A week in the Garden, 5/17-5/22

This week started with an insane 95 degree heat wave that lasted for three days and then was followed by a drop of 40 degrees and desperately needed rain. It was a scenario that was a nice reminder that if you can do your best to stick it out during the tough times, relief does eventually come. It was a quick reward turnaround this week and for that I’m thankful.

It was also a reminder that in gardening, it’s easy to give up the plan this time of year. The excitement of spring and new plants is over, there starts to be a short lull between the late spring and early summer flowers, the heat comes quickly and it’s much easier to sit on the porch with a glass of wine instead of digging in the dirt.

But this is the time of year it’s more important than ever to stick it out and find excitement in looking forward to what’s ahead by continuing to feed the plants you have, replace the spring annuals with summer blooming ones, and keep out the weeds.  You can go about it slowly to avoid burnout, but consistency is the key to reaping rewards.

So this week in the cutting garden, poppies/forget me nots/phacelia/anemone were removed to direct seed amaranth, sunflowers, celosia, and to plant dahlias tubers. The snapdragons are just beginning to bloom, but in a couple of weeks those will be replaced with another sowing of cosmos and sunflowers to make sure I have good cut flower material through fall.

In the perennial beds, weeds were taken care of and a very thin layer of mulch was applied to help keep the weeds away while the plants are time to mature. For slow growing perennials, I also direct seeded a few summer annuals to suppress the weeds and make the space beautiful quickly. I hate the look of mulch and prefer to have flowers do the job of weed killing by planting intensively instead of relying on ugly bark to do it.

I also fed everything with triple phosphate to encourage good root growth and hopefully receive bigger and better flowers and vegetables. That and this glorious two straight days of rain are wonderful super food combo.

tiny baby perennials and a few hidden seeds in the greenhouse garden- the befores may look very underwhelming but it’s important to remember how beautiful things begin…

(pictured: nepeta, blue fescue, Russian sage, Japanese anemone, penstemon, abelia, aster, creeping thyme)

a handful of mature penstemon and foxglove from the perennial gardens planted last fall

lots of flipped beds in the cutting garden soon to be full of life again

Until next week,

xxLindsey