Gardens 2026

[Nancy]

May Day / as a kid we took baskets of flowers and left em on door knobs rang the door bell or knocked ran and hid!
That was fun.

Today I've been out in the yard getting things accomplished that I did not get to earlier in the week.
Moved cans and wagons of weeds to the carport area. Some got emptied.
Raked up a couple of small piles of onion bulbs I'd dug out and got them picked up and in a can.
Mowed the front & the back yard.
---rest break --- between tasks
weeded some tall grasses in the iris beds as I watered in back.
Got two pieces of metal fence moved to a better spot.
10K steps [Without a walk today.]

[Harriet]

That does make sense about being good for our brains, Nancy. There are so many things we are thinking about, even when we are just planting in a pot. How moist is this soil, how fluffy, how high will you build it up to the edge when you consider the plants will be going in, too? So many thoughts that are headed toward something as "small" as a few little plants growing on in a pot. So many more decisions when we look around a larger yard or garden or even balcony we'd like to enjoy.

Enjoying happy successes.
Lantana is wildly healthy. I'm surprised the color is changing to a sort of gold (maybe the "pineapple" name should have warned me) rather than the lighter yellow the label and the first blooms appeared. But I guess that's okay.

The Bubblegum petunia, as in prior years, is determined to be the standout with the Bordeaux right behind. The Bordeaux is a "new and improved", and maybe I can see some improvement, yes. But for the petunias, the Yellow Finch is just not doing well. I wonder why - from some of the same stock or "breeding" as others. I see no worm damage. Just seems to give up. I guess it could be worms and they are concentrating on the young buds. Hmmm... .. Usually you see little holes on blooms, though.

Trying one "SunPatiens" this year, at a spot where some height would be nice. That is a cross between impatiens and New Guinea Impatiens, which have different foliage, bigger blooms. It could take sun, but I'll be asking it to stick with shade. It's a large one, and in the past, these have been expensive, but I found this for $6.

DgsW is continuing to mow here. That's a win-win as he is hoping to earn money.

Half my largest pot/planter is mine, half given over to a wren who now has 5 eggs. Hopefully, she'll manage. If I am lucky enough to see when they all fly away, I'll break up the nest, I think, and keep her from doing this again. I read about her species, and she can definitely do this twice in the same year.

[Harriet]

Oh, I like that tradition with the flower baskets!

[Kittykatt]

Yesterday I trimmed back the periwinkle growing along the fence. I may need to do more, if what's left decides to flop over onto the patio, rather than nicely climb up the fence, but we'll see. I've brought up some geraniums from their very sheltered spot where they've been acclimatising, and put their pots along the edge of the patio.

Sometime in the near future, I need to trim back the periwinkle in the front garden. I also need to decide the future of another rose - it's not growing at all well this year.

[Nancy]

I have another line of bed de-onioned.
Got a vid. of the process going up at 3 today.
Glad for this progress but I still have to pick up the piles of what I've ripped out.

I am waiting for the shade to get in the area to pick up anc do some clean up on
after today's work. / that did not work no shade when I thought ... it was later...
got some done anyway.

[Nancy]

Garden Time / today was 6-8:00 a.m.
before the bees were out weed onions out by roses on East side of yard
Mission Accomplished!

Got cans emptied 1st to have some where to put em as I went.
Now I need to move those to the trailer.
Taking a rest break now.

[Nancy]

Wed. 5-6-26

I got the yard mowed earlier today so glad b/c it's clouded up might rain you never know.
I went out after dinner and weeded out more onions not as many in those beds.
Used a tarp to drag em across the yard to the "holding area" that worked quite well.

Earlier between rounds I enjoyed my garden and read and took some notes on my new habits
work book and the calendar / planner I'm using for that.

Adding seed sweeping in to my new habits list.
Next I thing I need to do is to enter this info. into my garden planner
the lime green one.

I watered some areas... speaking of I need to go out and finish the other areas.

[Nancy]

I have barely done any house work. Thinking I can take out one if not more of the beds and just mow those areas if I reseed them.
That would be way less work. some others could be cut down in size and less weeding for the win!
Glad for the progress I have made but there is a bit too much for me now so I'm considering options for those.

[Harriet]

Kittykatt, can you just train the periwinkle by weaving it in, or would it take some kind of tying?

Nancy, are the beds extra work because weeds creep in? That is the biggest problem people have here - creeping grasses like bermuda/witch. I saw a video of a garden where they used really tall edging, more than a foot tall but a good bit going into the ground of course. I've never considered any that tall, but I guess it would make the beds easier.

More from the small-scale year -

Managed that one more mini-trip to hope to find plants and bought 3, plus HRH bought a variegated geranium ( ? ) that I can't imagine he likes. He is so impressed with striped or dual-colored blossoms, but has no idea what the plant requires. But, okay. I will try to find a place that gets enough sun for a geranium. May have to go with Kittykatt's plan of geranium in a pot so I can move it if it ends up without enough sun.

I found a sweet potato, another Bordeaux petunia and by complete chance, sitting all by itself, another smaller Sunpatien hybrid in a more vivid color. No time to try to find where any more impatiens were, of any type, though I really could have used them.

I think the new little Sunpatien will work in a concrete "hen" pot/planter that ds gave me - I would like him to see me using that.

The two medium-large pot containers are filled, one with orange impatiens and one with a begonia/calibrachoa/Creeping Jenny combination. As soon as I got that threesome planted, got a photo taken in the flattering morning light, the calibrachoa stopped blooming. No idea.

The Saffron Finch Petunias are perking up. Could it be that they were too dry? Somehow more susceptible than others from their same breeding? It is possible that we are in such a drought here that even our irrigation is not doing enough for plants that may not be ideally close to the drips. Weather folks and in fact, every newscast, talking about the drought on the news all the time.

Found a much better price on coir liners for baskets online than what I can find here - arrive tomorrow.

[Kittykatt]

Harriet, your garden sounds really pretty, and thank you for the suggestion. The periwinkle by the fence is the vinca major, (I have the smaller less vigorous vinca minor in the rest of the garden) so it can get invasive if I'm not careful, and also has a way of rooting itself into my pots!!! My fence is the type made from planks of wood next to each other, not the interwoven panels, but I've noticed some stems seem to find a way to almost "cling on" to the fence and grow up it, so I'm leaving those in place, and just trimming back those bits that evidently have world domination in mind and are intent on taking over my patio. It's nearly finished flowering now, so will soon start to sprout again, and won't look "ugly" for very long.

I'm just grateful I don't have any of those vigorous, sinister sounding weeds you ladies have to deal with!