The best survivor on our property was Gomphrena (Globe amaranth) "Strawberry Fields". We have received slightly over 14" of rain in 2011 and it has received no irrigation because it is 300' from the house. The gomphrena bloomed all summer long, finally dying out last week. Other really tough plants that did well all year but received some irrigation are these: four o'clocks, portulaca, Texas hummingbird sage, autumn sage, 'Laura Bush' petunia, datura, verbena bonariensis, malva sylvestris 'Zebrina' and 'Mystic Merlin', morning glories, Texas Red Star Hibiscus and Swamp Mallow (but only because the Mallow received steady irrigation). The trumpet creeper vines that received some water near the house bloomed all summer long, but the trumpet creeper and American Cross Vine that were too far from the house to irrigate hung on and survived but haven't bloomed very well. The coral honeysuckle 'Pink Lemonade' looked good until about mid-August but has gone downhill since then. I'm not sure it will survive if rain doesn't fall soon. All the pasture grasses dried and either went dormant or died. The Johnson grass, which is a horrible weed just about as annoying as bermuda grass, lasted longest and I doubt any of it is actually dead though it definitely is dormant. The bermuda grass around the house didn't die, but didn't look good even though it received some irrigation. With a lot of the trees in the woodland that have dropped their leaves and gone dormant early, we won't know until next year if they've survived. I think most of the large trees will be fine if it rains some this fall and winter, but a lot of the smaller understory trees may not make it. The hoped-for autumn rains haven't really materialized here although there's been some patchy, scattered showers here and there, so everything is in pretty bad shape. Normally we'll get 3.5 to 4" of rain in September and we've had only 0.7" this month, so everything still looks dry and pitiful and we continue to have grass fires, brush fires and wild fires. Most of our native grasses and plants in the pastures scorched, dried out and went dormant or died this summer. They received no irrigation. The toughest survivors (some of them actually greened up and began blooming after they received 1.2" of rainfall in August) included greenthread daisy, lazy daisy, liatris, goldenrod, native sunflowers and frogfruit. The frogfruit plants in the front pasture lasted all summer, until temps in the 112-115 range finally got to them in early to mid-August, but the frogfruit plants that received a slight amount of moisture in a location close to the wildlife feeding area stayed in bloom until early September. They're still green but aren't blooming. The toughest shrubs were the Burford hollies, native Possumhaw hollies, sumac and southern wax myrtles but they all received some irrigation. The trees that tolerated the drought with the least damage were the native Red Oaks, post oaks, burr oaks, pecan trees (they, along with the native persimmons, did better than anything else), desert willow and chaste tree. The native roughleaf dogwood did fine in partial shade, and not so well in full sun. Older, larger and more well-established trees showed drought stress but little damage. Younger trees stressed much earlier and some have dropped leaves and gone into dormancy early as a drought survival mechanism. Lambsquarters did great even where not irrigated as did, unforunately, the pigweed. Basil, rosemary, catnip and mint held on longer than any of the other herbs, but ultimately the heat and drought killed them. Well, with mint you never really know---we'll see if it comes back next year. In the veggie garden, the tomatoes that produced best were those planted earliest. The plants put in containers in February and carried into the garage at night produced ripe fruit beginning in late April and continuing through late June or early July. The tomato plants put into the ground in earliest April produced very well before the heat got to them in late June or early July. Any tomato plants that went into the ground later than early April didn't set and ripen much fruit before the temps got too hot for fruit set in late May. The container tomatoes that produced well were Big Boy, Better Boy, Husky Red Cherry and Big Beefsteak. The best producers from the early April plantings were Early Goliath, Cluster Goliath, Goliath, JD's Special C-Tex, Gary 'O Sena, SunGold, Ildi, Jaune Flammee', Russian Persimmon, Mountain Magic, Black Cherry and Matt's Wild Cherry. Even though I haven't watered the garden since late July, one SunGold plant has held on stubbornly and survived and is still producing fruit, albeit they are smaller than usual. Their flavor is great too. I've never been impressed with any of the heat-set type tomatoes. They are bred to set fruit in slightly higher temperatures, but their flavor always has been poor in my garden. The best heat-set type I ever grew was Merced, but it was taken off the market a few years ago. Other veggies that produced well in the heat were onions, potatoes and lettuce in the cool-season crop category, and okra, sweet corn, green beans, southern peas, cukes, watermelons, muskmelons and peppers in the warm-season category. Nothing but the okra produced much after I stopped irrigating in July but I had planted everything pretty early so got good early crops. I planted a lot of interesting tomato varieties from Brad Gates' Wild Boar Farms but they went into the ground later than the varieties listed above so didn't get a chance to set many fruit before the heat got to them. I'll try them again next year. I still have lima beans growing in a cattle trough near the barn and they are blooming and setting beans. They have received regular irrigation, and when they are through producing I will replace them with lettuce and other salad greens for winter. Hopefully the arrival of the cold front late yesterday marked the end of summer weather for us down here. Now, if only rain will fall....but none is in our 7-day forecast. We have had some cooler, milder weather in September, but hit 107 earlier this month and it was 102 degrees yesterday before the cold front finally made it this far south. I'm going to overseed the lawn with rye grass today and overseed one pasture with a deer forage mix in the hopes that I can irrigate both of them enough to get the seed to germinate and the plants to grow. We still have a lot of snake activity, with the ones I'm seeing the most lately being the Timber Rattlers and the non-venomous rough green snakes and the racers. So, with the Rattlers out and prowling around, I haven't started any garden cleanup yet. Obviously, with the extreme heat, drought and wildfires, I didn't plant a fall garden at all. I'm ready for October and ready for 2012---assuming rain falls in decent amounts in 2012. The local stores have pansies, ornamental kale, and snapdragons out in the garden centers but it is still too hot to plant them here. I always look at them and then sigh and walk away. Even if I planted any of them, the deer would get them....and I can't blame the deer because they're really hungry. I'll probably plant some amaryllis and paper white bulbs in pots indoors around early November just so I'll have something growing.

