I think I was cursed by the late freeze we had this spring - seems that set the tone for a rotten gardening season. I must admit that early on everything looked really good but then the drought set in and its been down hill ever since. I won't even tell you what my last water bill was - outrageous! Even though its been dry the mosquitoes are terrible and like you bellarosa, I can hardly water my containers on the deck without getting eaten alive. The grass in the front yard looked wonderful this spring but now its all drought tolerant weeds or dust. I have mostly Bermuda in the back...nothing bothers Bermuda not even the mole who has been digging tunnels in the yard for 3 years! The JB's got fat on my roses and crepe myrtles, but thank goodness they are gone now.

On the more positive side...my ornamental grasses look great and I've had many annuals reseed because we had such a mild winter last year. The yard has been full of hummingbirds and butterflies. Recently we had a green and black caterpillar that we watched for about 3 days devouring the parsley. It then moved to the leg of the neighboring plant stand and started its metamorphosis. I looked up the color combination of the caterpillar on google and I believe it will be a Swallowtail. We've never seen this take place before and its been interesting to watch and the grandson has been in awe of the whole process. Wish I had taken pictures to share with you all.

So gardening friends...in the grand scheme of things, even though I complain...I count myself blessed that I have not had to deal with floods, hurricanes (she says with fingers crossed), excessive heatwaves or fires as I know so many of you have experienced this year. Next year will bring a new crop of challenges which we will all meet head on with renewed anticapation for a glorious growing season.
Vikki

I'm so sorry that you had such a bad time, Bella. And Vikki, it's sounds as though you have suffered, too.

This has actually been the best gardening year for me yet at our place here. We have only been here (out in the country) for 3 years now and up til now there have been disasters one after the other. So it may not have been ready for prime time this year... but it has been the best so far.

This was my first year wintersowing. For the first time I had plenty of little plants to actually put out "drifts"!! And as large as my beds are, that is important. From my porch I can't see anything less than a drift. Even though I've had some spectacular failures - I don't know if I'll ever figure out that bed beside the driveway. Even though we have had some really nasty weather...a hard freeze in mid April after all my perennials are up? Drought and 15 straight days of 100+ temperatures? Come ON! I'm trying to garden here!!

And now my flowerbeds have evolved into something that looks like it should be in a Dr. Seuss book. Oh well. I have some very, very strange flowers but I have flowers! After everything that has happened! Quite a lot of them, actually. My Yvonne's salvia did just exactly nothing. But my black eyed susies have finally flanked the middle bed across from my porch (as I have fantasized since I moved in). And there is color from one end of my oversized beds to the other. I won't bore you with a list of all that is blooming - yep! It's THAT long!

And (I hope you won't think I'm just boasting) I didn't see ONE single Japanese beetle all season. I did have thousands of hummingbirds and butterflies. I'm happy.

We had to water daily. But our new well held out just beautifully! (Last summer our well went dry...YIKES!)

And now we have had three days with very pleasant temps and cool nights and I am thinking maybe the worst is over and we will have a pleasant fall? Hope is the single best thing about gardening. Planting and planning oblige me to hope. It is my single link to mental health. LOL

All in all...yes, it's been an awfully good year.

I had a wonderful gardening season this year. Lots of new plants that were planted last year bloomed for me for the first time this year. It was a thrill to see three years of work and planting come into it's own! The vegie garden did really well in spite of the vole. And I also have 9 watermelon for the first time. I can't wait to see how they taste!

The worst things that happened were the grasshoppers (which happens every year) and the fact that both of the lawn mowers were repaired this spring and ended up going Ka-put on me. I'm pretty frustrated after working so hard to keep everything mowed so the weeds wouldn't go to seed again. I had high hopes of planting grass seed this fall but at the moment the whole place is cloaked in 18" weeds and sandburs. Sigh. Maybe next year I'll be able to get some pre-emergent down early on.

