Stop Sign Garden | In the Garden With Jera

Busy week in week 17 as we hosted a garden party. The garden was at spring peak and we rented a tent and self-catered the food. We had a lovely time showcasing the flowers and spending quality outdoor time with friends and family.

Week 18 was the week goal week for getting my sunflowers and zinnias in. I did have to remove some poppies and cornflowers to make room for summer seedlings. I’m hoping the chipmunk and slugs allow me to keeps some! I planted sunspot, sunfill purple, cherry rose, teddy bear and sun rich summer Provence sunflower seedlings started in April. In addition, I put in parks lavender, benary giant mix, and Oklahoma salmon in my back zinnia border. I put parks siesta mix in my lettuce bed after harvesting bolting lettuce. Parks mix, and Art Deco mix ended up in my raised beds. Jim baggets mix and ice queen white were put out front. In addition to planting zinnia seedlings, I started several varieties of dwarf zinnia to fill pots that currently rely on pansies and cool weather flowers that will soon be dried up and will need to be replaced. I have started Aztec sunset, profusion cherry bicolor, Zahara raspberry ripple, and precious rose dwarf zinnias. I also started viscaria oculata, salvia summer jewel pink, Genovese basil and General Lee cucumbers.

My fantastic friend at Doc Green Grows traded me some eucalyptus, ptilotus Matilda, cockscomb celosia seedlings and a cafe au lait dahlia for chocolate mint and pineapple coleus, Avignon dahlia and Persian shield. These were planted in large containers as I do not have room for full eucalyptus trees. Weekend 18 was busy with planting and I still have 4 o clocks to plant which are small seedlings. I received these in a trade with another lady who traded for a rooted Maypop. I received a cutting of Jerusalem sage and some rooted oregano from a neighbor in exchange for a dahlia and an iris. I gave another neighbor a white iris for a split in the fall of her pink ones. If you know people with plants, ask to trade!

I also started rooting cuttings of 6 different Calibrachoa. I have no luck later in the season when they are woodier. I used fiber rooting blocks. Efficacy TBD on these!

The week was wet! Temps were in the high 60’s to 70’s and lows in the upper 40’s. We still have 2 nights in the 30’s on the forecast so my seedlings are still in their flats and getting root bound. It’s been increasingly harder by the day to keep them healthy! I spent some of the week looking online for hardy pitcher plants for the bog garden and settled on a set of 5 from an eBay store for about thirty dollars. These will be hardened off as soon as they arrive and will be planted as soon as frost is off the forecast.

The Bermuda grass is greening up and my husband cut it down so the lawn is looking pretty good. Bermuda greens from the bottom so you need to cut back the brown grass on the top to get to a green lawn in the spring. The first spring flowers that I direct sowed are in bloom. Spurred snapdragon, or linaria, are opening!

I took the time to put a little liquid miracle grow on all of my beds this week to give spring a push! My roses were fertilized as well. The frost a few weeks ago damaged the ends of iris leaves and rust and rot set in. I went through the beds to tidy them up and cut off the dead ends and rusty spotted leaves and threw them in the trash. Getting rust out of your environment is helpful so these diseased leaves did not make the compost heap.

I lost nearly all of my peas in the freeze. This week I replanted so peas will be a bit late. I deadheaded in the daffodil bed out front to clean up the look and pulled tulips and hyacinths from the pots that need planting with seedlings to make room. The spent bulbs are replanted in temporary pots so the leaves can die back naturally. This feeds the bulbs. Then they will be dry stored in my garage until September and placed in the refrigerator for 16 weeks and replanted next winter.

I moved my daylily seedlings in grow bags outside 24 hours a day and and planted a new pot up with salpiglossis, petunia and trailing vinca seedlings. They don’t look like much now, but in a few weeks expect an update! I received this pot free to review it and it’s quite colorful!

In spite of the rain, I set my rain bird hose bib fed sprinkler system back up this week. I removed 6 rotating sprinkler heads last fall to avoid freeze damage and didn’t think to label them. I’ve been avoiding setting these up as I did not know which sprinkler went where and they were set up to cover certain angles and areas. Somehow, my first try worked! I doubt all 6 are in their original spots, but where everything is now works to water what I need them too. What luck!