Memorial Day Photos

The July Fourth photos are traditional, these are not, but they're still fun.  As always, click on any image for the larger version.

The lawn is doing OK, but the lack of sunlight has cost it some color.  It'll recover without any issues, and I'd rather have less sun and more rain than a drought!



The gardens have grown noticeably in two weeks, although the zinnia have been a bit of a battle.  They seem to have a fungus.



The Yellow Knockout Rose blossomed beautifully this year!



The ageratum are just getting started.  Year by year, they get a little taller as they revert to type, so at some point I'm going to have to jettison the ones I have and buy new seeds.



Profusion zinnia (Flame, in this case) always do well around here.  This one is just getting going for the season, but it's already filling a quarter of the pot.

Excessive Heat

We just came through our first heat wave here, with temperatures reaching an unofficial 95° on Thursday.  I had just finished planting the gardens the week before.

Losses were reasonably heavy, about 35 plants out of 700 or so.  I ended up replacing those with things I purchased locally, mostly Durango and Safari marigolds and some coleus for both sunnier and shadier areas.

And those losses were after running cooldown watering in the afternoon for two to three minutes, plus watering more heavily an hour or so before sunset.  Unfortunately, it simply got too hot too fast.

Repel Garden Rabbits

I have families of rabbits living under my Thuja, with the consequence that it's open season on the gardens until they mature a bit (I plant flowers, not vegetables, but the damage is still very bad).

Over time, I've looked up and cooked up a homemade repellant that works fairly well. Here it is:

In a one quart sprayer (or multiply by four for a 1 gallon sprayer, and so on):

1 tsp Tabasco sauce
1/2 tsp dish soap
1/4 tsp white Elmer's glue (optional but very helpful) (distasteful to rabbits, and helps the solution stick)
1 tsp Neem oil (optional but extremely helpful) (helps the solution stick and mildly distasteful to rabbits)

Spray plants lightly; no need to soak the leaves. 1.5 quarts covers 2,000 square feet of flower garden around here. Reapply after moderate or heavier rainfall, this should stick through light showers.

Soybean Meal Down

I fed the lawn right around the first of May but neglected to blog about it.  If you were waiting for me to announce the feeding, you're still in good time, though!  The window is very wide.

I applied 15 pounds per thousand square feet, and dropped the GrubEx at the same time.

I fed the gardens yesterday with 9 pound of Milorganite per thousand square feet and 12.5 pounds of soybean meal per thousand square feet.  Since I have 2,000 square feet of garden, it works out to half a bag of each.  I'll use the other half around the first of June.

May Photos

I've really been negligent about posting photos this year, so I made sure to take some late yesterday after I finished the gardens.

Here's the standard lawn photo.  The lawn recovered beautifully from last year's drought, with a little help and some judicious applications of urea.


The gardens are in but these are Day 1 photos.  They're always a bit sad looking until the plants establish and start to grow.  The light brown edge on the gardens is where I've killed the grass to re-establish the edge.  The light brown in the gardens is the soybean meal to feed the gardens!