Gardeners! Share your garden photos and garden chatter here.

[Jeff15]

Dahlia

 

[SquarePeg]

Dahlia

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Gorgeous!

 

[SquarePeg]

After an extremely hot and humid start to the summer, we are now having very cool nights and sunny days. The pool has become too cold for swimming - for me anyway! My 82 yo mom still swims every day. I’ll stick with the hot tub. The flowers are loving the current weather but the dahlias were stunted by the early season heat so have been slow to bloom.

Latest dahlia to show herself is Labyrinth. She’s a beauty and definitely a keeper!

 

[Ysarex]

Wascally Wabbits!

Bought two Zebrina Mallow plants at the garden shop back in May. They're perennials and so I wanted them for a permanent spot in the ornamental garden. I planted them and the next day discovered nothing left of each except 5 inch stems. Unbeknown to me these are apparently gourmet rabbit food -- they ate off every leaf and chewed down the stems.

I decided to try and save them so I dug them back up are replanted them in pots that I put on the back patio. They both recovered and started to do well and then the rabbits found them again. So I put them up on top of buckets out of reach. They're blooming nicely now but I'm left with a dilemma; I obviously can't plant in the garden. Fuji X-T4 w/16-55mm

 

[Ysarex]

Nice crop of figs on the way this year.

 

[jeffashman]

Wascally Wabbits!

Bought two Zebrina Mallow plants at the garden shop back in May. They're perennials and so I wanted them for a permanent spot in the ornamental garden. I planted them and the next day discovered nothing left of each except 5 inch stems. Unbeknown to me these are apparently gourmet rabbit food -- they ate off every leaf and chewed down the stems.

I decided to try and save them so I dug them back up are replanted them in pots that I put on the back patio. They both recovered and started to do well and then the rabbits found them again. So I put them up on top of buckets out of reach. They're blooming nicely now but I'm left with a dilemma; I obviously can't plant in the garden. Fuji X-T4 w/16-55mm

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Can you protect them with some sort of ornamental fencing that would keep the rabbits out? Or would that disturb the aesthetics of the ornamental garden?

 

[Ysarex]

Can you protect them with some sort of ornamental fencing that would keep the rabbits out? Or would that disturb the aesthetics of the ornamental garden?

I'm not too happy with any option I've thought of so far including fencing. Easiest to do would be to get them up out of reach. I do have one very large pot up on blocks and they could go there. I usually plant annuals in that pot -- not so sure how well a perennial would do over winter as the pot likely get's colder and dryer than the ground. I can move them there once the first frost hits.

 

[terri]

I haven’t found any swallowtail or monarch cats recently. My parsley has been ignored. I have a ton of swamp milkweed in the butterfly garden and have seen monarchs around it but no cat sightings. I haven’t looked as often as I used to so I’m hoping that they’re out there and well hidden!

I finally got pics of one of the goldfinches. They are very skittish birds! More so than the hummingbirds.

If there was one tomato hornworm there are probably more. They are so hard to spot. When I was growing tomatoes the previous two years, I ordered a uv flashlight on Amazon and you can use it at night to spot the hornworms and some of the butterfly caterpillars as well. They glow.

I'm still monitoring my two black swallowtail cats. They're both getting really fat - and have about chewed through the 2nd potted parsley plant I stuck into the cage. I'm hoping that at least one is close to assuming the J position just so I don't have to fret over lack of parsley.

I stuck fresh, but cut, store-bought parsley in there and they totally ignored it, crawling over and around to find actual stalks to climb. Little brats! I went through this last year and got ripped off by the local nursery selling parsley plants as "Butterfly Food" and jacking up the price.

I stopped trying to get pictures of the Goldfinches. I have to sneak up on them (the location of my coneflowers make them impossibly back-lit), and I startle them every time!

 

[terri]

My garden is about as dead as the Texas prairie... don't light a match around here please... The purple sage is actually doing well, as well as the butterfly milkweed, but the fields around here are tinder dry right now. Hoping for some rain in the next few days to reduce the fire risk.

Ugh, I'm sorry. Texas in August is not for the faint of heart - or lush growth! Glad the sage is hanging in there, it does love the heat. Ours got yellowed from all the rain!

Here's to some good old Texas downpours! Got stuck in a few on I-45 when we lived there.

 

[Digger...]

and then the rabbits found them again.

Lmao, clever bunnys.

 

[Digger...]

The jonquils are the first to flower, they're just about done. The freesias, anemones & ranunculus are next in the crepe myrtle garden... Some of Vader's tulips have flowered in the cherry blossom bed.

 

[Jeff15]

Osteospermum

 

[terri]

I've moved my swallowtail cats, in their butterfly cage, indoors now since the bad storms in the area threatened heavy downpours.

One of the two cats has already pupated! It's clinging deep at the base of the potted parsley plant, and the chrysalis is hanging on a parsley stem.

The other cat seems more inclined to leave the host plant for a better place. He's been marching around the mesh cage for over an hour.

It's great (feline) Cat TV:

I put two thin stakes in there hoping he'll use one for his chrysalis, but so far, he's unimpressed.

 

[Digger...]

Osteospermum

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Reading the name of these makes my knees sore.

 

[SquarePeg]

Today’s haul