Sunflowers and Glads!
My sunflowers have started blooming. So have my glads. The glads are great, altho the thunderstorms yesterday snapped a few… I broke those off and brought them inside to stick in with the zinnias my daughter bought at the farmers market. (that happened AFTER these photos, btw)
Reddish double sunflower
Still one batch of sunflowers that have yet to start blooming. The odd thing is that I thought I was mixing up seeds while planting, but from the looks of things I didn’t do that. My goal was to go all down the fence line, but I ran out of energy before even planting the sections I did. Was going to also plant cukes along with the sunflowers, but I didn’t do that, either… just as well, as my neighbor is gifting me with giant bags of cukes.
red double with flash in daytime
If I had planted cukes my life would not be my own! I’ve already pickled about 10 lbs of cukes!
a view down the row
As it is, the blackberries are keeping me busy. Have picked, with help, a couple of gallons so far. And they are just starting. Eeek!
maroon and yellow
My red onions are not doing so well, but that’s okay. Tomatoes are doing great, and I’ve got anaheim peppers and ancho peppers… but no bells yet. Those plants are smaller, but bushier… and blooming, but I guess it was too hot to set fruit.
Goldfinches did this trying to get at seeds
The best thing about the glads is that the hummingbirds seem to like them. I don’t know if they are getting anything from them, but it keeps them busy. Busy is good, otherwise they just fight over my feeders. Had to put up a 3rd feeder this weekend. Usually I have to have 3 feeders anyhow, but this year there just haven’t been that many birds. I know I need another feeder when they drain the favorite feeder in ONE DAY. Heh.
I wish I’d got better photos of the glads, but, heck, glads are glads. I’ve got yellow, red, pink with with and yellow centers and salmon colored that are just starting to bloom. I have to remember… don’t buy glad bulbs on clearance, I started out with something like 75 bulbs, but had to toss a lot of them instead of planting as they were no good. No sign of the purple ones, those must’ve been in the worst shape. Glads need a LOT of water… not only when you plant them, but when they start to bloom. A good 1/3 of the ones I planted have either died or are not doing well. I also got elephant ear bulbs on markdown… those sat there forever in the ground before finally emerging and now are thriving.
Also in the photos, altho not very well… volunteer petunias. Last year I had a wonderful batch of petunias in a window box out in the yard…. took watering every day, but did well. I moved the ones I found this year, but the ones in pots are not thriving. The two in the flower bed are doing better. Not sure if they are the same breed as the window box ones, I hope so. If I recall, I collected those seeds from Ron’s Mom’s house back when she still had flowers… hers always did well if they were weeded early enough. Mine are struggling with the grass, but still okay. Can’t even tell I weeded that bed 2 weeks ago. Sigh.
Not pictured: my self seeding four o’clocks. I know they can take over, but they are exactly what I need in the beds in front of the house. What surprised me this year is that the confetti four o’clocks came back. I figured that I’d just have plain ones this year. I love the smell of four o’clocks, wish I didn’t have to go stick my face in them to smell them.
Forgot again that captioning is not what I want to do, the formatting is wrong…. oh well!
Hope everyone had a fun and safe weekend!
