We really aren't caught up on rain yet, but certainly are in much better shape that before. Others around us have been getting the heavy rains of 3-5 inches. The grass has greened up and I had to mow again and need to again, but DH thinks I should let it go longer because of the long-term drought.

The veg garden is about finished...few straggler tomatoes until frost but that is about it.

Flowers in bloom still: various rudbeckias, Becky daisy, verbena Homestead purple, annual vincas and melampodium, annual salvias, salvia Black and Blue (a surprise return), a few phlox, zinnias and cosmos, my rudbeckia Goldsturm looks dead, still a neat busy type hollyhock in pink and the odd rose here and there.

This is that time of year when my interest begins to wane. I have cleaned out one bed that had lots of dead stuff. Still waiting for a cool-down to start relocating plants.

Speaking of members we haven't heard from in a while.....has anyone heard from Enchanted Place in Oklahoma? She hasn't posted in a while.

gld

Undoubtably I have more weeds than anyone!More than I usually have.Too hot! Too dry for too long.We have had some rain finally.Speaking of people we haven't heard from-has anyone seen "Strong"? He was supposed to have surgery after Baker Creek in the spring.I still have tomatoes and have had a few grapes-they have a disease-haven't had any for years,wonder if the dry weather has helped.My flowers are sparse but the dahlias are coming on.Does anyone have a way to kill grass in the driveway without using poison?Posy Pet

Well,we're expecting a cold spell after several days of triple digit temps....2 days of 98-99 then back to some more triple digits.

Had to spend a good bit of time outside yesterday after my 4 boston terriers got a good spraying by a skunk 5:30am yesterday and ran in the house before I knew what happened.I stayed out until almost 2 with doors open and fans going. They won't be allowed out before daybreak ever again and will be confinded to there run right outside the computer room door until it's light outside and I can see nothing is lurking in the yard for them to find.

Not much going on in the way of gardening but watching the weeds and lawn creep into the flowerbeds where it'll stay until weather cools off.

Not much going on in veggie garden other than okra that got planted late and just now getting pods big enough to harvest.Volunteer cukes are producing cukes out the whazoo. Plenty of squash sweet dumpling coming off,another volunteer plant. I've been experimenting with lasanga beds. Must say they have been producing well.Left one Juliet grape standing to have treats for my duck and geese but it's almost done. Rest of the garden had been pulled up and covered in black plastic to kill off grass and weeds so I can soon start a cool weather crop.

Still lots of flowers blooming but with this heat...darned if I care to go look and see what...other than the monster south african foxglove right at the front patio that's taking over the world.

Right now it's mostly dragging sprinklers around and keeping plants in greenhouses watered. Lost my muse for working in the yard but expect to find it again once tempts are down.

Look forward each year to preparing yard for winter.After the frantic,blousey and bright season of flowereing and fruiting with the air full of the hum and twitter of tiny winged liverstock making merry amongst the blossoms,there something serene and calming about the yard once the pernnials are pruned back and annuals long gone to the great compost pile in the sky with beds once again neatly edged and looking sharp and neat with their winter coverlet of pinestraw.

PP

We are green again but don't think the moisture goes down to far. Will soon be able to tell as I have done a couple of daylily trades and will need to dig (6) and divide soon to mail them out.

My tomatoes taste better now, not great, but better than the earlier ones. They have about all ripened and not many green ones left.

The crepe myrtles I have seen have really been lush and beautiful this year. I have just one-Watermelon red- and it is still blooming right along. Weigela and Red Cascade mini rose are reblooming. Butterfly bushes-pink, white, blue and yellow-add a nice splash of color and the sedums are beginning to color up. Mums, asters and goldenrod still to bloom. Still have several perennials and annuals that are blooming and the potted plants are overflowing--look really good. Wish I had a way to take them through the winter--- Variegated lantana, sun coleus, lime green, black and tri-color potato vines, rubrum grass, mexican heather, iresine 'Bloodleaf', alternanthera 'Party Time' and plectranthus 'Mona Lavender' A cousin has a greenhouse/nursery so one option is to take them to him and let him take cuttings to take through the winter and will get starts from him next spring.