MeMo

"Was"? Better ask again in about 4 months because it's still going strong in So.Cal. So far it's been one of the best years ever, especially for my roses. I am surrounded and perfumed by them, front and back. Potager has done great, fruit trees are producing enough for us and the birds, no ground squirrels or bunnies to speak of ( the drought IS good for a few things ), and now a week of thunderstorms which brought at least a half an inch of rain every day. : )

I hope those of you who had a tough year do better next season!

Diana

I am in the midst of a personally tough year, but even though I have spent minimal time in my garden it has been one of the best seasons ever. The temps here are some of the best I can remember. We have not had the rain Diana got, not over five inches in the past 15 months or so, but we are somewhat used to that. Yes, droughty, but on a year to year basis, not unusually so, as we were not under average going into last rainy season.
So, the garden has grown amazingly, and I put it down to the compost I added back in February. Over the weekend I got out and pulled up summer annuals, just to make room for winter veggies. I had self sown zinnias six feet tall!
I am thinking about taking out my back sunny bed flowers and redoing the whole design of the garden. Not sure I will be able to do that this fall though. Trying to decide about ordering plants for fall planting and again, just not sure it can happen. I do know though, that my garden can survive on minimal upkeep and that it will be fine if I don't get to it for another year.

This is my third year of gardening, so I have alot to do yet, but it's been ok. We had the hot/cold snaps, and I lost some things due to that,but it's not the end of the world. Each year has brought new challenges, slugs and snails, for me have been public enemy #1. I laid out some beer traps and I'll try the epsom salts. I haven't had problems with aphids this season. Grasshoppers are all over, and now because we had so much rain, mosquitos are rampant. I have alot of perennials that have done really well. I water e/o day in the morning, and it's doing darn good. I must be on the right track, because all my neighbors are asking me for advice. My husband helps me with big projects, and he's into it, so it's fun. Next year, my 10 year old son and I will do a special garden for him. A butterfly garden. He has Autism, but he sees mommy out here and he kinda likes it. We built an arbor,and Ihave lots of plans, but thats the fun of it, it never ends. I never get tired of being out there. It's my therapy from a crazy schedule. I don't like winter, because it's so long til spring, but I'm thumbing through seed catalogs, planning a new venture... vegetables. Hang in there people, life isn't that bad, the curves thrown our way, makes us stronger. Thank God that he gave you another day, because you never know what may happen.

For me, the hardest thing was getting impatient to see progress, since everything is completely new here, except for a few trees, etc. At least the weather was actually relatively cooperative, compared to the extremes in a lot of the rest of the country. Tho I could do without the mosquitos that the recent weeks of rain brought out!

Well I would have to say it was a so...so gardening season. Just to re-cap. First when the snow disappeared, I found vole holes and damage everywhere in my garden. Lilies blooming this season were few and far between....so many lily shreds. The nan-king cherry was replaced...with two....one looks like it didn't make it...not sure why. The two roses that I replaced with just 1, turned out to be miss labeled. We had lots of hail each month of the summer....lots of storms and so much rain. Then to top that off we also had frost each month as well. What is so amazing is that most of the plants in my garden, want to grow. Most of them seemed to bounce back and keep going and flowering, even if a little worse for wear. There were a few that didn't make it, but hey, you can't do much about the weather. There also seemed to be fewer pests this year. The start of the season, there were way to many aphids...but I guess they didn't like the weather. Snicker ;-))) What really liked the wet stormy weather was the slugs.....way to many...slimey ickys. Grab a slug, Fling a slug...STOMP STOMP STOMP. Thats the slug dance in case you see me doing that as I walk around my yard. :O Mosquitos and little black flys are just horrible around here from end of May till end of July...so its not so bad at this time of year...just a few around.

My garden season is just about finished. I have already dumped out some of the planters..to get a head start on the fall cleanup. This year, will make sure that everything is cleaned up and the grass cut short and the weed whacking done right up till the snow flys to try to prevent the vole damage next spring...hopefully I won't see that much damage again next spring...or ever again for that matters.

