Deck Gardening

Hello! It's Monday and almost half of August has slipped by. Did you remember to look at the Perseid Meteor showers? I looked but saw nada, lol, just a couple big planets peeking through the humidity haze. Venus, Mars, Jupiter, I think.

Today you guys and I are having a little garden tour! I am so proud of my deck's container garden this year.  Lush and green and blooming. (though truth be told, the mish mash of containers needs a lot of rethinking. It would be nice---nicer---if they matched.)

I owe  all my success to my etsy/ FB friend Michelle Pooler, the very talented folk artist. She showed her zinnias and said she puts Miracle Gro every week, sometimes twice! I only did Miracle Gro once a month previously and had very poor results. But following her advice---wow---results were in just a few days, who knew.

All my plants are either seeds or volunteers or recycled summer bulbs. Frugal but fulfilling! These are Elephant Ears, fourth year and dahlias second year.

Dahlias will bloom soon; they are always late flowering perennials.

Only bought 3 impatiens at the supermarket in June. And this is my Mother's Day pot.

And my mothers' Day whirligig.

I am thrilled with all my cute zinnias!

And marigolds.

Cosmos.

This is my fave, the stripey zinnia.

Dwarf lemon sunflowers, reseeded.

I was very surprised by all the flowers that appeared without my having put seeds for them.

Many are from, I think, last year's Save the Bees and Wildflower mixes that I sowed. here scroll down

I had some of the seeds grow last year but not like this! Possibly the seeds need a winter freeze to germinate.This pot is entirely unaided by me, all from volunteers s and/ or last year's plants. The blue water ball is a thrifted find.

The fancy full bloomed zinnias are this year's seeds; the supermarket only stocks Burpee now and I dubiously had bought a couple packs just to try. In previous attempts at seed growing I had had very poor Burpee results, with little or no germination. Hahaha, they wanted their Miracle  Gro.

The simpler single zinnias and tiniest marigolds are perhaps reseed volunteers. Hybrid seeds do not reproduce as original always, they revert to simpler varieties. I love their old-fashioned look.

More surprises: thrilled to have yellow coneflowers!

Tiny petunias.

There was a morning glory but it disappeared, I have to go look for it. Nice grasses, instead. Bees love this.

The bees also love the lime tree. This is its fourth year with me. After the winter indoors I cut its leafless twigs back to one last bare 5" stem. Friends all said, eeew, toss it out.

 Oh my, it loves its summers on the deck and has blossomed in more ways than one.

Filled with honey- and bumble bees on sunny mornings. We'll have a good crop of baby limes.

And then there's this pretty and tough blue plant. What is it? Cat mint? Celosia?[ of the non-cockscomb variety]...I have no idea. The leaves have no scent. Behind it I was hoping for tarragon but I think it's ragweed.

Earlier, in the spring I also had blue borage and there was an early tall  blue flowering weed like love-in-a mist, but small. (Looking at klast years post it appears the tall blue weed was echinops. here
As you know, Mo and I use the deck as an outdoor room 8 or 9 months of the year.

I have been adding the white wooden pet gates this year because I am so afraid Mo will tear off the crisscross barrier and fall off the balcony edge. The drop is maybe 10 feet? He has pulled the trellis loose before, being especially upset by bike riders and loudly yelling, playing kids passing below. Every time I order Mo's food from Chewy.com, I am adding a fence section, because Chewy does free shipping with orders over 50.oo and Mo's food is more like 30.oo for a huge bag. The extra barrier has proved somewhat effective so far.

The big pots take up space but I like them, mismatched though they currently are. I love going out early every morning to water them, then seeing what has newly appeared.

Seed sowing has worked great for me---do you use seeds or are you a plants-from-the-garden center person? Next year I hope to order a few packets of artist Tasha Tudor's Heirloom Seeds
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Mo had a sleepover this weekend. Oh I missed him so much, but was sleeping off  the side effects of an ongoing medical treatment. Here he is at Their house.

All the linens on the bed were made by me, batik cotton.

And here he is come home and asserting his King-ness.

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PS the eggplant parm  and entire multi-birthdays party was a huge success. My eggplant was so good, I could eat the tray myself. Shown here with roasted broccoli.

Black clouds are rolling in behind the ugly locust tree! Better feed and walk Mo early now. Have a great week.

love

lizzy 

gone to the beach....

This is fun: See the banner plane and its big pennant? These are a common sight here, I am not sure if they're everywhere---do you see them?

Anyway last week a plane came by with a long narrow banner that read SHANNON I [heart] YOU WILL YOU MARRY ME ? BEN.  What a thrill it would be to see that up in the sky. He only flew by once. I sure hope Ben got Shannon out there looking up in plenty of time. 

Michelle at Olde Farmhouse Simples on etsy: here

Wildflower seeds by Botanic Interests here   scroll down to bottom of Amazon page for all the other choices, birds, butterflies, all blue, all yellow etc.