Gone To The Beach: 09.09.2022

Friday, September 9, 2022

Flower Evaluation and a Hollyhock Quilt

Today was the most beautiful, a 10 best day weatherwise . Cool dry and sunny after a couple of grey days. One day it even rained a little, enough to send the impatiens planted in so many public spaces into riotous mounds of color, though not enough to reverse the dry sere summer's effect on my deck garden.

My garden is tiny, just a few big pots, but it means a lot to me.

As the plants fade into September I like to look back and evaluate: what grew, what did not, which did I love.

The cannas did beautifully, Costco tubers from my kids. I learned to plant them shallow and only once the soil was warm.

Volunteer and reseeding coreopsis are amazing. Zero effort!

As you know I plant a lot of zinnias. Here are some of the unusual heirloom seeds I chose. Pretty much NONE of them grew or bloomed.

Just one plant, one flower of the Peppermint stick variety grew and bloomed. I loved this one, wish more had grown.

What did grow and flower seems to have been from two ot three mixed seed packets, picked up at random from the Dollar Store.

Lilliputs from last year?

Rewarding for under five dollars. The center flower is brilliant chartreuse green!

One pack was wildflowers, and I had cosmos, bachelor buttons, candy tuft, baby breath, and a tiny blue sprig that is unknown to me [see it above, w the yellow coreopsis]. Not much of each, but again fun to see,

Oddly I had marigolds appear in one of the canna pots.

These were the two Baker Creek marigolds I chose, but they were seeded out in the lily pot to take over after the lilies died off. I did not put them in the canna pot. Mystery.

These are the impatiens I stupidly ordered from Amazon when I couldn't get to the nursery. You may recall they came as crumpled rotting sticks. I babied them along and they may be pretty in a month or so.

I had a huge amount of crabgrass in all my pots. I don't really know how I will overcome it next year, as I have no idea where it came from. The potting soil was new.

My Mexican Hats from Lori again didn't grow, I have a few nmore seeds for one more try and also more of the peppermint zinnias.

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On a flower/ quilty note: I made this table runner many years ago.

It's supposed to be Hollyhocks. Sun, Moon, Stars hand quilting.

I think inspired by a Linda Brannock "Miss Jump" design. Before Hurricane Sandy, now years ago, there was a big ugly electric transformer near my house. It was surrounded by a low grey weathered fence and somehow the two feet or so of sand surrounding the green metal monster [DANGER stenciled all over it in huge peeling white lettering]---had become a self-made garden. Goldenrod, morning glories, trumpet vine. A scraggly hydrangea even. But the best part was the hollyhocks that must have reseeded each year, deep almost black, dark ruffled red, scarlet, pink. I'd walk over almost daily with Mo's predecessor to admire the hollyhocks. One year we even had a feral cat family make their home under the hollyhocks, mama was all black, but her four tiny babies were assorted. I'd bring them food and water, feeding them on the sly as it is forbidden here to help feral cats. Anyway the hurricane washed everything away, all the flowers, the green metal thing, the vines and left only sand and rubble behind. [The kitties survived for years, though I don't see them now; the years are passing, plus I don't walk that way anymore.] So---summer/ hollyhocks/ memories.

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Drying some of the zinnias for seeds for next year:

so pretty!

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I am doing an online class on mindfulness and self-awareness. Presented by a woman, an artist, writer, maker, thinker, whom I admire very much. But I am failing a bit at the exercises. They make me cry, they make me so sad. Yet I try. This week we are to think about a small bucket list thing that we can accomplish in real time. I sure hope I do get that rootbeer float before I die.

Snapdragon Life/ Wilder Way click here Jane, on Instagram: @snapdragon.life

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For all who kindly ask, Mo has a new [but old] ear care plan. The meds arrived today; I will do my best for my little man. He continues to love our sewing hour each afternoon.