Fertilizer Friday, September 3

Once again, it's Tootsie's Fertilizer Friday!  I am having such a hard time getting used to the fact it's September already.  Where did the summer go?  

Since Thursday was very humid with on and off rain showers, I spent all day cleaning and going through closets in our bedroom, thinning out my wardrobe and packing clothes off for donating.  I wish I had the same energy and enthusiasm for housecleaning as I do for gardening.  I'd much rather dig in the dirt outside and can cheerfully work for hours and hours in the garden.  I'm physically tired at the end of a hard gardening day, but I'm mentally worn out when it comes to organizing in the house.  My husband is a packrat, and where do I go with all this stuff???  I found myself staring out the window at the flowers way too often and had to drag myself back to the cleaning.  (I know, how childish of me, but dang, I wanted to be outside!)

I finally did escape for a bit before supper, so here we go with what its still blooming around here:

By the garage, we have left to right: Cosmos 'Sonata', Salvia 'Victoria', Zinnia 'Angustofolia', 'Profusion Cherry' and 'Zahara' (which was supposed to be a white zinnia with a hot pink center--only a few of the flowers were as flashy as the seed packet portrayed, most of them are white with a small amount of hot pink stripe,  but they were good performers. 

Also by the garage, the black metal light stand we bought a few weeks ago at an antique store topped with another cast iron lantern that I bought which was terribly rusty and gave to Mom to paint.  (Stay tuned for a future post on Mom's paintings very soon, ok?)

Zinnia 'Zahara Rose' with Cosmos 'Sonata Dwarf' and 'Victoria' Salvia

This poor lily bloomed today, weeks after the established clump it is part of.  The lily was trampled when we cut down the ash tree in April, and this stem must have been a late bloomer.  Oh, the perfume....I didn't realize how much I missed the lilies blooming until I caught the fragrance of this flower on the early evening air.

These petunias, Avalanche series, and the coleus and unknown geraniums are doing much better in a pot perched on my plant stand.  The geranium was overwintered for several years now, and despite the entire planter being hit by high wind and breaking off all of the tall plants, the new foliage and flowers look very fresh.  I guess I should have heeded the advice to prune, prune, and prune some more that I've read on so many knowledgeable garden websites. It does work!

We are in the process of placing the big rock you see on the left out by the escarpment bed.  I had to dig out the Sedum 'Autumn Joy' in front of it to get it in there, and the smaller rock on the right will be finding a new home.  Once we get it leveled, it will look better, I hope...

Back to the Quarry pond again; the Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm' is starting to go past peak already.  I am so sorry to see it go.  The 'Victoria' salvia up on the distant hill are still growing strong.  I took my readers' advice and trimmed back the 'Imagination' verbena.  We will see if it can make another comeback so late in the season.

The view from the hill back to the pond.

Not sure if this is a separate color of salvia, or a named variety, but it is pretty and the only one to come up from the seeds I planted that wasn't 'Victoria' blue.

.Back to the Pachyberm again, and more petunias, salvia and sweet potato vine.

I know I'm guilty of posting way too many pictures (and of reruns of the same flowers!) but these Wave petunias and later blooming 'Indian Summer' Rudbeckia are finally filling out. 

Nierembergia 'Blue Mountain'

I know, more pictures of the Pachyberm?  But last September, this was just a dirt hill with a bunch of rocks we stuck in, so it's fun to see color!

In case you wonder why we call it the Pachyberm....last fall when we had the geothermal furnace installed and we had the entire west side of our yard torn up, we had our excavator friend make us as tall a 'hill' as he could with the leftover topsoil.  When he got done, we were kinda sorta wondering if we'd made the right decision, it really looked like we buried an elephant in the yard...so for awhile we called it the Elephant Burial Mound...but that's too much of a mouthful, so then I decided that since it was a berm and it looked like a pachyderm's burial site we could shorten it to 'Pachyberm'.......get it?  Ok, it's lame, but we have all of the gardens named for some odd reason. 

We had over 20" of rain since June, so this hill didn't need any additional watering, I wonder what it will be like in a drier year?  Time will tell if the drainage is too steep.

I had some spare Hyacinth beans I planted on the hill, they aren't blooming yet, but they did provide a nice ground cover.

I had one fellow gardener tell me, "If I never see another petunia for the rest of my life, I will be very happy."  I was shocked!  What would I do without my trailing petunias?  (She is a Perennial-Only gardener, bless her heart, with a stupendously gorgeous garden, but I bet she doesn't have much color in the garden now in September.)  

Don't get me wrong, I love my perennials too, but I can't do without the annuals.

See, I have some perennials, too-Autumn Joy Sedum is one of my favorites along with the grasses.

Swan River Daisy; only the blue germinated for me this year, not the white.

'Ernie' the Urn filled out really well, too.  It would be so nice to grow the ornamental grass in the garden, but it's an annual here in Wisconsin.

Joel went up on the garage roof for me again on Tuesday night.....here's the Riverbed and surrounding area.. there's those blue castor beans again, too.

There's an arched trellis under there, really!  Hyacinth beans going wild.

Now Joel is brave, he's taking these pictures from the top of our 40' windmill tower in the backyard looking back toward the garden.  I can hardly climb the tower let alone be steady enough for photography, but he is. 

A little closer--the round thing in the upper left is the stone house' we fully intend to finish one of these years, I know, what's the hold up?  There's more fun things to do......shhhhhhhhhh.....I didn't say that out loud, ok?

Corn all the way to Mom's house.

Look out for the windmill blades, Joel!

Ok, late again and I still have to throw the bedroom back together (no, I didn't get done with the room; I wish I had, though.)  Sure is more fun blogging!

I hope I didn't annoy anyone too much, I know I got carried away with petunias and rocks again this post.....  ;-)

Now head on over to Tootsie's Fertilizer Friday and see what everyone has to show off this week, just click on the logo!

Karen