My inbox weather report had pretty good percentages for rain today and tomorrow. Hope they are accurate!!

We got almost 4/10 today. I'd love to put the hoses away for the year but last year I did that too early. September was very dry.
I tried to find a recent post from EnchantedPlace and couldn't find one. It's been a couple of weeks. Hope everything is ok. Are you there EP?
Susy - I'm growing sweet potato vines this year for the first time and was wondering if I could overwinter them somehow. Has anyone been successful at that? I accidently broke off a piece and stuck it back in the same container on my porch with using rooting hormone and it rooted. That was easy. I could have plenty of these if I could figure out how to get them through the winter.
I put sun coleus, sweet potato vine and ducksfoot coleus in the container below. I also planted a 'Blackie' sweet potato vine in there after I took this picture and the lime green one that's in there has grown a bunch since then. I guess I should take another picture of it. The sun coleus still looks the same. Maybe that one would've done better in the ground.

Didn't have much to say, so havent posted, but i've just got to answer! dont your sweet potato vine have a "sweet potato" in the dirt? mine did, year before last, that i overwintered, just like a potato. last year, i didnt put everything in peat, so i lost most. least, i hope they do, cause i have georgeous black, and a chartruse vines.
we still havent had much rain, we got less than a quarter inch last night, but grateful for any. has anyone notice how the colors have brightened since a lil rain?
my dahlias, zinnias, snapdragons, even mandevilla vine has such deep colors now, even the crepe myrtles. seems well water just dont do what rain does.
garden still going, perhaps if the heat lessens, i wont be picking cooked tomatoes. cucumbers slowing, but hope to keep them going till cooler weather.
still havent found hay for winter, man i bought from last year dosent have it.understand its going to be high, pricewise.
enjoy the day!

I was reading about how to save the sweet potato and might as well try. Also read that you can keep the vines in the house over the winter but they will be spindly so it's good to just root new cuttings from the spindly growth and throw the old stuff away in the spring.
Yolanda and Pam - Are you expecting rain soon? Just wondered if you're both doing ok. Katrina is looking more and more scary.

We are doing home maintainence and have been unplugged. Thanks for thinking of us. Still a way to go but it's a nice improvement. We've had enough rain to keep the plants beautiful. EP

EP, glad to hear all is well and you have just been busy!

Boy, the heat is back with a vengeance here! I need to finish mowing, but the grass is too wet in the morning and it's too hot in the afternoon.......what is a body to do!

I decided today to finally paint all the trim in the dining room. We had new windows put in three years ago and I still hadn't painted them! I kept telling myself I was deciding on whether to paint or stain. Went the easiest route....just painting the color the trim is now so I don't have to replace all that trim. Of course, that means I have to redo all the rest so the colors will be exactly the same. I think I can finish up tomorrow. The added plus is the dr will be clean from top to bottom...at last.

I got an email from Flynn's Daylilies that she didn't want to ship my order because they had gone into early (no leaves) dormancy because of the hot, dry weather. I had a choice of having the check returned or having them shipped next Spring. I chose Spring.....procrastination.....now I can figure where to put them. I have never ordered from them before.

Not much else going on here. We are just biding time until cooler weather.

gld

Rain...Glorious Rain yesterday but boy,Howdy did we get some bad winds. Now I get to prop up or crop down a lot of my monster plants just so I can get thru the walkways. Rained too hard in a short time so most ran off but it did drop temps 20%.After the storm had settled a bit,drove the main road in and clear fallen trees off the road. Predicted for another round of storms today.

Lots of pots and trays from the nursery blown across the yard,plants to sit back up and untold numbers of limbs and debris to pick up.

Suppose to go load hay today but maybe too wet.

