Ruby, On one of these threads you asked for pictures of my front beds where I am planting only salmon colored inpatients instead of the usual mix I plant. So here are a few pictures of the color scheme I am using.
Here is the bed by the Potting shed. The inpatients are pretty small yet so you don't get the impact that you will get later on.
Here is the bed with the raised walls, I planted kong coleus in them, with the salmon inpatients and Easter bonnet mix asylum. I think they will look really well together once they get larger and fill in. The Easter Bonnet mix asylum has white, lavender and dark purple asylum in it. Here is a good look at the colors in the Kong coleus. I will be cutting back the chrysanthemums in a few weeks can't believe they are blooming now. I wonder if they will bloom again in the fall.
Very pretty, Holly. Some of the mums I pinched, but those I didn't are blooming away. Much earlier than last year like so many things.
I usually do pinch them but they got ahead of me this year so I decided to let them bloom and see what they will do this fall. I have way too many of these in this bed. Will have to move some of them out.
One of my Mums is also starting to bloom--a deep rust one.
Yes--I pinched it once....
Having my gutters replaced today. Two Guys are out there working away.
Think I may try to plant some of my last potted flowers I keep buying at HD.
G.
Holly -- what chrysanthemum is that? It seems fairly low growing.
Jen, that reminds me of 'When My Sweetheart Returns', one of the Darryl Apps rebloomers... if it does rebloom for you, that could help narrow it down & verify the name, although lost-tag or misblooming plants are hard to ID for sure. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/71504/
Sorry it wasn't what you ordered, but it's pretty, and I bet there's a place you can use it. Let the nursery/grower you ordered from know... most will replace anything that isn't true-to-name.
Holly, that bed is so pretty, and the salmon impatiens are a good pick with the Kong Coleus!
Jen, thats unfortunate but makes good SWAP material
I think Sally has her hand raised for that one, huh?
I think it was one from a co op so there is no recourse there, I just have to switch that one out for one of the extras I planted in another area
Heehee, hint, hint for Sally. Yay!!
Moi, an alterior motive?? (or is that ulterior?) Just innocently pointing out that someone will surely take that poor sad daylily!
Thanks again for the photos Holly. Oh gosh, I had forgotten about a Kong Coleus. I usually try to purchase one each year just to see how gigantic it will grow. Dang it. I have also missed out on purchasing some Persian Shield this year also, which is another that I truly love and always get excited about having. Looks like maybe I ought to check in to purchasing some seed for both next year. I have made it a point to stay away from nurseries this year. Heck, I have a tremendous amount of plants in pots needing my attention now and have to find the time soon or later most likely to put things in new homes.
I do know that I am having a lot better success with Celosia from my seed stash than than the six pack I purchased a while back in salmon color. Those babies don't seem to want to do anything much in terms of growth which doesn't give me much hope for saving seeds and having more salmon color next year.
One night recently I spent an hour or so thinning out a very densely packed cement planter of red and yellow Celosia. I hurriedly potted several pots of it and then ended sticking even more in to another already established bed. I am very happy to report that despite the extremely high temperatures this week that upon inspection last evening, they are seeming to be very happy to have more space now. I was suspecting to see a lot of drooping over seedlings but was surprised that the majority were stand tall and looking good. That is always a relief.
A couple of weeks ago John and I were discussing where the one stalk of Monarda came from that was in with his market plants. I told him not to sell it because I believe that Pippi gave it to me at the Swap. What a laugh I got a few days ago when seeing this plant and the pink bell like blooms on it and it turning out to be a Campanula Elizabeth from Pat and David and not a Monarda at all. Every time I look at it now, I have to giggle. I had never noticed the similarity of these two plants before now.
Warning Will Robinson.........Danger, Danger.....A hot day ahead for all.....stay safe and stay cool for all.
Ruby
Ruby,
Your six pack of salmon celosia may be a victim of the grower's use of "growth regulators". There are regulators (chemicals) for speeding up or slowing down a plants growth as well as ones to bring plants into flower or to delay flower production all routinely applied by commercial growers in their attempts to bring the perfect plants with perfect flowers to market at the exact time of high customer demand=maximum sales. As you can see from the celosia seeds you sowed in a pot, not all seeds emerge at the same time, let alone resemble anything like the uniform growth you see in the six pack. Rumer has it that if your six pack got a hit of "slow down growth regulator' which increases 'shelf life' at the garden center, and keeps plants small enough to ship, that they may or may not, depending on variety, overcome on their own the induced signal to stop or slow down growth.
I will try to find an article for you that says it better than I can. Commercial growers/greenhouses don't just control climate (temp, light, water, humidity, air circulation etc) feeding and pests any more, but genetics, reproduction and hormones, too.
Lol, maybe you can put the salmon ones near the red and yellow and see if they can 'remember' their innate instructions to be fruitful and multiply!
