4th time is a Charm -Rose Growing

 

I am ashamed that so far, I have killed 3 roses.  Granted they should have tried harder.  I have learned a few things such as my dog was peeing on them wasn't good so not totally my fault, right.  This is my 4th rose. I finally planted it. I put lattice around it to prevent dog spray from hitting the rose. I have been babying it. Say a prayer.  Isn't the color amazing on the bloom.

Rose Plum Perfect

Lady Gardenton I am not more like Lady Rose Killer.

Got the Gardening Itch

 

Look at the dahlias on the front of the Baker Seed catalog.  They almost look like poinsettias. My garden is starting to wake up. It will be in the 90s next week. I am holding off starting seeds until the end of March.  This is a tool by inputting your zip code you can determine your last frost date.

Clematis

Lasst year, I drew a little plan of my backyard.  I have a hard time remembering all the names of the plants.

Most of my borders are purple/blue plants.  I hope to add more purple and some white to the borders. We have a gutter above the shop door so I hope we can add another water barrel.  Anyway, to conserve water I want to do.  We also need to finish the drip lines to the rest of the border.  

There is something always to do in the garden. I can't wait for the flowers this year.

Can I Grow It?

 

Red Yucca

If it can grow in the Walmart parking lot, I think I have a chance of growing it. The seeds are wild found in little pods.

These seeds took a while to germinate. That makes sense because the seed has a very hard covering. 

Garden Update

Scarlett and the Lavener

 I think I have everything planted that I am going to plant.  My best friend sent me some dahlia tubers. I am ecstatic to grow these again. I have made some adjustments on where I am going to grow these.

Dahlia and a few zinnias

More dahlias are planted in here

discount walmart dahlias and grass

not dead yet

even got a bloom from 

discount dahlias

more dahlias

 

Throwback Thursday -Trash Rhodie

 

April 17,2019

This was the beautiful Rhodie on our back patio at our old house in Washington.  We actually rescued it from the trash. Some neighbors up the street had pulled it out and were going to toss it. We asked if we could have it and they gave it to us. It was beautiful when in full bloom.  

Plant Fever

 

I won't lie I have spring garden fever. It feels like spring has arrived here.

My indoor oasis is the holding area. I have a clematis and a Heather.  The seed flats have zinnia starts. It is a beginning. I am ready to put things in the ground. Our last frost is the middle of April. I am plotting and scheming on what I should plant. 

false indigo bush

I picked up the false indigo bushes at the adopt a tree event.  I took Nonna and our muscle Chuck to help us wrangle these little starts. This was a side quest. I got lists.

 

How is my Gardening/Yard growing

The yard is less tragic than last year. We still are on the hunt for goat heads. Doesn't everyone send a picture of a goat head bouquet to their husband? We literally pull goat heads every day.  They have terrible thorns and spread literally overnight

My favorite Dahlia seedling. (top picture) I will probably be keeping this one to grow out again next year. All my seedlings have bloomed. My gifted tubers are just starting to bud.

I have two varieties of black-eyed susan's. I love the burgundy one and the yellow centered one looks almost fake. The yellow center one is prairie sun black eyed susan.

I have two types of sunflowers this year. My best friend sent me seeds for Cherry Rose Sunflowers and I have two mammoth sunflowers. 

Zinnias are Floret's Victorian Wedding. Mine are really small. I don't know if I would grow again. I do love the soft pastel colors. The stem length is great too.

This is my cone flower. This thing is hardy.  I would like to grow more cone flowers next year in different colors.

This is a tradescantia which can also be an indoor houseplant. I got it off of the discount rack. It is doing great.  Please see plantswithkrystal and her repot on this.  

I do use a rain barrel. The water from my ac goes in my gutters to this rain barrel. We do get some rain occasionally. I use this to water some of my garden.

I have had failures as well. My patio tomato has yet to produce any tomatoes. I killed a rose bush and since replaced. It isn't looking that hot either. I also killed two sets of zucchini starts. I thought that was impossible.

 I also added Russian sage and some Lavendar to my rock borders. The Mexican heather isn't doing great. I have never had any luck with heather other than it is my name. 

My butterfly bush is alive but burnt on the top. We have had some hot days and that is the challenge of gardening in southeastern New Mexico. I don't think this summer is as hot as last summer.

Garden Update

 Finally got things planted in the planter boxes. My husband made 2 giant planter boxes.  One planter box is full of Floret Zinnia Seeds. I did starts and seeds.  The area in the ground is for sunflowers and celosia. We will see how that does.