PP

Just wanted to let everyone know that at the present time that Hurricane Katrina has made landfall and that New Orleans is under the gun at present time. As for my location which is in the central portion of the state we are seeing an increase in the wind and later today is predicted to increase but not anywhere close to what is happening in Southeast Louisiana and Southwest Mississippi at this time.

I think I'm having a drought again. : ( Can't believe how quickly things are drying out after such good rains awhile back (doesn't seem like it was THAT long ago) and just not very enthusiastic about dragging the hose around again. ugh

EP - glad to hear from you. Seems like home maintenance is a never ending thing doesn't it. I have a whole list of things we need to do.

Yolanda - Glad to hear you're doing ok and thanks for checking in. What a horrible situation there is in New Orleans. My kids' school is collecting money so we donated but feel like I'd like to be helping to get people out of there or something and that money is not enough. Also sending lots of prayers and hope everyone is doing what they can to help. I'm afraid there will be many people that lived through the hurricane that will die before they're rescued there.

Still haven't heard from Pam but she may be fine. I don't know what part of Florida she is in - will send her an email. Maybe she is just busy getting ready to move.

I went out this evening to check the humming bird feeders. We use th Best One feeders which have a continual perch around the bottom part of the feeder. A tiny male hummer had become lodged in between the perch and the feeder. Another hummer was perched on a nearby shrub. I gently pushed up undeneath the 'caught' bird, it became free and both flew away. The immature males have small red dots on the center part of the throat. This past week I have been watching one, apparently practicing to become a 'dominant male' and chasing away others approaching the feeder. In the gardens they have been zooming about and doing their up and down flights. The red salvia is the favorite nectar plant. The Mexican bush sage is beginning to bloom and the blue bedder has been blooming all summer. They also explore the other flowers. This afternoon just a few feet from a window I observed a goldfinch perched on a zinnia, with a hummer nearby, and several butterflies. The gold finches pick the petals from the zinnias to get to the seed centers. They will return, perch on the bare seed centers and pick at the seed. Earlier in the summer I cut some of the tall garden phlox back about half way. It is now blooming, later than the other phlox that was left alone, and is a sturdier , bushier plant. A little weeding and watering in morning before it gets too hot is about the extent of the gardening right now. We are continuing work on the interior maintainence. EP

I have already begun my fall chores of cleaning out some flower beds and the garden. They looked so bad, I just started cutting and pulling things. Christie, that is the Ozarks for you; we are so rocky that the rain just goes down very quickly. We are severely dry here again too and I watered some trees yesterday and also the newly set roses.

The mole runs are so bad, the water doesn't run far, just disappears down a mole hole! Don't know if I am getting much good from the water or not.

The yard has certainly gone into the fall mode. Mowing and trimming are much less now. I am not sorry about that.

EP, glad to see you back. I just finished painting the trim in the dining room. It took about two days. Sure glad to get that done. We have lots of outside trim on some of the outbuildings to do, but will wait for cooler weather to complete that.

We are still feeding the birds, both the good, bad and the ugly! The grackles thought the waterer I was using around one of the trees was their private spa......they were really enjoying it.

I finally found a few Monarch butterfly larvae on one of the milkweed plants. We still haven't had the number of butterflies that we normally do. Also, I noticed a tremendous amount of seed pods on the asclepias tuberosa. The entire top is just full of pods. I wonder if they ever self-seed?

Checked out Lowes this week, but they had very few sales on anything in the garden department. I need a few evergreens for around the foundation at the back door.

Glad to hear you are ok Yolanda. We keep watching the news and are just astounded by everything. I just want to see someone get some food and water to those folks on the highway by the SuperDome! Where are the FEMA people? They need someone to monitor the news to find some of these pockets of desperation. The women with tiny babies just really break my heart. Let's hope millions is raised by all the upcoming concerts and drives.

gld

The home improvements are continuing. Partner is very competent but 'hired help' very undependable. My job is cleaning up and trying to keep things 'normal'. I plan to 'retire' from commenting for awhile so there is no need for concern. We try to keep up with current events when we have time. Everything is bright and beautiful here. EP