Bloom Diary 2023 - Tumblr Posts
April 15, rain
The chives arrived first, followed by the Iris Reticulata. The south-facing tulips and sedum have sprouted. The poppies started growing while still half-encased in ice. One garden mum, planted last Halloween and believed to be an annual, surprisingly survived the winter.
Annual vegetables, flowers, coleus, elephant ears and ranunculus have been started indoors.
April 22, frost
While the perennials weather snow and hail, the moonflowers, sunflowers and morning glory are getting leggy beneath the grow lights. We all yearn for warmth next week.
May 14, intermittent rain and sun
Tulips ruled the week, sprung from more than 100 bulbs buried last fall. They are pretty and defenseless. I’ve battled squirrels with cayenne powder, scraps of the cairn terrier’s summer shave and Bonide Repels-All, which is some truly acrid stuff.
May 20, sun
The neighbors’ south-facing irises are in full bloom, so mine can’t be too far behind. For now, lilacs and brunnera.
May 28, sun
Iceland and oriental poppies for Memorial Day weekend.
June 5, clouds
The blue bearded irises have arrived.
June 14-17, smog from rampant Canadian wildfires
Cimmaron has won the lettuce race, followed by buttercrunch and iceberg.
The dill has been fully sacrificed to three hungry swallowtail caterpillars, who doubled their size within a week, left behind a shocking amount of poop and inched away, hopefully to pupate but possibly to become bird food.
The radishes were small and some were woody, but anything can be pickled.
Things to remember: Basil loves the heat. As do wave petunias, which were planted in early May and took a month to mound.
June 24-25, much needed rain
July 1-2, sun
This side of the summer solstice, everything seems to be getting bushy -- notably the cosmos, nasturtium and scarlet runner bean arch. Suddenly in bloom this week are the zinnias, started two months ago, and a couple nearly deserted ranunculus.
July 5, sun
Coneflower season comes upon us as I pick the first zucchini of the year.
July 27, hot as balls
Coleus, grown from seed, requires high humidity to germinate and establish. Stargazer lilies bloom several weeks later than other oriental lilies.
August 6, rain
This week I am warring with wasps while harvesting tomatoes and snake gourds and scooping poop for a couple animal friends while their people are out of town.
For future reference, the neighbors’ fall-planted hardy hibiscus are all in bloom.
August 28, sun (no rain in a long time)
All of a sudden, after a season of struggle, I have too many tomatoes. Turns out I should not have worried that the plants I grew from seed would not mature in time.
Long-awaited dahlias are finally beginning to flower.
The purple hyacinth beans carry cyanide in their pods, but the hummingbirds love the flowers like nothing else.
September 16, overcast and humid
The wasps that moved into my chives planter in July and stung me four times vanished as soon as the nights dipped into the 40s. The bees are getting drunk on the asters, which are flushing at last after two years' dormancy in a spot where they weren't getting enough sun. Everything else seems to be going to seed.
Someday I may save and split enough to avoid having to buy anything.
September 24, rain
The morning glories snuck up this week with startlingly beautiful, short-lived blooms 3 inches in diameter just as their vines were starting to look dried up and ratty. Photos can't do justice to the contrast of their sunburst centers against that translucent blue.
They say morning glories thrive on neglect. I think this means next year I'll put the seedlings in containers large enough to get them through midsummer and then try to forget about them.
The moonflower vines shriveled away at some point for reasons I have not yet troubleshooted.