Ruby, Ric grew Celosia from seeds, too. He even started them pretty late and they are growing just great.
Coleup, I have been wanting to tell you how well your Banana is doing. I just repotted it the other day. We had some pretty high winds a few weeks ago and the leaves got pretty shredded but it has put out 2 new leaves and is starting to look much better. I got a few more plants in the ground this morning and Ric did the watering early.
Tragedy struck my yard -- one of the Camellias I bought at Camellia Forest before Holly's swap up and died. It was an April Rose -- I had three which I had hoped would grow in a nice row. They were all doing great -- then out of the blue, one dropped all its leaves. I have no idea why. I've been chatting with Camellia Forest and they have no idea either. The roots seem intact so it isn't voles, and the leaves didn't yellow so it wasn't overwatering. I'll wait until next spring to see if the others survive (they have new growth, so I'd think they'd do ok, but ....) before replacing it.
Oh darn, happy!
pant pant.
Saving water from the dehumidifier for the garden and pots.
Oh no, HM! Sorry to hear that! My camelias putting on a lot of growth and looking really healthy, but still leaning to one side. I'm worried about the upcoming heatwave, though.
Can we talk fences?
I have really ugly, rusted chain link fencing that I've been meaning to replace, but this neighbor's dog situation has hastened this process.
What I'd *really* like is brick posts every 6 feet to mirror my all-brick 1950s house, and beautiful cedar wood fencing, or even an all- or mostly-brick fencing. But that's probably about $10,000 over my budget. :P
I also have to keep in mind that the wood will not be cared for by my back neighbors, and on that side, will not get the regular care that is required, such as sealants, treatments, etc.
Also, for some reason, pretty much everything I plant gets a lot of mildew and fungal infections in my yard, and I'm afraid wood isn't going to hold up very well.
So... I'm leaning towards white vinyl. Is this a terrible idea? Does anyone else have vinyl fencing?
If you've had fencing put in recently, where did you purchase it? I want 6 foot privacy fencing in the back and 4 foot semi-private around the sides. Would this look silly? I really don't want or need privacy from my side neighbors, and my plants need as much airflow as possible.
SS--
I like the "shadowbox" fencing. It is open enough for air and sideways--you can see through it somewhat.
That is what I put behind my raised bed to screen out by back yard neighbor's "junk" he puts behind
his garage. He doesn't have to look at it--but I sure did.
The fence I put up (just 2 panels) looks very nice. Let me find a picture.....
#1--April--2011. Bed just about finished
#2--Finished bed. The fencing looks great! The boards alternate--one front--one back.
Sold at HD in 8'x6' panels. I think each panel costs about $33 or so.
#3--Looking straight at it it seems pretty solid.
Gita
Get a few estimates from a fencing company if you think that would be anywhere at all in your price range. The neighbors have a beautiful fence no idea how much $$ they spent on it. Theirs is a mix of 6ft vinyl privacy and open 4 ft metal. They didn't want a boxed in feeling but needed it for the pool area. There is a nice transition from the 6ft to the 4ft and even a drop in elevation where it meets the window..
I haven't seen that type of metal fencing in the Home Improvement Stores but they do sell some nice varieties of Vinyl privacy fence. Different colors and different styles. Not to mention that a solid fence would keep those dogs out of sight. They wouldn't see you either and that might reduce some of the aggressive behavior.
You could do a combo fence similar to ours wood and wire mix. But ours is only 4ft high and the only type of wire that I have seen that is 6ft is the chain link. Also you would want a very heavy duty wire fence and that can be hard to find. That sweet little Alfie was pulling on the wire we had put up and breaking the welds. So Ric found a smaller weave and heavier gage wire. Plus as you can see it has a very open look.
Our's still isn't quite finished.
awwww how cute!
VERY cute!!!
Dear SSgardener, I haven't yet commented on the terror ongoing with your neighbor's uncontained dogs, but while researching some local laws and aggressive dog behaviors and fences I came across this site where in reading it through gave me perhaps my best understanding to date of "dogs and fences" that make good neighbors.
http://wolfdogproject.com/fencing.html
May give you some low cost safety solutions for right now.
Please post a picture or two and some idea of height of existing fence or fences and length and terrain.
Vinyl is trickier than wood to make work right with slopes (a little birdie told me you had some) and can have quite a gap between bottom of fence and grouns where critters and crawl or dig through. Also, my impression is that some vinyl is not strong enough to withstand a determined dog.....
Also, until I was certain that my neighbors were 24/7 fully containing their aggressive dogs per the law in MD, I'm the kind of person who would rather 'see trouble coming' than be out working my back garden and be surprized again!
Holly, I think you're right -- if the dogs can't see me, I think they'll be less aggressive (especially the one that lunges at the fence all the time when I'm out there). I really like that curved transition from high to low fencing.
