Tuesday's Things

 We had an evening of storms in two different sessions. We had very strong winds and almost five inches of rain. In the low linning areas of badly designed streets in town there was flooding. The water couldn't drain away fast enough. The only damage that I had was the phlox and zinnas which were bent down to the ground. I am waiting for things to dry out before I try to upright them. It isn't easy to straighten up zinnias but stakes and string can be rigged up to get them back. 

 The wind was very strong and this variety of sunflower was not bothered by it. With the mammoth ones they would be leaning to the side in a bad way. 

 My clematis is blooming some more. The rians were a littly rought on them but they don't look so bad. 

My William Baffin rose is looking sickly. I spent an hour or so this morning trimming back all of the dead canes. I did cut out a sucker tree near it and it may be what is effecting it. Either way I will have to wait and see and I really chopped things out of it and have only a few tall canes left in the back. 

It is a pleasant day today as we just didn't have the high heat today. The rains are still welcomed as we need to catch up on the lack of it. The grass went dormant with the four days of high heat. I worked outside this morning and didn't have to take a heat break this morning but did rest because I was tired. I didn't water today but do think I need to fertilize my tomatoes. The tomatoes we have picked really tasted good. A real tomato is the best. I thank you for stopping in today. 

Monday is a Start

 Another hot day is ahead of us. We started off warm and the day will just be sweltering soon. 

 Phlox are a tough plant. The spread and take over everything with their invasive behavior. Also the don't seem to be phased by the heat. I like how they develop other colors of their species as the grown. I now have white phlos. All of this was started with one digging of dark pink phlox from the old place. 

 I noticed this year that our neighbor's across the street, one house over, has a large planting of this field lily. I am sure it has spread but I have never noticed it before. It took me a lot of years to get this planting to become established. 

 We took our son and his wife out to dinner last night. It is a special place to eat and you have to bring cheesecake home with you to eat later as the meals are so large. Everyone but our son had to bring home leftover food for eating later. We ate cheesecake later in the evening and they were so large that we didn't finish them. We packed a cooler with ice to send with them so they can finish their dessert when they get to Grand Rapids this evening. We put other goodies in the cooler to snack on as they make there 6 to 7 hour trip up into Minnesota. They will be driving into a thunderstorm for a short time but they also will get away from our extreme heat that we are having today..

It was great to have company and they both haven't been here for a long time.  Our son dropped in last year at this time to put in a "check on the old folks visit". His brother also came and they did some chores for me.  Everyone lives a long distant ways away but we aren't moving nearer to either one of them. The previous owners of our house moved to Boston to live next to family but we don't have any plans to do that to go to Chicago or Maine. 

Leftovers for supper and I can have a small section of my chocolate cake later with coffee. Thanks for stopping by today. 
 

Zinnia Power

 

I have many reasons to plant them but the first reason is that I can photograph them. I also like the bees and birds that are attracted to them. I also am so pleased when the few butterflies that I see that they are on the zinnias. My second patch of zinnias that were planted later are going to catch up with them. Righ now they are half the size of the other planting. I do water the later planted ones with a good drink every other day.

Our guest like the idea of going to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner.  It will be a lot of fun with good food and cheesecake for some people. I am thinking I will order some carrot cake. 

Thanks for stopping by today. 

Saturday Heat

 

 

 

 

 

 It is going to get up to 91 degrees F. today. It is very humid and its hard to be outside. We have family from Maine visiting and they can't believe that it is so hot.  They are headed to Minnesota in a couple of days where there will be heat and smoke. The smoke may be with us on Monday. I water things every other day hoping to keep up on things. Our grass has gone instantly dormant with the heat. It is summer for sure.

Thanks for stopping by today. 

 

Friday in the Heat

 The cone flowers are suffering in all of the heat. I brought this in to add to the store bought bouquet and they don't look so great.  I guess they fill up space in the vase to balance  it all out. 

