Weeds, weeds, everywhere!

After spending a week at the beach, I came home to find everything in pots either dead or half dead. Sheesh, the cat is lower maintenance than the plants! But the weeds have really gotten out of hand. I have been turning a blind eye to it for weeks, but now it is such a sad sight that I can't ignore them anymore. Bermuda grass from the lawn has invaded the flower beds, and they cut into my hands and break up into a million baby plant segments when I try to rip them out. There is also oxalis and other dicot type weeds about.

But the worst is the crabgrass. It can go from plantlet to full-blown monster menace choking out everything in sight faster than I can grab the spade. And the stupid roots are near impossible to pull out. Most of my 'blue and white' garden is crabgrass now. And because of the roots, I have to wait until a heavy ground-soaking rain before I can work on it. Which means that I need to weed the day after, when the air is heavy with the sweat-inducing humidity that only the Southeast can appreciate.

In lighter news, my mother and I are considering a business venue- growing landscape plants to sell in semi-annual driveway sales. A man made thousands a sale doing just that with considerably less land than we have. The main glitch is that so many of our stock plants are still under patents. Hmmmm.....

April showers bring May... heatwaves???

May should have been the official start of gardening, but seemingly days after the last frost date we were hit with temperatures in the nineties, making me lurk indoors, hiding in the air conditioning as my plants wilted in their plastic pots on the driveway. By June temperatures had hit 100+, and my options were to face heat exhaustion (which I am overly susceptible to), or wait till dusk and face armies of biting insects.

In other news, I have somehow been talked into a dog. Now, I grew up with Pomeranians, and one 45-lb pit bull mix. I knew hubby is not a "small dog person", so I figured we'd get something along the size of my beloved pit (who resides down the road with my mother). Ha. At the shelter he fell for a 60-lb rambunctious lab mix who "might grow another 10-15 pounds". Then hubby left for work, leaving me to deal with a totally unmannered, unhousetrained, slobbering, barking, shedding, out of control dog who terrorizes me, my cat, my neighbors, my house, and even my poor gardens. I have scratches, bruises, and bite marks all over and am seriously rethinking my status as a "dog lover", but after a month we at least now have a fence that keeps him out of (most of) my gardens. I am thinking of sending them both off to obedience school. I think the cat will back me up.

Calm, calm, calm... in the meantime here are some pictures of my garden in spring, before the heat zapped the flowers:

Here is a "Ha-ha!" to all the people who claim you can't overwinter Amaryllis in zone 7. A little mulch and these beauties were fine!


This Clematis has really got to start climbing up the railing. Doesn't it look sad tucked behind the holly bushes where its beauty can't be fully appreciated?





I love the smell of mock orange. My mother used to have a grove of them at the house where I grew up in, and I have fond memories of walking through them, posing for pictures with my date the day of my junior prom.


This strawberry tower, despite the worst case of slugs that I have ever seen, gave me plenty of fresh strawberries this year. I have never been too fond of west coast strawberries; here in Carolina they just taste sweeter, but lack the shelf life of California varieties. I gathered enough to make a gallon of homemade strawberry ice cream, much to hubby's delight.