Fertilizer plan for pots is tricky, since potting soil doesn't have trace elements like in-the ground soil. Pots leach out nutrients with frequent watering. Pots accumulate the alkalinity of tap-water, and pots become more alkaline in hot & dry climate. The ratio of nutrients is important. Re-post what U. of CA found in rose-tissue: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7465.html For low-ratios, it would be 3 Nitrogen, 2 Potassium, and 0.2 Phosphorus, plus 1 Calcium and 0.25 magnesium. For ppm it would be 50 iron, 30 manganese, 30 boron, 15 zinc, and 5 copper. Re-post the outline which I wrote for Carol in 2015 regarding fertilizer plan for pots. Tomato-Tone is better than Rose-Tone since it has more of the expensive green sand for potassium, plus gypsum for calcium. I always put a couple of earthworms inside my pots, and some organics on top to feed them. Tomato-Tone NPK is 3-4-6, with 8% calcium, contains Bio-tone®, Espoma proprietary blend of beneficial microbes. ONCE A MONTH in hot & dry weather: Tomato Tone NPK 4-3-6 to supply the trace elements of zinc, copper, and boron in chicken manure. Plant Tone is cheaper and works the same. ONCE A MONTH in rainy weather: Pea Gravel & red-lava-rock to supply the calcium & magnesium & trace-elements. That's to fulfill the high-ratios of nutrients in rose tissue in %: 5 nitrogen, 3 potassium, 0.3 phosphorus, 1.5 calcium, and 0.35 magnesium. For ppm it would be 250 manganese, 150 iron, 15 copper, 50 zinc, and 60 boron. Below is Yves-seedling, which I grew from a tiny-seed in 2012, it's 7-months old in 5 hours of morning sun. MG-moisture control potting soil is used. Jobes NPK 2-7-4 is mixed into the potting soil for beneficial bacteria. It's watered 3 times a week with tiny amount of sulfate of potash (21% sulfur at NPK 0-0-50) together with gypsum (calcium sulfate with 17% sulfur) to lower my high pH tap-water. I don't like the high urea, high salt of MG-soluble, so I used a tiny bit of high-phosphorus Bloom-Booster (lower salt-index) for trace elements. Lots of buds (more than 5) on a 7-month-old baby grown from seed. Potassium and calcium, plus phosphorus are needed for solid-root-growth to survive my 5a winter (I transfer roses from pots to ground before winter hit). Below is Excellenz Von Schubert that Seaweed in CA grew In full-sun, fertilized with fish emulsion. Seaweed uses Gardner & Bloom organic potting soil for EVS rose, it blooms lots for her, despite her low annual rainfall of 11" per year: Here's the ingredients in Gardner & Bloom potting soil for the above pot that Seaweed used: "INGREDIENTS: Recycled forest products, bark fines, peat moss, perlite, sand, composted chicken manure, alfalfa meal, bone meal, oyster shell & dolomite limes (as pH adjusters), worm castings, bat guano, kelp meal." http://www.kellogggarden.com/products/gborganics/soils/?s=rose-flower-planting-mix

Sugar snaps and snow peas give you quite a bit of bang for the space, especially if you already have trellises set up from summer pole beans or cukes or whatever. I don't do shelling peas, but we usually have the snaps and snows coming out of our ears - which is just fine, everyone here loves them. We just plant them in place of the pole beans once they come out.

