Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, July 19

Above, spring azaleas from 40 Miles North. Below, flowers in complementary colors:

Hello KT, some more are coming up! 1st up, a purple Thunbergia vine that I've been moving until I finally found a spot it likes. Finally it's flowering nicely!

Next an oak leaf hydrangea with white flowers, very hardy.

Last is a spiderwort, or trillium. It's a perennial wildflower in the East Texas woods, and a few years ago I transplanted some to my yard, it's very reliable! Comes back every spring. Look forward to your thread as always! - Tom Servo

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

Hi KT, Hope you're feeling a lot stronger nowadays!

Attached is a photo of a cucumber plant that refuses to die. It's been in the garage unwatered for a month or so.

Miley

Don't know if there's much hope for it, but if you plant it, you might want to plant it deep. It's a fighter!

Farming/Gardening/Nature

Everything is growing vigorously in these parts. I have several grape and hardy kiwi vines that are finally producing and ourgrowing their area....may have to expand their trellis and just let them overrun the area. You can see the Japanese beetle damage on the grape leaves...they're usually pretty bad. Tried a new pesticide called Acelepryn this year, and haven't seen them since. Impressive.

Quince and medlar trees are likewise loaded with fruit this year. A couple quince had a weird issue where the topmost branches died, but the plant otherwise seemed fine?

We have a bunch of wood lilies growing by the creek, and had an unexpected visitor at the back door. The cats were very interested, but when they got closer to investigate, the woodchuck started aggressively hitting the glass to scare the cats off. HE was looking for a fight!

Moron Analyst/Intrepid Liaison/Admiral Ackbar

1. Are those dead branches on the quince fireblight? Cut well below them and discard any affected branches and leaves.

2. The other flowers and fruits look great.

3. Good news about the pesticide for Japanese beetles.

4. A badger that picks fights with your cats! Wild!

Confrontation with a tractor:

Ground nesting bird protecting her eggs
pic.twitter.com/YzdcnoF96Y

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) July 13, 2025

History and Weather

Etymology: Heatwave, dog time

We complain about the heatwave, we fear the heatwave, and we plague the heatwave. But do we only know what this word means? And where does he come from?

The word heatwave comes from the Latin heatwave, short for canis, the dog. Canicula literally means little dog - - and actually refers to the star Sirius, the brightest star in the constellation of the Great Dog (Canis Major).
But, in ancient Rome, the strongest heat of the year coincided with the heliac rise of Sirius, in other words, the moment when the star reappears at dawn, shortly before sunrise. This astronomical phenomenon occurred in Rome between mid-July and mid-August.

So the Ancients associated the overwhelming heat of this period with the presence of the little dog in the sky: the heatwave... hence the expression hot days, the days of the little dog, which we have wisely shortened in heatwave.

Below: This stunning ptolemaic-era mosaic was discovered in 1993 during the construction of the new library of Alexandria, Egypt, which was built in the heart of the Lagid Palace neighborhood. It is now in the archaeological museum of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, where it is exposed to the relentless curiosity of visitors.

Storia Mundi

Marie Gagnon L'amour de la planète terre

(Original text)

Étymologie : la canicule, un temps de chien
On se plaint de la canicule, on redoute la canicule, on peste contre la canicule. Mais sait-on seulement ce que ce mot signifie ? Et d’où il vient ?
Le mot canicule vient du latin canicula, diminutif de canis, le chien. Canicula signifie littéralement petite chienne — et désigne en fait l’étoile Sirius, l’astre le plus brillant de la constellation du Grand Chien (Canis Major).

Or, dans l’Antiquité romaine, les plus fortes chaleurs de l’année coïncidaient avec le lever héliaque de Sirius, autrement dit le moment où l’étoile réapparaît à l’aube, peu avant le lever du soleil. Ce phénomène astronomique se produisait, à Rome, entre mi-juillet et mi-août.
Les Anciens associaient donc la chaleur accablante de cette période à la présence du petit chien dans le ciel : la canicula… d’où l’expression dies caniculares, les jours du petit chien, que nous avons sagement raccourcie en canicule.

Ci-dessous : cette superbe mosaïque d’époque ptolémaïque a été découverte en 1993 lors de la construction de la nouvelle bibliothèque d'Alexandrie d’Égypte laquelle a été édifiée au coeur du quartier des palais lagides. Elle se trouve à présent au musée archéologique de la Bibliotheca Alexandrina où elle est exposée à

l’inlassable curiosité des visiteurs.
Storia Mundi

Gardens of The Horde

Hello KT,

I hope you and your husband continue to do well health-wise. I had some
major health problems last year and my garden suffered along with me.
I'm recovered now but the weeds have a big advantage now and it will
take another year of work to get the garden under control again. But I
do have a couple of pretty pictures to share this week.

Now is the time of year for the hardy hibiscus to shine. Here is one of
the newer smaller varieties (Summerific Holy Grail from Proven Winners)
that is doing well in its new home. I was recovered enough to move it
last fall to a spot where it isn't blasted by the hot sun all day. It's
already recovered from its move and is looking much less stressed than
last year. (Evapotranspiration - it's the law!). I also have a few of
the older, larger varieties. This one (Blue River II) is almost 6 ft
tall - for scale the lattice next to it is 4 ft tall. If I don't support
it, it will flop all over the place and the stems can break from the
weight of the flowers.

Finally, the cold spells I had back in Jan and
Feb seemed to delay all my plants this year. They were slower to sprout
and then to bloom. But the flowers are lasting later than usual, so I
still have daylilies in bloom. Here are Soft Lavender and Chesapeake
Crab Legs.

badgerwx

Great photos and information! Thanks!

Love the white hibiscus.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

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Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, July 12

Check out the late comments you may have missed. 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 01:32 PM

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