June Blooms

While I wait for my vegetable garden to get going, I'm enjoying a few floral blooms...

This is the best my Endless Summer hydrangeas have ever looked. The plant is healthy and I love how the petal colors go from pink to purple to blue. And I think I finally figured out the secret to getting them to look this good--I left them alone! We've gotten so much rain that I haven't bothered to water or obsess about them, and I think they are thriving now that I'm not loving them too much.

My snapdragons have snapped back too.

And here's a nice surprise: the yellow snapdragons reappeared this year! I didn't see them last year and thought that plant had just died. It's so nice to see this bit of yellow in my flower garden that seems to consist of a lot of pink right now.

The blooms are gone now, but in mid/late May the rhododendron was blooming. This variety is called Besse Howell and she's mighty cute. Besse was accompanied by a few pale pink Gerbera daisy blooms.

Lastly there's the Red Mill Andromeda (Pieris japonica 'Red Mill'). The white blooms are gone now, but what I really like about this beautiful shrub is that its new leaf growth is red. It's a nice addition to my garden.

I'm linking up with May Dreams Garden's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Check out the blog to see what other gardeners have blooming in their gardens this month.

July Bloom Day

There's quite a bit blooming in my garden this July. Some flowers are on my vegetable plants and some are on flowery plants. The Pink Diamond hydrangea tree started to bloom a couple of weeks ago, right on schedule. These flowers turn pink in the Fall, although, with the crazy weather last summer, they didn't turn pink last year. They sort of just went from white to dead. I hope to show you some pink blooms this year.

My orange and yellow marigolds are in the raised box with squash, corn, and watermelon. The squash leaves are so huge that they're covering the flowers. They're still thriving though, and I feel like the squash leaves cover the marigolds so those stupid squirrels can't get to them and snip off the flower heads.

I've shown these bush bean flowers before, but I wanted to show them again because they're so pretty and light purple. I've only harvested a handful of beans but I see more coming!

The cucumber plants are blossoming like crazy and a lot of these tiny yellow flowers have popped up.

Before the rain came today, I saw a lot of pollinators in the garden, mostly bees. These little bees were getting drunk off the pollen (hence the bumble lush name!)

And here's one in a squash blossom. This guy wasn't moving and for a second there I thought I was going to have to pull his dead body out of the flower. But then I saw the little legs stretch and he drunkenly crawled out and slowly flew away.  Get some rest and come back little guy! There's much more work to do.

I'm linking up with Carol's fun Garden Bloggers Bloom Day meme. Stop by to see what's blooming in other's gardens this month.

p.s. Is anyone else excited for the new season of Breaking Bad tonight? I can't wait!!

Few Blooms This June

There aren't too many blooms in my garden this June. The azalea flowers are long gone, but the hydrangeas are at their peak. I've had some difficulties with my hydrangeas in the past, so this year my strategy is to leave them alone--no extra watering, no amendments to make the soil more acidic, nothing.

This is what the Endless Summer looked like in June 2011--tragic!!

I guess my strategy to let them be has paid off. Maybe the amendments I added last year were stored up because for the first time, my Endless Summer hydrangea has more colors than just pink. This year it produced blue and purple as well. I love it! I love blue hydrangeas, and especially love the purple ones that have popped up here and there.

The Brestenburg has always been blue and is blooming more profusely now. Unfortunately it looks like the other Endless Summer, which is in a pot, is suffering from that same fungus as last year.

The only other blooms are the squash blossoms. Some of my tomatoes have flowers, but not as many as I'd like!

Unfortunately, that's it for blooms this June. I've had squirrel problems. They ate my alysuums, had knocked the heads of my marigold, and I've had to start my sunflowers three times because they dug up the seeds. I hope to have some other flowers to show for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day next month.

Stop by May Dreams Gardens to see what's blooming in other gardens.

May Blooms

White Azalea Bush, originally uploaded by Bumble Lush.