Hello, Terry. I typically do not worry if I get no blooms on the first growing season as I prefer that the plant develop a good root system instead. But if your description of your zone is correct, I may have bad news. Northern Minn (USDA Zone 3) is too cold for ESs or any type of hydrangea macrophylla for that matter... :o( This would result in poor blooming and even plant (root) death. I am not sure if the roots of a hydrangea macrophylla can withstand Zone 3 winters (since the originators of ES say it is not hardy enough) so please consider growing ES in pots or -better yet- growing hydrangea paniculatas as these may provide more reliable blooming. ES is advertised as being hardy only up to USDA Zone 4. See ES and zone info here: http://www.endlesssummerblooms.com/the-collection/the-original http://mynortherngarden.com/2012/01/25/big-changes-for-minnesota-in-new-hardiness-zone-map/ Know that you have company with blooming issues though. A lot of people post questions about ES not blooming at all in zones lower/colder than USDA 6 so, you are not the only one. Like I said earlier, I normally would not worry about lack of blooms. But still, on year one, no bloomage is a bit odd as plant nurseries want to display the shrubs with blooms so customers will buy the plants. If your plants were leftover inventory from last year (2015) that you bought in Spring 2016, bloomage in Spring 2016 may have been wiped out by weird weather that we had thanks to El Nin~o. However, I would have expected ES to bloom in the late Summer though. But you know what, I would have expected the plant nursery to sell ES as an annual in your zone. Are you sure that mopheads like ES can grow as perennials where you live? Or are you sure of your zone description? Have you seen other growing ES (mopheads and lacecaps) where you live? I remember that, in this last Winter of 2015-2016, some places were just too cold in 2015-2016 Winter. Other places were too warm and other places got cold, then warm and then cold again... something that could have broken a hydrangea's dormancy, made the shrub go into 'grow' mode when it got warm and then the cold killed the stems and the flower buds before you bought the plants. Then in Spring 2016, they probably woke up and started growing new stems from the base. As a result of cold-warm-cold weather over the winter months, the plant has no way to produce early Spring blooms and you get no "early" Spring bloomage (although I suspect even on a normal winter, you would not get early Spring bloomage anyways... too cold).. The hydrangea stems normally develop invisible flower buds at the end of the stems in July-August and these normally open in the Spring. So last year, in July-August 2015, your ESs -while at the plant nursery- should have developed invisible flower buds and the 2015-2016 winter probably killed the stems. In Spring 2016, the plant then developed new stems, leafed out but, these would not develop flower buds right away. That would occur later, in the late Summer months... So, sometime in the Summer of 2016, the new stems would have developed flower buds again. If all went well, one has to wonder what could have prevented them from developing or opening in the Summer. The worse news is that a lot of people have posted before that they too are not getting bloomage from ES after waiting for several years. This typically is reported by people in Zones 5 or colder. For people in those locations, I usually suggest to give them 1-3 years to develop a larger root system and become established in the garden and yank them if nothing happens. But, I am especially concerned about how the root system will do in such a cold zone as you describe. Which I assume is Zone 3. So, here are other causes for no blooms in no particular order: Pruning live wood in the summer, as the shrubs are about to develop these invisible flower buds, makes you cut off the invisible flower buds that the plant develops in the Summer. Not good so try not to prune stems that are alive. It is 'ok' to prune dead wood that has not leafed out by late May though. Too much fertilizer can keep the plants in "grow" mode, so much so that, they produce nice, dark, very healthy looking green leaves... and no or few blooms. Your plant may have had fertilizer pellets already and if you added a lot of fertilizers with high nitrogen levels, that may have done it. Try a single fertilizer application per year. Say, a 1/2 or 1 cup of cottonseed meal, organic compost or composted manure when they leaf out in the Spring. Optionally you can add liquid seaweed, liquid fish or coffee grounds but stop all fertilizers by the end of June so the plants will go dormant at their appropriate time. If you cannot find these, you can use a slow-release, general purpose, chemical fertilizer with a NPK Ratio of around 10-10-10. The first number is the one for nitrogen so look for a chemical fertilizer that starts with a number around 10. For example, 30-10-10 would provide too much nitrogen. Apply the chemical fertilizer per its label instructions and stop by the end of June. If the plants are in dense shade, that can inhibit flower buds production. If they are planted under a tree whose roots compete for water and food, that can affect bloomage too. Hydrangeas like soil that is evenly moist. Soil that dries out, is re-wet, dries out again can make the plant abort flower buds. Mulch up to the drip line is useful making moisture last long. Give them about 1 gallon (3.8 liters) of water per watering if the soil is dry. There are pests that can eat the flower buds when the buds open. Watch out for squirrels, bunnies, deer. Some eat the flower buds; others eat leaves and flower buds. Sometimes they just eat leaves. These could have impacted bloomage in the Summer. To reliably get bloomage, you may have to go out of the way and very heavily winter protect the shrubs or grow them in containers and bring them into heated/protected rooms during winter. Even better, I would recommend using varieties of hydrangea paniculata as they are more winter hardy (to USDA Zone 3). Paniculatas develop invisible flower buds in mid-to-late Spring to early Summer. So frosts and winter issues are normally a problem for them. Examples: Bobo (very compact), Little Quickfire (compact), Little Lime (compact), Quickfire, Limelight, Pink Diamond, Pinky Winky, are some examples of good paniculatas. I would also go back to the plant nursery to ask what they were thinking of by selling ES there (unless it was in the section where they sell annuals). Or perhaps your zone is actually warmer than typical Zones 3 of northern Minn???