The Sun is Killing Me: August 2010

Monday, August 16, 2010

Bloom Day - August 15th - a day late...

OK, so I'm a day late. It's Summer. It was the weekend. I was out playing. It happens.

Even though it is hot, I still have blooms. Here we go:

The blue mistflower is attracting the usual addicts:

Bat faced Cuphea:

Grandpa Otts Morning Glory:

And I am super excited about this one. I tried for 2 years to get these started from seed and last year's fall deluge finally did the trick. Awesome. Eryngium leavenworthii:

Friday, August 13, 2010

The Evening Garden

As the sun goes down the evening flowers begin to open and the garden becomes drenched in their overpowering fragrance:

Moonflower:

Datura (this one was closing up after the sun came up, but I was still able to get a photo):

Mexican Tuberose. Their scent is strong during the day, but at night it is simply intoxicating:

Absynnian Glad. This one has a Datura-like smell, in my opinion, and the scent is very strong as night falls. Like the Tuberose, I can smell this one from the other side of the yard (40-50 feet away):

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Melons!

Man! has it been hot lately. One hundred degrees+ every day. At least the melons are loving the heat....

Cantaloupe 'Northern Arizona' (the milk jug is for size comparison):

Watermelon "Moon and Stars":

Zone What?

Seattle to Olympia is Gardening Hardiness Zone 8.

Zone 8: -12 to -7 C (10 to 20 F)

Austin is Gardening Hardiness Zone 8-9

Zone 8: -12 to -7 C (10 to 20 F)
Zone 9: -7 to -1 C (20 to 30 F)

The USDA map was updated this year - 2012. Some zones have shifted from the previous version.

See the current map here:

http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html

Although both Austin and Seattle are in similiar zone hardiness, their climates could not be more different! Temps top out in the 80's in the summer in Seattle, where in Austin they can top 110 and stay in the 100's for months on end. The same plants that enjoy the Seattle maritime climate will fry in a second in the semi-desert that is Central Texas.

Learn about the heat zone map here:

http://www.ahs.org/publications/heat_zone_map.htm

Check out the AHS Heat Zone map here:

http://www.ahs.org/pdfs/05_heat_map.pdf

Past Garden Quotes of the Month

"The fair-weather gardener, who will do nothing except when the wind and weather and everything else are favorable, is never master of his craft."-- Henry Ellacombe
"The trouble with gardening is that it does not remain an avocation. It becomes an obsession." -- Phyllis McGinley
"The way of cultivation is not easy. He who plants a garden plants happiness." --Chinese Proverb
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." --Greek proverb
'Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.' - Albert Einstein
"Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden." ~Orson Scott Card
"I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and a large Garden." ~Abraham Cowley, The Garden, 1666
"A weed is but an unloved flower." ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox
"Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden.... It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart." ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebookse
"Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination." ~Mrs. C.W. Earle, Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden, 1897 (Thanks, Jessica)
"When one of my plants dies, I die a little inside, too." ~Linda Solegato
"In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death." ~Sam Llewelyn
"Plant carrots in January and you'll never have to eat carrots." ~Author Unknown