Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, June 8

Above, from Neal in Israel, some lovely Alstromeria, a great cut flower that grows in his garden.

St. Martin's Lily: That's the plant according to the plant identifier app, though I haven't taken the time to confirm. I planted last year, and they bloomed from spring well into the summer. Now they're putting on a nice spring display, and I hope they'll once again continue flowering into the summer.

They should be well-adapted outdoors in Israel.

Below the fold, a few more flowers he has been growing.

Well, the hot weather predicted for a lot of California hit us on Thursday. The urban heat thing is real. The concrete around the house stayed hot after the sun went down longer than the air stayed hot.

How is your weather treating you and your garden?

From Neal:

Hollyhocks: I now have hollyhocks at a number of spots around the front garden. Some are carryovers from last year; some from self-seeding; some from seedlings I produced from last year's flowers.

Anybody else get self-seeding hollyhocks?

Lobelia and violas: Lobelia has established a presence on the basis of self-seeding, and flowers nicely in the spring. I planted violas from a nursery in the winter, and they're still going pretty strong thanks to lots of shade under the olive tree and what are still moderate temperatures overall.

Amaryllis: The bulbs planted in the garden have had a difficult couple of years. Some subterranean pest started boring in the bulbs, and during the past winter the snail population skyrocketed and devastated a lot of plants. The two strongest stands in the garden did flower well, but just as they were peaking we had a couple of days of sharav (masses of super hot and dry air which blow through Israel in the spring) which finished off the flowers before I could get some nice shots. So, all I can offer are staged photos of plants in planters.

Love that white one today.

Alstromeria with a bee.

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

From By-Tor:

Container garden update- my salad bowl has sprouted in a week as have my sunflowers.

Not sure what kind of pepper this is but one tiny nibble has my mouth burning for about eight minutes. I think it's an habenero pepper, Scoville rating about 1 million (jalepeno is about 10K ).

Careful with those peppers!

Dug out this two year old jar of green tomatoes and made a tasty sandwich, perfect for a warm late spring afternoon.

Two years old and still as good as the day I canned them.

Anybody else can fried green tomatoes?

Art

Olga Kvasha, painting, "In the Field"

Gardens of The Horde

KT, We had our Yucca bloom again this year, and since it only does so periodically I am assuming it is a result of the dryness of the spring. It is June 3 and we have had one storm in May and that, like so many early season rains, was short and not really rainy. Anyway it isn't much to offer but it is a lovely sight when approaching the front door.

About two months ago, I put in a couple of manzanillo olive trees. I have no desire to become the Polk county olive baron. I am more concerned with the effort required to harvest and then clean up the resulting mess. I chose these because of their silvery-green almond leaves and distressed trunks they are rather beautiful to look upon. Hopefully they will provide some character to the gazebo I have hopes of adding some day. With a little luck I will send in pictures of more mature trees in a few years, and maybe this won't be just an idea.

Best Regards,

rdohd

WOW!

Hoping that those olive trees grow just as you want them to!

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

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Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, June 1

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 01:29 PM

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