Can anything good be said of August?
It's as hot as blue blazes and as humid as a laundry, it hardly ever rains and we still have September to get through. Can anything good be said of August?
Well, we pretty well know what will really take full sun; Angelonia ...
And Baja fairy duster. (The saucer is filled with mud for the mud daubers)
Lots of things have reached their full potential, at least how and where they are planted in our gardens; Plumeria. Don't miss Sport the poodle who complains that Alfie gets all the attention nowadays ...
Red porter weed ...
Vines are setting seeds; Love in a puff ...
Dry land plants are proving they can really take dry land and look good; Guayacan from Eric in the foreground ...
Other plants are showing us they can't; note the umbrella. It's shading the spring planted Althea from wilting in the afternoon sun ...
And then there's Alfie. He says, "Mommie, I can take anything except that big black dog that chases me at the dog park" ...
So what good thing can you say about August?
Comments (20)
Dragonfly Hollow (z7b,North Texas)
6 years agoroselee z8b S.W. Texas thanked Dragonfly Hollow (z7b,North Texas)Related Discussions
Hey, it's August already. What looks good/bad in your garden?
Comments (46)Awesome new pics and updates everyone! I'm glad lots of folks got some good, soaking rains too. Last Thursday afternoon I was caught in the heaviest downpour I've ever seen here in over 12 years. Amazing! Tons of rain water in my rain barrel right now, and it only collects from about 20% of the roof surface! Mary, you should definitely get some rain lilies, they're just so easy and they absolutely do not need to be on life support (automatic irrigation)! Just plant them, water them once every ten days or so when they seem active, and forget them. They're great, and so easy! Congrats on your pumpkin bloom, Xica, so nice! Keep us posted! Thanks for the nice comments on my little blog, it's a fun little outlet for me. Oh, you can plant those desert bluebells (Phacelia campanularia) any time, but when I am introducing them into a garden for the first time I wait until November to sprinkle them around the garden. They'll pop up in late winter and bloom in spring. Once you let some go to seed, you'll never need to plant them again, LOL. Awesome pics and plants as always, dlg421! I love your garden! Great that it got a nice rain too. I noticed a few mushrooms popping up in my garden too, LOL. Fun! Okay, it's September now, so I'll see everyone in the September thread! Thanks for sharing your gardens with everyone, it's wonderful to see/hear what's going on in your gardens! Take care and happy gardening, Grant Here is a link that might be useful: Happy September 2012 what looks good/bad in your garden?...See MoreWhat looks good in August?
Comments (26)This is a question I wrestle with around this time every year. I like to use mainly perennials, so that narrows my choices a lot. Anyway here's what's blooming in my back border. Starting with the heliopsis and going clockwise, monkshood, phlox, anise hyssop,Lorraine Sunshine helopsis, pearly everlasting, daylily, veronica, campanula. I had planned on potted dahlias providing a punch of colour, but the slugs are destroying them. Toward the back.....a solid coloured monkshood, daylilies, heliopsis, and climbing the fence in the back corner, wild cucumber. In my front island bed.....achillea Parker's variety, potentilla in the background, rudbeckia Tiger Eye, dahlia, gazania, pansies and eryngium. There's also a solidago but it isn't blooming yet. Pudge, this is a different variety of yarrow than you showed. Does yours self-seed quite a bit? I also have a different clump of yellow clump of yarrow that has never wandered or seeded. I wish I knew what it was....See MoreIs there anything more to be said about shelf liners?
Comments (18)Sallysue: or lending dh! OK - here's something more to say; sort of. That Cushy Cupboards stuff is seriously weird. Or at least un-American or something; the company that is. Who's ever heard of such a good product, then, having zero shelf space? I mean, before I shell out at least 30% more for a product of questionable necessity to begin with, I do want to see it, and not at my own expense. That's why there are retail stores (the "not at my own expense" part is wrong of course; it is and comes in their markup). So I was curious as to why it isn't available hardly anywhere. No 'contact us' on the website but there is an LLC name; I googled that and called ... someone's condo's kitchen I think! I spoke with a very nice man who is the seller of it, wouldn't tell me how the stuff comes to exist (his prerogative not to, but I'm curious all the same), explained he has no distributor, but why he doesn't just drive north for an afternoon to Ground Zero of consumerism on the globe, which is about 50 miles north of him (cf Whole Foods Parking Lot of earlier), I just don't get. "Not in the plans". OK, I suppose that doesn't make you weird, but it sure makes you a curiosity in 21st century America. Geesh, you'd think at least VT Country Store? Why sell a product if you're not going to sell it? Probably, somehow, he just happens to have the stuff, maybe, and a friend runs DeNaults, maybe, or something? ... I dunno. Not my business, obviously. But it's awfully hard for me to shell out all that moola w/o seeing it, especially given qualms about using anything at all. Oh well, what a curiosity. I assumed it had to be some sort of space-program spinoff, the material that is. When I suggested that possibility the puzzlement on the other end of the phone line was palpable; guess not! Destined to remain an enigma....See MoreWe said Good-bye to our beloved Smudge today....
Comments (69)Lily, in 2015, he developed hyper-thyroid. He was losing weight, yet ate all the time, and also drank more water. I suspected the thyroid or diabetes. He was on medication and strict blood-work monitoring to check his T levels. Did you know that cats hoarking fur-balls isn't normal? I thought it was. That can be attributed to IBD (irritable bowel disease). He got that as well. Prednisone helped with that. I also gave him slippery elm bark that I mixed into a syrup which soothes their intestines. A lot of animals use this to help with digestive issues. The past few weeks, he drank too much water and peed it all out. Nothing I gave him, he had any desire to eat. He'd eat just morsels of food. I was giving him food several times/day and it was very inconvenient, but just to get him to eat enough. Everything from raw, $3 tins of cat food to kitty-crack (Fancy Feast). I didn't care what he ate, as long as he ate something. Often he'd turn his nose up at it, and I had several opened tins of food in the frig. He developed Stage 2 kidney disease a couple of months ago. Age is a bitch, for pets and humans alike....See Moreroselee z8b S.W. Texas
6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
B in 8a DFW
6 years agoGetting lots of reblooms on Daylilies, including Spiderman. Also, infested with baby geckos.
roselee z8b S.W. Texas thanked B in 8a DFWroselee z8b S.W. Texas
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoB, what a beautiful daylily. Love the photo of the almost transparent baby gecko!
Since Todd commented on the guayacan I'll post another couple of photos for him to see as well as others who might be interested. This is Guaiacum angustifolium passed along by Eric in 2015. It was perhaps 16 inches tall. It is now 4 ft tall ...
A sack of decomposed granite and some pea gravel was dug into the raised bed before planting. I like how the tiny dark green leaves contrast with the light colored stems. It hasn't bloomed yet ...
Guayacan Coulteri was purchased from Rainbow Gardens in 2014. It is bushier and thicker foliaged than our Texas native variety.
It was about 2 1/2 to 3 ft. tall when nipped back to about a foot tall during the 2 day freeze last Feb. Officially the temps were 18 degrees. My yard is in a low spot and it's usually a couple of degrees colder. It was not covered. It bloomed once with a very dark purple flower last year ...
I love the easy tried and true plants, but it's fun to have a few out of the ordinary plants to test. What are some of the more unusual plants you've tried that are thriving in the landscape?
mamachile
6 years agoWhat beautiful plants and garden? I have neglected ours this year and the squirrels have been chewing stuff. There was only one persimmon left to ripe on the branch.
User
6 years agomamachile
6 years agoklem1
6 years agoroselee z8b S.W. Texas
6 years ago
Vulture61