 The mums come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. The white one is the star in the whole bouquet. 

 

I keep carrying water for the pot as the heat had the flowers looking wilted this afternoon. We have 89 degrees F. and the weather app says it feels like 88 degrees F. when the wind blows. I missed a day of watering the circle garden today. I may sneak out after supper and take the hose to them to give the plants some relief.

. I shifted around some of  my orchids that I keep downstairs when they are not blooming. I give them a small amount of water and while doing so I was surprised to find this.  There will be four blooms in total and that is so great. I don't even know how long I have had this plant. When they blooms are gone I will clip the stem off. They normally put out a new stem of buds but this one put out the four buds on the end of an old stem that I forgot to cut back.  

We are doing extra cleaning today in the house as our youngest son and his wife will be here for a couple of days. I store the deco pair of reindeer from Christmas in the spare bedroom down there so I had to find room in the store room for them. We will be super clean and sometimes company helps one get the throrugh cleaning done that we will like after they are gone. 

Thanks for stopping by today. 
 

Thursday's Things

 It started off with a lot of humidity and the temps were at 71 degrees B. It got warmer every hour on the hour. I  worked at mowing the back yard and had to take breaks three different times. It was too much to be out there. 

 

After I quuit working I stepped outside to take this one long knock out bloom. I watered all of the front yard flowers and the three rose bushes. I am hoping to keep everything alive. 

 

I have mums blooming now as I didn't get them trimmed back on the fourth of July. I am just going to let them bloom as my goal is to move them all out of the area and take them to the backyard.  I didn't plant them and they seem to crowd out my hostas and also the tulips. 

We have the youngest son and his wife stopping in for a couple of days. They are headed to Minnesota from Maine where the live. The are going to come down to see us Sunday and then head up to the north country on Monday. It will be good to see them and we usually have lots of fun going to special eating places and touring our area. Our youngest son never lived with us here in Ankeny so he likes to eplore the different areas and the lake.  I hope that the heat will lower a little. We are not getting any of the smokke at t his time but most summers we do get it coming down from Canada.

Thanks for checking in today.  

90 degrees F.

 I picked them today. They will ripen safely in the house. I had one other that I also picked right after I watered everything I carry water from the water barrel and after a couple of trips everything got soaked . I have some grape tomatoes that I will start picking soon. 

 

The heat is hard on my roses. I have watered these knock outs every other day to get them back to blooming again. These are what is left from their first round of blooms. 

We visited friends last night and saw their gardens. They were all neat and tidy unlike my cottage garden look. They had a lot of hosts and included borders of impatience plants. The day was hot and the hostas all looked like they needed to be watered. I saw they had one small peony start and suggested that I could share with them lots of new starts. Also the husband hinted he would like a start of rhubarb. Since I can't eat it anymore, I will be glad to share. I did dig some already for him this morning and put it in dirt in a bucket. It was hard to dig but I did get a good root for him. I did take them three starts of a hosta and some chives that I had in a pot for them. They can plant it whenever they get time to do it.

 

 

 I have a stray batch of stems that are white. That is a first for me since I planted these a few years ago.

 I don't remember posting this before but here is the one sunflower with three heads. There actually are a lot more blooms to come on it. We are up to high temps again today. The front yard needed to be mowed and I did get that done. It was way too hot for it but I finished it in twenty minutes. My neighbor's grandson joined me again as he mowed next door.  I didn't finish and do the backyard He did do his grandparents backyard but he did take a break before doing so.

Going to get groceries this afternoon and that will be a hot trip. We will pick up supper there and meds. We will then be in, home, for the rest of the day.  Thanks for stopping by today.9

A Hot Tuesday

 It took years of patience to get this field lily to look this good. When I moved it down from the old place I had planted it near a tree. It didn't take off there at all. The plant itself grows wild in country ditches as it is invasive. Houses in the country will be torn down, long gone, and this lily is still blooming in the vacant yards and many times spreads to the ditches. My wife's homestead area had lilies growing way down the now highway roads as the construction people spread it while making new roads.  