As I wait for my vegetable seedlings to get growing (and pray that my neglect over the last few weeks hasn't prevented me from having home-grown veggies this summer), I am enjoying a few blooms around my garden.
First up is the white azalea bush, a late bloomer (just like me!)



The sage plant is flowering with some pretty lavender flowers.





And two of the hydrangeas have started to bloom: the pink and blue Endless Summers. The Brestenburg variety (not pictured) is in a container. It has buds but no blooms yet...

I'm a day early, but I'll be linking up with Carol's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day meme (at May Dreams Gardens). I'm looking forward to seeing what's in bloom in other gardens this month. Happy GBBD!

June Garden Recap

Hard to believe that half the year is gone already! I'm going to recap what's going on in my garden as we finish the month.

Quick update on my hydrangea woes....My internet searching has led me to believe there are multiple problems with my poor Endless Summer: root rot, powdery mildew, and probably some other type of fungus. I haven't had time to address this after work in the evenings, so I'm putting this project off until the weekend.

Now for the good news:

The tomatillos are looking great! I don't want to jinx anything, but all four plants are blooming, I've seen three different kinds of bees buzzing around them pollinating the blooms, and a couple of the plants have fruited. I hope to see continued progress here.

The Black Krim tomato plants have blossoms and are slowly producing fruit. Right now they're very small.

We planted five bush bean seeds and ALL of them germinated this week. I love when that happens!

This year we're growing a new kind of hot pepper--cayenne. The peppers have formed. They look like green beans and are sort of camouflaged. That's all for now. I'm looking forward to a long, relaxing holiday weekend.

Garden Odds and Ends (and Kittens!)

Something weird is going on with my Endless Summer hydrangea plant.

The middle blooms just started drooping and turning brown. So far the online research I've done points to a possible fungus. There are spots on some leaves, but not all of them. I'll do a little more research, but in the meantime, has anyone else seen this? Any advice?

In more positive news, we found a volunteer tomato plant out amongst the weeds beyond our property line. Sometimes we toss half-eaten or rotten tomatoes and squash over the fence and into the weeds and trees where the squirrels, wild rabbits, and birds pick at them. (Side note: If the critters bother to come to the deck to eat my veggies, I wish they would just finish them here). My husband was walking around the common areas of our development over the weekend and noticed this tomato plant. We think it came from the seeds of a tomato we tossed over last summer. He dug it up and put it in a pot; it even has a tomato growing on it! We're not sure what kind of tomato it is, and it doesn't look too good now, but I hope it survives. It's a bonus tomato plant!

3 of the 5 foster kittens

Lastly--posting may be infrequent over the next four weeks. I volunteer at our local animal shelter and we're fostering five adorable stray kittens--three boys and two girls. They're underweight but gaining steadily and super playful, cute, and time consuming. We need to get their weight up and get them used to household noises and being handled by humans before we return them to the shelter so they can go up for adoption. Our resident cat is curious and friendly (and trying to be nonchalant about being so curious). It's going to be extremely difficult to send them back. They're cuter than baby tomatoes!

Spotlight on Hydrangeas

Brestenburg 

Endless Summer hydrangeas in bloom

I have three varieties of hydrangea plants: Brestenburg, Endless Summer, and the newest one, David Ramsey. The Brestenburg are bigleaf hydrangeas, and the blooms tend to be huge puff-balls but they're still small right now. My Endless Summer blooms are fairly small, although occasionally I see some that are bigger than my hand.

Both my Brestenburg and Endless Summer varieties' blooms tend toward pink, but I'm trying to lower the pH of the soil to get them a little bluer (I just find blue flowers to be prettier). To do this, I add special fertilizer designed for blueberries. I could also use coffee grounds to make the soil more acidic. Last year, the color results were better for the Brestenburg since it's in a pot and therefore easier to manipulate the soil. I got some beautiful colors last year. The Endless Summer in the ground got a little purple last year but in the end stayed pink, despite my soil manipulation efforts. So far I've got a nice blend of pink, purple, and pale blue. If the Endless Summer stays pink again this year I think I'll just accept that it wants to be that way and leave it alone.

