We haven’t had rain in days, the temps have been in the 90s, and it’s been incredibly humid. This is New Hampshire? I go outside to putter in the garden, and I just wilt!
The flowers all seem to be holding up fine, though. Frank’s got the drip irrigation working in all of the window boxes, and because of that, I haven’t lost the lobelia this year. Usually, I’ll not be able to water for a couple of days, it dries out and never recovers. It’s definitely hanging in there this year. I’m making a dead-heading pass through almost every day, catching it when I can. It takes three or four trips to make it all the way around the deck doing it that way, but this way it seems to actually get done.
The shasta daisies that I transplanted in the spring are all doing really well right now. The double “crazy daisy” has really healthy plants but no blooms, though. I guess that’s to be expected in their first year, but I was really looking forward to seeing them.
Frank and his lilies — they are handling this heat just fine. We’ve got these short yellow guys with the red stripes out in full force right now. I kept telling him “no more yellow flowers!” but he really liked these lilies, so here they are.
I read somewhere (probably gardenweb) that people are using barley balls to help keep their pond water clear. Ours isn’t too bad right now, but we’re fishing out the algae with a net a couple of times a week. I’m going to see where I can buy one of those balls, I think. Frank wants to read about them more thoroughly, to be sure it won’t harm the fish.
Speaking of the fish, I saw a blue heron in the pond yesteray around 6ish. I went rushing out there madly to scare him away. As beautiful as they are, I don’t want to establish the local frog bar, mostly because I think it’ll become a sushi bar as well, and I really like my fish!