The backyard - productive or otherwise - 2022

[Harriet]

storm Ian clobbered the garden as it came through. I did get a few photos the afternoon before, assuming the worst. It was especially a shock how the impatiens, so well-formed into a hedge, almost, before the storm, were tromped down. I did as much as I could lifting them up but of course the stems are fragile and don't always react well. They may continue to get a little more full, bounce back a little. Part of lantana was toppled, part not. At least there is certainly no dryness.

[Harmony]

I'm sorry our storm clobbered your plants. My false heather had grown so big I'd just divided it and put 3 clumps in the side border. I left one small piece and that was killed by the storm. The others were covered with twigs and leaves so I cleaned them all out, a task DH said was busy work. But I'm happy those 3 clumps seemed to do ok.

My lantana is all leggy with all the leaves and flowers toward the ends. Need pruned badly, but hard to do that when the flowers are so pretty. Harriet, how do you prune yours?

[Harriet]

We juuuuust missed early frosts and have had an additional week or two of flower-saving weather, YAY! Ddil hadn't been over for a few months - just sending the kids and ds. She had so many compliments for the flowers yesterday on her trick-or-treating rounds.

Prune? You're supposed to prune? Hmmm... .. Basically, Harmony, I just put other flowers in front of the lantana! That works well to make tall tops look like you meant to do that! lol If they don't look good near the base, I couldn't see it because the supertunias are going crazy there, even trying to climb a little. The largest spread of one of the petunias is 5 feet wide - they don't fool around. Well, I take it back... .. I did cage (low cages) those sage plants, didn't I, and at a few places the cages probably help the lantana a bit, but that's not everywhere. Some of the lantana has just held itself up against the brick and been okay. ( ? ) At one place, stems draped down permanently, but I think that was the storm, and it's still healthy, looking okay.

We took trick-or-treating photos in front of flowers this year and the lantana was especially showy. For the last month I've had to eat my words about the yellow flowers not being showy. They are now. There are probably 30 blossoms per plant all the time now. 5 feet high - I measured. The variety is "Luscious" and not even supposed to get 3 feet high, but these went above that.

When I think of my disappointment in the late spring, and the times I even wished I'd planted a row of tall yellow marigolds instead ... .. I know now I wouldn't have been as happy because the marigolds would never have made this show. I just had to be patient.

Ddil asked me how I could bear to part with the same flower ideas I had this year, when they worked out so well. She's got a point. The impatiens looks like it was made for the long bed (or the long bed made for impatiens), so how could I not give that the same chance next year?

Thankfully for my 2023 garden dreaming, there have been a few duds in 2022.

The verbena just never made much contribution. Each individual blossom is great, but blooms are downright rare. So, in beside the colorful impatiens that are such shrubs now, the verbena looks like blank space. So, I won't plant those again. I don't understand the wonderful raving posts I see about them, except that the gardens must be in other climates.

The dahlia idea was pretty in spring, blank afterward, so it's hard to decide to hang on to that idea. In some gardens, there is a second flush of bloom but that sure didn't happen here, although the plants seem fine and other flowers around them are blooming.