The October Garden

Little is flowering in my garden after this hot and very dry summer.

We are still trying to recover from the drought, and though we are finally receiving some much needed rain, we are still considered to be in drought conditions.

As such, many flowers that usually would still be blooming this time of year have long since set seed and are shutting down for the year.

The surprise for me this year has been my roses.

They have loved this drought.  I have not watered any of them, and even my English roses, which normally only bloom reliably once a year, are now blooming for the fourth time.

Whodathunk?

The Victoria Blue Salvia wintered over from last year.

I love this flower.  The blue is so vibrant and the flower lasts long into the cool autumn months.

My miniature rose, Rainbow's End, is in its fourth bloom.

This is a lovely rose.

The flowers start out yellow, then progress to orange, red, and then pink before fading.  

It has no fragrance, but it is a must-have rose for the garden and is good for a small spot.

Rainbow's End bloom beginning to turn from orange to red.

Dogwood with berries.

The birds will soon pick the berries off the trees.

Burning bush or winged euonymus.

English Perfume, an English rose.

As the name implies, a heavily scented rose.

My all time favorite English rose, which is named after a great gardener, Gertude Jekyll.

This is one of the most highly-scented roses you will ever find in the garden.

My hydrangea has many mauve blooms on it.

I suspect that is a result of recent cold nights.

Milkweed bugs congregating on the butterfly bushes.

Unusual colors for a fall bouquet.

I had to search the garden to find yellow for the arrangement.

Hydrangeas for another fall arrangement.

And it was finally time to bring my houseplants back inside for the year.

After the watering ban was lifted a few weeks ago, I happily chucked the plants back outside, only to have to bring them back inside this past weekend.

In late March I took this bay tree out to the back deck.  Please note the height.

On Friday I had to bring it back inside.

It was very happy outside this summer.

The plants at the bottom are petunias.

Please note the red line in the picture.

That shows just how much the tree has grown this season.

I'm seeing a pruning come next spring.

Gardens and Hope Spring Eternal

Despite the continuing drought, some plants in the garden are flourishing.

I am happy to report that the 4 1/2 inches of rain we got the other week has helped to move us down the drought scale from exceptional drought to extreme drought.  Heh, we'll take any improvement we can take.  And it is nice to finally be able to see some green grass again.  We haven't had that pleasure since early May.

 The butterfly bushes are alight with visitors.

 Dozens of bumblebees were droning around the bushes.

A monarch butterfly atop the butterfly bush.

 Fritillary butterfly.

 This pretty little blue flower is doing well under the considerable shadow of the butterfly bushes.  The only problem?  I have no idea what it is or even if I had planted it to begin with.

Rosie?  Any ideas?

 Sedum Autumn Joy about to go into bloom.

 Black swallowtail.

 But alas and alack, much of the back yard will have to be torn up and reseeded as this grass is dead, deader, and deadest.

If you look closely, the grass in the far distance is nice and green.  Too bad it is such a small portion of our yard.

Update:
Here are some better pictures of the mystery flower.

 While the flowers do indeed resemble periwinkle, or vinca minor, they are smaller, being only about 5/8"across and the flowers form a cluster.  The plant is also not a vine, but grows upright and is less than a foot tall.  The leaves are hairy and rough to the touch.

More research needs to be done.

The Garden in Distress

This year had started out so promising:

lots of rain and just the right amount of sun.

And then the rains stopped.

Just like that.

Never in all of my years of gardening have I ever experienced a spring drought.

This is not good.  Especially since many of our plants are still trying to recover from the severe drought we had two years ago.

 Even the native echinacea are wilted.*

*Disclaimer: I only water plants in pots in normal years and trees in drought years.

A plant has to be tough to survive in my garden.  I don't pamper any of my plants.  They survive or they're out of here.  Given the fact that my main garden lies on a severe southern facing slope that consists of very shallow soil (read a thin dusting of soil over limestone), any rain that does fall, either runs off immediately or doesn't stay around long.  

The best I can do is to build up the soil, but that takes time.

There is no magic bullet in gardening, folks.

Since I do have such adverse growing conditions in my garden, I have made a conscious effort to grow more native plants that are naturally suited to this climate and its quirks.

That certainly doesn't exempt them from feeling the pain in extreme weather, though.

 The dreaded Japanese beetles have hit with a vengeance.

They have practically denuded some of my roses.

 The goose neck loosestrife is severely wilted.

 It's looking sad.

 No, this isn't snow, this is grass.  It's dead grass.

Just a couple of days into summer.

 Pitiful.

At least we won't need to mow.

Hey, do you know how bad a drought is?

When even the weeds stop growing!

Yep, we're there.

 The butterfly bush out front is very unhappy.

 All right, I admit it.  We've been watering the hydrangea.

But with blooms this pretty, do you blame me?

As I said, we have been watering the pots.

The bush beans have been doing well and we got our first harvest this week.

Haricot verts.  Or young green beans.

Very tasty.

I planted four tomato plants in two large pots this year and we are being overrun with tomatoes.
We have already harvested our first tomatoes of the season.

Oh, and that greenhouse window to the right of the tomato plants?
I bought that off a neighbor at a garage sale for $5.  I plan to use it for a greenhouse for my potted herb plants to extend the growing season.

 But even in these darkest of times, there is life in the garden.

 A tiger swallowtail has been busy feeding on the butterfly bushes.

 As has a bumblebee.

 This guy proved a bit more elusive to photograph.

The Eastern black swallowtail.

Please remember when you water your gardens to also leave out sources of water for the insects and the birds, especially in times of drought.