Coleup, thank you for the link! I've attached a pic of the current fence. You can see how parts of it are about 5 feet and parts of it are more like 3-4 feet. It's the lower part that they jumped over.
The back fence line is not sloped, but there's a decent slope for the sides. I'd estimate that there's a good 4 foot drop from the back of the house to the back fence line.
I don't mind there being gaps on the bottom on the side fences.
It does concern me that vinyl isn't considered very strong. :-(
My concern about the white vinyl for your situation is more aesthetic... you mentioned mold/mildew... I'm pretty sure both mildew and that green algae we get sometimes on the siding on the shady front of our house would grow nicely and show up really well on white vinyl. Yes, I think you can power wash it... but you don't want to be doing that every week.
Somewhere on DG there's a thread about these fabulous looking fences somebody made by painting cattle panels. Don't remember if they painted them black or dark green, but I think they used wood posts with pretty finials, and the effect was very "estate" looking. A wrought iron look would complement your brickwork!
Found it, sort of. There's a thread in the frugal living forum with discussion of cattle panels, welded wire mesh, and other fencing materials. I can't get the link to the outside page to work right, but one post mentions a very nice looking fence made from cattle panels sprayed black with rustoleum, mounted between 4x4 posts painted green.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/679815/?hl=fence+cattle+panels+paint
Our next party idea
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/flower-pots-from-logs-issue-title-is-ladies-first
ROFL!
That video is a riot LOL. I did have a few of those though mine were much bigger.
Great, I'll start collecting logs. Heehee
Tomorrow, we are going to the farm where I grew up. It is now a park, cuz the lady that owned it sold it to the township to keep it green in the midst of the McMansions that sprouted all around. I wanted my visiting granddaughter see where I had lived. The most exciting part of the day will be shark tooth hunting in the sandy banks of the stream that runs through it. It is quite the feeling to find the first one. My boys loved to do that when we would visit. Once, my youngest and my great nephew found about one hundred. That was the best ever!
Jan how wonderful! All of it.
Sounds like a wonderful day Jan. How much fun it must be to find sharks teeth.
sometimes, in the late 50's, when i was taking evening Courses at McCoy College--
now known as Johns Hopkins University---I took a course in Anthropology (not sure that name is correct)..
We had a tall, elderly man (Dr. Waters) as the teacher. He gave us daily quizzes and we took many a field trip.
What an adventure this course was!!!! I was SO into it--that I was his star student.
This was in my early years in the USA--so many things were magical to me.
We took many a field trip--and it was a challenge to keep up with our teacher. He could walk--as we tried to follow!
One of the trips we took was to Calvert Cliffs--WAYYYY before it became a Nuclear plant and wasa closed off to the public.
I remember we had to have a land-owners permission to walk through her back yard to get to the beach.
It was raining that day--which took a lot of fun out of this trip--but we all scampered all over the sandy
sores and dug and scraped and found all kinds of amazing, per-historic shells and skeletons of small
things--like Trilobites--all over the place. It was so exciting!
But--the most wonderful thing was to walk down to the shore line and look for shark's teeth.
They were there--in the surf. You just had to look for them. I still have a small box-full of the ones I found.
Ahhhh---memories! That is what life is made of.
Memories are way cool!! It's always fun to see their faces when they find one for the first time. that sounds like a fun class, Gita. I wish I had paid more attention to my field botany prof when in college in WVa. At that time, I was more interested in zoology than botany, but it was a course I had to take. I loved his comparative anatomy course though.
I have some shark's teeth in jar, from just above Clavert Cliffs. The property just above, in the forties,- 50s, was YMCA Camp Conoy. My parents belonged; the bunch would drive down there for a day. from Baltimore. I have pics of us kids on the beach for a walk with Mom when I was about three.
Boy, sure grateful for the break in the heat.
We didn't get much of a break in the heat here, today... got up to 98 I think? But tomorrow should be WAY better! If not, everybody can take their dry hypertufa mix home with them, and we'll hang out in the A/C and chat LOL.
Light rain here, clouds came in this afternoon which broke the heat around dinner time. This morning was oven like.
SORRRRYYY!!!
I know I had the wrong name for the class---a "burp" in my old head!
It was a class in GEOLOGY!!!!! What an education it was! I am still aware of all the land's
formations--the reasons mountains look like they look---what caused what---How come one
can find sea shells at the very top of the Alps? Hmmm--I know.....
Why are there pillars of granite jutting out of an otherwise flat plane?
Why are many tropical isles surrounded by a ring of coral?
WHY does Yellowstone park have hot geysers spewing all the time?
Geology! Geology!!!! Now it all makes sense....it has all the answers.....
Gita
My jar of sharks teeth came from the floor of the shark tank at Adventure Aquarium. I think it would be great fun to find them on the beach.
Gita, What an interesting class.