My patience has paid off as it now loves growing under the steps to our deck and has spread some. I welcome the time when I have to stop its spreading too much. 

 The invasive phlox is now my problem. I am moving some flowers away from it rather than it kill of the plants, I have moved lots of iris away from it and I now have two Asiatic lilies that I will move this fall. I am still amazed as to how the phlox genetically just changes on its on and I now have white ones and red ones. Oh yes I have the pink ones too. 

 

I am sure there is a word for the seed to have different genetics from its original. The zinnias here were planted from mostly darker magenta flowers and as you can see that I have all colors from that seed. It is told that most apple seeds do not grow up to have the same kind of apple as its base apple. It is said that Johnny Appleseed did a great job spreading apple trees but most of them were small sour green apple that were produced from his plantings. It is said that the farmers made apple cider out of them rather that trying to eat them.  I think trees have to be produced from cuttings of the base tree. 

 

It was really too hot to be outside this morning, working outside. I had to stand in the shade while talking with my neighbor through the fence. I did mostly watering and weeding. I had to look up my hat as I really found it unbearable to be out there without it.  Our high will be in the lower 90s F. with full sun. It is suppose to stay that way for four or five more days. It is our Iowa summer's normal.

Thanks for stopping by today.  

Monday's Mentions

 Some of the ast of the roses from the first bloom session. It is a simple set of petals on a knock out rose. 

 Carrying over geraniums doesn't always pay off but this one is doing well. It wintered in luxury in my basement window and now is giving great sets of blooms. I watered the entire garden of flowers in the round raised bed in the front yard. We are at 87 degrees F. today and the temps remain that level all week. I hooked up a hose as I was getting weary of toteing water from the backyard barrel.

 The Russian sage is doing well in the front yard but I just don't like it grows in such a random shape. It falls all over itself in the garden. I have this trellised up a bit. I inherited this from the previous owner and like it and hate it. 

 I am just now getting morning glory blooms. They come up wild among the tomato patch and I keep thinning them out so they don't suffocate the tomatoes and sunflowers. 

 These sunflowers are not mammoth brand as this volunteer one has multiple heads. I like it but was hoping it to be the other kind. I have three of these growing in among the tomatoes. 

 I sent a set of bulbs from this agapanthus to my brother in California knowing it would bloom. He is lazy and plants everything in pots rather than in the ground. The firs year it became root bound and broke the small pot he put it in. He had to put it in a large pot and now it has five or six shoots of blooms. I read yesterday that I should plant it in the ground in the spring and dig it in the fall. Maybe it will bloom if I plant it in the ground. I see this flower in gardens in Europe and also in California as it grows like a ditch lily, invading everywhere. I was glad he got it to bloom and now that it has he likes it a lot.

 

Here it is, my agapanthus blooming in Yorba Linda, Californina. I have had it in pots for years but it will freeze out in my climate so I bring it inside every fall. The article I read said I could dig it in the fall and replant it in the spring. I will try that soon. I have owned it for years and kept it as a floliage plant in pots. 

I mentioned earlier that it is 87 F. today. We had an appointment this morning in West Des Moines. After the appointment we visited the bookstore nearby. Home for lunch and resting in the afternoon, I watered things in the morning before we left and no one is mowing grass right now. We may go back to having dormant grass again. 

Thanks again for stopping by today.
 

Sunday

 

 

 

 

 We are moving into serious Iowa weather. It is typical that we get high heat and high humidity at the same time. Farmers say the humidity makes the corn and beans grow. It really isn't good for humans as one walks from the car to different locations it is very uncomfortable. I open the door to my garage and it is amazing as to how humid it is compared to our air conditioned home. I will water as many things as I can tomorrow as I am trying not to loose anything. 

Thanks for checking in today.