David Ramsey hydrangea plant

The newest plant is a David Ramsey. This replaces the Endless Summer plant that didn't make it through the winter. I have David Ramsey in a container. I'd never heard of this variety, and it was the only one in the nursery among a bunch of Penny Macs. This plant looked better than the rest, so I chose it. Apparently, the David Ramsey variety is good for cold weather climates, according to this nursery site.  I also bookmarked this site for hydrangea care.

The blooms are looking really good right now, as long as I keep the plants well watered because temps have been close to 100 on the east coast, and everythying is droopy. Happy Weekend!

Endless Summer Hydrangea in Bloom: Wordless Wednesday

The surviving hydrangea finally bloomed

R.I.P. Endless Summer Hydgrangea

endless summer hydrangea (the one that survived)

brestenburg hydrangea - in pot, blooming slowly

hydrangea tree

I have sad news. I lost an Endless Summer hydrangea plant. I'm not sure why; I think the soil where it was planted was bad, as other things I've planted in that spot seemed to grow abnormally. In fact, this one never really grew as well or as prolifically as its sister on the other side of the walk. Weeks ago, while buds were sprouting on one Endless Summer bush, the other remained brittle and just dead looking. Once we finally decided to pull it out, the roots didn't look good either, poor thing.

So I'm down to one Endless Summer (in ground) one Brestenburg (in pot), and a hydrangea tree (shown above in order). At this time last year, they were already blooming, but actually at this time last year we had already hit 80 degrees a few times, so it makes sense that the blooms haven't burst forth yet in the cooler temperatures.
I have always loved hydrangeas and used to dream of having several thick lush plants when I finally owned a home. I was a little intimidated to grow them at first, but with the exception of the one that just died, the others have done very well. They have survived extreme temperatures, including back-to-back blizzards in the winter of 2009/2010 and a blistering hot summer of 2010.

hydrangea tree post blizzard

The scene of the crime. What to plant??

The question now is what to do with the empty space where the other one was. I doubt I'll put anything in the ground again because I think the soil in that spot is possessed. Maybe another hydrangea plant and keep it in a container? Maybe a totally different plant?

My Spring Flowers

snapdragons '11, originally uploaded by Bumble Lush.

Spring has been beautiful in the DC area so far. Last year it seemed that we jumped from winter straight to summer with no transition whatsoever, but Mother Nature is making up for it this year. The past few weeks have been mostly rainy, but I like spring showers, and the rain is helping my plants. The few sunny days we’ve had have been warm and felt good on my skin.

I mainly grow vegetables, but in my front yard I have flowers.

I planted petunias and snapdragons in the pots in the front yard this year. For the last two years I had peppermint in the pot where the petunias are now. The pot sits on the dividing line between my driveway and my neighbor. One year, my neighbor thought they were weeds and yanked the mint out completely. She’s a bit batty and twitchy, a harmless but strange creature, and I know she meant no malice and probably thought she was doing us a favor. “Didn’t you think it was odd that the weeds smelled minty when you cut them?” I asked. “No, I didn’t notice that,” was her reply. She didn’t get ANY of my extra vegetables that year.

The peppermint grew back, and my neighbor left it alone last year. However, the company that does maintenance around the common property of my subdivision must have thought it was weeds too because I came home one day last summer to find that all the common area had been weeded, including my little mint. So that’s the story of why petunias are sitting there now.

(the peppermint in its glory days)

My hydrangea plants are growing quite nicely. The Endless Summer is shown above in the ground and the leaves look so lush and green.


And the Brestenburg is in a pot. I will try, yet again, to get these to turn blue. The best I got last year was a purple-ish color.


The hostas are making a nice comeback


And a surprise bulb popped up! I planted bulbs in a small patch in the backyard in 2008, my first attempt at flower gardening, and most of them rotted. I ended up starting that area over from scratch and planting blueberry bushes instead. But I guess one of the bulbs survived and here it is three years later!

Next post I will update the progress of my vegetable seedlings and list out what we’re growing this year.