Okay it may have been one of the worst gardening seasons, I have seen so far.....but there is always the hope and promise of the next seaon to come. Now how long before the seed catalogues start comming in. :-)

Sierra

It was/still is an interesting gardening year. As many of you know we had a very dry summer in addition to a hard freeze this spring. As a result - my garden looks rather pitiful. Whatever survived - looks OK, and I am grateful for that.
The good thing is I have built a nice flower bed (and survived the process! :-)), and made an addition to my backyard patio.
And that's a good thing!
Yes, I may not be able to gather nice big bouquets as I usually do this time of the year, - there is another growing season next spring. So, I enjoy whatever there is in my garden today - hummingbirds, relaxing on the swings, the tough roses that survived and are shooting out new growth, rain, a single fig on my fig tree, even apple-less apple tree that survived. All of my trees that miraculously survived being on a water-free diet. I am grateful for all of that.
~Natalie

Gardens are always a mixed bag. My roses were healthier than average this year, due no doubt to the drought. That will cause problems if it continues, as is quite possible. Our tomatoes were the best ever. We simply cannot eat them all. I keep making tomato sauce, and am in bliss over that, since homemade tomato sauce is one of my all time favorite foods. Some of my new planting schemes pleased me, though they need to be tweaked. The hobbit garden was lovely at its peak, but needs to have shorter sunflowers and fewer plants over all next year. And the herbs need to go in the front where I can pick them more easily. I've just finished a first pass at cleanup of that bed, taking out those annuals that were past their prime. It was a bad year for the apricot tree, riddled with brown rot from I think two springs ago when we got heavy rain. I pretty much ignored this tree last year since it didn't bear any fruit, and am paying the price for my neglect now. I just finished a radical pruning and spraying with copper. It was also a bad year for my favorite beans, pretty well destroyed by gophers. We're working on that problem.

While I'm excited about the two grapevines I just planted to cover the arbor on the back patio, the peak of my garden year may well be discovering how delicious was the fruit on my mulberry tree. I think next year I will make preserves from it, and perhaps marmalade from the kumquat tree as well.

All in all it has been a good year. I'm most grateful that the wildfire in the hills three miles from our house last week was put out after burning only 150 acres, unlike the one across the bay that has now consumed 14,000 acres and is still growing. It certainly put things in perspective for me!

Rosefolly

I would have to say this was a mostly good year...and still is! My morning glories are just now taking off. This is the first year (after many years of trying) that I have gotten my Heavenly Blue morning glories to bloom and WOW! I love the color! My roses are beautiful and put on quite a show this year. My newly planted Strike it Rich rose has soared to ridiculous heights this summer and will have to be moved in this coming winter. Sadly, after a stellar spring performance I had to rip out and toss my beloved Cherry Parfait rose due to rust. It was really bad this year and this rose seems to be prone to rust in my garden. She was the star of my garden and I am having a hard time trying to decide what I can put in her place that will have the same WOW! impact that she did...only without the rust.
My raspberry bush is full this year and if I can beat the kids out to the bush I may just get one or two of them before the season is over. We are planning on planting a fruit tree this year but are having a hard time coming to an agreement on which kind of fruit. Oh well, I guess that means we will have to get two! ;-)
~Melissa

Our year started off great but too warm and then the mid to southern part of the state got zapped by a very, very hard freeze. All fruit in the state was wiped out, peaches, strawberries, brambles, apples, blueberries, grapes, you name it. Garden-wise my early garden was OK. It did set back the clematis which froze to the ground, the roses first bloom was gone and I did loose completely one rose; it just didn't come back. All perennials had to start all over again. Of course the early bloomers like iris were gone. Then to make matters worse, we got very heavy rains and I lost maybe half the iris due to rot. All in all, not a super gardening year.