed straw hat. I don't stay out very long. I am sitting here now in a t-shirt and undies, cooling off. :)

The wind is hot - blowing strong out of the west. That is what is scorching the flowers. I just called the time & Temp - it is 103 with 79% humidity. Glad for the humidity, or we would be having grass fires again.

~Annie

Thank you Christin,

I love my weeping willow. I grew it from a limb I cut off my Dad's tree when I was helping him trim limbs off his tree (ice storm damage). It is only three years old. It really grew fast! I wanted it there so it would provide shade for the potager garden in the afternoon, It really made a big difference. Afternoon sun and heat is a killer here - hence I have planted so many trees and why my gardens are doing so well in this drought and heat.
I trimmed some limbs off the willow last year to shape it and rooted one of the 2-inch limbs. That is the little willow you can see in the back yard photo.

I have another willow limb sitting in a water bucket that I trimmed off the tree in late April. It is now fully rooted and ready to be set out in the ground. Don't know where I will plant it yet though. Probably in the back yard so it can sweep down that nice slope and provide more shade back there.

I love willows.
So do butterflies, honeybees and dragonflies.

Thanks for looking and all the nice comments everyone.
Everyone needs appreciation for what they do and I am no different.

~Annie

Really a wonderful garden Annie. I just love it when you post pics...but even more I love to "listen" to you talk about your garden...your words are as good as the real thing. c

Thank you C. :)

Last night I dug out the flower bed by the statue where the blue Bachelor buttons had been. They get so ratty looking when they go to seed. There was lots of wild grass and hundreds of Lemon Balm seedlings in there too. Ugh. I pulled out most of the big Lemon Balm plants. All that filled up the wheelbarrow and I hauled it to the burn pile. Then I pulled the dead Forget-Me-Not plants out, stripped off all the seeds and scattered them in the bed so they will fill the bed next spring. I have one still blooming near the patio between the cracks of the rocks on the sidewalk. I don't know how it got way over there, but I love it. Well, back to the subject - that bed looks so much better. Now I am going out to plant a new rose in there and mulch it. I will be taking 'before and after' pics and put them in my PhotoBucket files, so if anyone wants to take a look, they will be there.

Still not sure where to plant my Vitex. I am thinking of setting one near that bed to give it a bit of shade and add some height to that area. However, all three Vitex have rooted out of the pot and down into the ground and have begun to bloom. I am afraid to move them now. I may have to sacrifice the flowers to save the plants. They need to go in the ground now so they have time to make a good root system before winter. Winter...I hate to think of it.

Gotta go water the musk melons and squashes first.

Sometimes I feel like the proverbial Weasle running around a Mulberry bush, the Monkey being "time" chasing me. So much to do and never seems like I have enough time. But I must keep running or time will pass me by.

But, the critters are all fed, house is clean and in fair order and the dishes are done, so I have the rest of the day to do as I wish - work in my garden!

Have a good one and be good whatever you do!
~Annie

Annie, welcome to Texas weather. We are sharing the 100º's with you. Don't you just love waking to temperatures in the 80's.
I too run the sprinkler for at least 30 minutes in an area. It's the only way to get the moisture down. People with sprinkler systems are running theirs 20 minutes in each zone. Between the job and watering the yard, it's a complete cycle each day.

What a charming garden! So many very pretty flowers and all the lush greenery. You would never know it was so insanely hot by the look of everything. I know that you must be working very hard to keep it all looking so good. It really shows and you deserve a round of applause for it! Gorgeous, just gorgeous.

Thank you bluesunflower.
I do work hard.
Yesterday and this morning, everything looked pretty good. This afternoon, everything wilted in a matter of minutes. It was an inferno.
I am running the water as fast as I can to give everything a deep drink and cool them off. Zooks.

You are so right chickadee. One of my sons lives in Spring, Texas. He called last night and told me that they are having record breaking temps there and no rain. No rain and that close to the Gulf! Unreal!!! He says, "It's actually cooler in the desert, Mom!"

Looks like northern Okie is getting thunderstorms and rain right this minute...and parts of Kansas. I wish it would slide on down this way. I'd risk the bad weather just to get the rain. I have a basement...I can hide if it gets bad. Please rain on us and cool down?!

I will post more pics tomorrow showing the transition from this morning to this afternoon, and the wilted plants. Poor things.

Have a good one.

~Annie

Annie, your garden is so beautiful. You can tell just how much hard work you put into it. I can't imagine how much time it must take you just to keep it watered fairly well in such heat. That is an incredibly huge chore. I also can't believe how much work you are doing in your garden digging things out. I would think in the heat you've been having you would move a hose and then run inside to the AC! I hope you get some rain and relief from the high temps soon.

I went out at 7 this morning and watered until 12:30. My ankles are killing me, but the yard looks pretty good.
I have the sprinkler going on the north side under the old apple tree right now. It is really dry out there. The front yard is burnt to a crisp! Even evergreens like Junipers croak out there. I don't even try to do anything out there after May. It's hopeless. I told DHM awhile ago that we ought to spray it with grass killer and cover the whole front yard with 8 inches of pine bark mulch and be done with it! It would certainly look better and we wouldn't have to mow that ugly half-dead, patchy Bermuda! He laughed, but I am totally serious!
It is a lot cooler today, thank God. No rain and little if any humidity, but at least it is cooler.

~Annie