The Lotus Summer

Still hiding in the air conditioning as the dastardly duo- crabgrass and wiregrass- quickly consume my gardens. But I peeked outside for a lovely surprise this morning-my lotus has a flower bud! Now, the backstory on this lotus is that I purchased a dozen mixed lotus seeds online from an ebay seller back in late January. Well, of the dozen seeds, only one germinated and the others rotted. My guess is that the seeds were either too immature or had been improperly stored, cause lotus seeds do not tend to loose much viability over time. The seller from Thailand, whom had also sold me a bag of waterlily seeds that also failed to germinate, did not answer my emails and soon after the account was closed. They probably opened under a new username, but that's ebay for yah. Well, at least I got one seedling out of the ordeal! Considering that I germinated it in the beginning of February, and it stayed in a cup with water and diluted fertilizer until at least mid April, I did not expect much from it. It was barely growing, until I planted it in a plastic barrel filled with dirt and water.


Here is the plant at six months old. I have to thank fertilizer tablets for the impressive growth- about two little tabs every three weeks or so once it started actually growing. I was told not to expect any flowers for two to three years, but lo and behold, today I found this little bud hiding underneath a leaf!


I am pretty excited and can't wait for it to bloom- which may take two to three weeks. But I am so happy that it looks like it is going to turn out pink or red- not that I don't like the white and yellow lotus varieties, but dark pink/red varieties are my favorite. Hopefully my next attempts will have a higher success rate!

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.

Ready.... set.... get out your spade!

Last night it was 37 degrees. The last frost date here is April 15 (and sure enough, two nights ago it there was a light frost) but weather.com tells me it's warming up and won't get cold again for (at least) the next ten days... so I say it's safe!

I've already planted out perennials that I know won't keel over under a light frost, along with one brave tomato plant. My hostas have returned to me, and most of my hydrangeas are flushing out. This will be my first real spring in my own house with my own dirt. (We moved here last June, the day before I started a rigorous full time job that lasted three months, so the yard was rather neglected last year) but at least the previous owners left me with a blank palate- no plants other than the (seemingly required) four rounded holly bushes in front of the porch and one random iris hiding beside the steps. Just weeds, crabgrass, and those blasted fire ants (they dashed my hopes of wearing sandals last summer!). I dragged myself home from work, usually around 6pm and dead tired every day and then went straight to the garden to work till dark most days. All the while Hubby (a yardener, not a gardener) laughed at me.

The layout looks a little rickshaw, but when the hellebores and Edgeworthia chrysantha bloomed in the ugliest of winter days, quickly followed by Carolina Jessamine, forsythia, and finally azaleas and "Cherokee Brave" dogwood (the last two still glaring at me from their too-small nursery pots), there is no way someone couldn't gaze upon them without being filled with happy feelings. I may have been gardening since I was a little girl, but this is my first full year of being a real gardener.