Early Summer Gardens

The gardens aren't in great shape this year.  We've had a record amount of rain, and being waterlogged has stunted the growth of or killed a lot of the plants.

Today, I battled the (also record breaking) mosquito population to go out and deal with the weeds.  The weeds seem to be doing a much better job of surviving our monsoons than my plants.  Even the marigolds, which are usually almost indestructible,  have shriveled up and died.

There is, however, one garden that has done OK.  It's on the south west side of the house, and is sheltered from most of the rain.  It's the only garden that isn't practically under water.  A portion of it is dedicated to my favorite annuals (sweet peas, cosmos and lavatera carnations because the cat ate my lavatera seeds.)

Check out those cosmos.  I wish I'd kept the seed packages, because I somehow ended up with huge mutant cosmos.  Last week, there were some that were bigger than my hand.

A little further along is a section of veggies.  Normally, I mix veggie plants into the flowers, but this year I had a space that needed to be filled.  Conveniently, my dad had finished planting his veggie garden, and I swiped his leftover seeds.  As a result, I now have a veggie patch that is growing beets, carrots, onions and (somewhat struggling) green peas along the back.

There are also peonies, stonecrop and a juniper in there too.  The veggies are just place holders until those grow to their full size.


Speaking of growing into it's full size, I have had a love affair with one William Baffin for the last three summers.  Somebody recommended him to me a number of years ago, and while it took a few years to meet potential, he's all that and a bag of chips now.  William Baffin is a rose bush, and it produces masses of dark pink roses for up to a month.

I've got a bush planted on either side of the gate into the dog pen, and they're starting to get too big for their britches.  Every year, when the blooms finally start to fade, I whack William back to half size so that the entrance to the pen is cleared.  Every year, it grows back - plus some.  This year, it grew with such vigor that it started to crowd out some surrounding plants.  When they didn't get out of the way, the roses started to fade.  Finally, I had to make the choice between William and my other plants, and William won.

You can see bottom left where the fight for space is starting to show.

The baby's breath is going to the big compost heap in the sky.  It's a great filler plant, so I would have liked to transplant it; but its taproot doesn't take well to being moved.

Tomorrow, I tackle the yarrow that's winning the space battle on the right hand side of the gate.  I love this variety of yarrow, so I'll have to find space for it somewhere else... probably the front yard.  It just can't stay where it is.