My best friend gifted me oodles of dahlia tubers.  So, the other planter and containers along our shop hold dahlia tubers and some dahlia seedlings started from seeds from last year's dahlia. I still have some tubers to get potted up.  It is a challenge her in Southeast New Mexico to grow dahlias. They like the afternoon shade and lots and lots of water.

Garden Rabbit Hole

 My husband and I have been walking our neighborhood.  I had noticed this bush with yellow flowers in several yards.  Yes, I am the crazy lady that takes pictures of other people's plants.  It is very awkward. You got to love the fat dog in the above picture. Google lens is awesome for plant identification.

Turns out it is a Lady Banks rose which blooms for about 4 weeks and is thornless. The funny thing is one of my favorite Instagrammers did a reel on this rose - Wesley Farmshenigans

This also led me down the rabbit hole of longer blooming yellow roses. Then enters popcorn drift roses.

I kinda need both right?

Seed Starting Madness

 

I have started some of my seeds. My last frost date is around April 15-18th.  I started Black Eye Susan's.  They take the longest to germinate. I am using jiffy pellets and dollar tree green houses. 

I also started some dahlia seeds from the Floret Bee's Choice Dahlias I grew last year. I am calling them Heather's Extra Special Dahlia Seeds.  I am curious if they will even germinate.  I did some with the baggie and paper towel and some in my dollar tree greenhouse.

Garden Planning

 Is it too early to talk about gardening planning. I have spring fever. Above the picture is of my current seed stash. I did order 2 packets of seeds from Floret - Vintage Rose Celosia and Victoria Wedding Zinnia.  

My oldest son actually picked those out to grow. Picture below is the very rough sketch on what I think things will look like in the back yard. I am pretty comfortable I can manage this amount. Last summer I planted Lavendar, Texas sage, coneflower, and cotton tuff. I would like to add more Texas sage or Russian sage and the most expensive long-term thing I will be adding is an Angel face rose. 

 I will have to use the afternoon shade of the shop for my dahlias. We had a brutal hot summer last year, so I learned that dahlias need afternoon shade and boat loads of water. 

I will be starting my seeds the middle of March. depending on germination rates. Our last frost is the middle of April. Yep, I will be trying the seed method again for everything except sunflowers. Those I will direct sow. 

Putting the Garden to Bed

Here in New Mexico, it has been still warm, but the lows are going to be in the high 30s. The time has come to put the garden to bed. Most of my cut flowers are in pots.  

Most of my plants are in containers. I plan to overwinter my geranium on my back enclosed porch along with some succulents. The oasis is about to get planty.

I am collecting dahlia seeds. I do plan to save my current dahlia tubers.  I grew some of them from seed.  There isn't anything super special, but I thought I would save the tubers. I collected the seeds too. 

I made kinda of a mess, but I have some seeds to try. I like experimenting. A paper plate is better for this than just a paper towel as the petals really do blow away easily.

How does my Garden Grow Update

This year has been a learning experience as it was the first time, I have had a garden here in New Mexico. Our yard is very unfinished, and I have referred to it as tragic. I have started to add some structure to the yard. I planted some lavender, Texas sage and butterfly bush.  It is a very much a work in progress. Everything I have grown is in containers.

 I moved my container of dahlias, and they really took off. The area I moved them to has afternoon shade and our sprinklers hit them in the early mornings.  I wrote here about growing dahlias in high heat. Below is one of my favorite dahlia pictures.

My teddy bear sunflowers are doing well also.  I love how soft they look.

Below are my Floret Sahara Black Eye Susan's.  I wasn't able to order these seeds this time during Floret's seed sale, but I did order some other varieties. This is a keeper in this location. The vine in the picture is Thunbergia which is a Black-Eyed Susan Vine.  I did like this combo. It was a little wild.

I bought some Zinna starts early in the season for my porch and then sowed some Zinna seeds. They are really leggy. I would like to grow Zinnas again not for my front porch. They got extremely leggy.

I did like geraniums on my porch. Though they did seem to get a bit sunburned.  They were discount ones from Walmart.  I also bought a discount succulent basket. The bear was a thrift find.

I spent talking time talking to my best friend about future garden plans.  I got ideas.  I will grow some more dahlias and will grow them on this side of the shop.  Lots of lessons learned because of the high heat. When I close out the garden I plan on posting on some things I would like to grow next year.