Dirt Therapy

We are home from our annual trip to the coast. This year we stayed at Blue Mountain Beach , close to the Destin area in Florida. Eight days of rest and relaxation! The weather, unfortunately, wasn't all that cooperative. The first half of the week was filled with clouds and some rain but the latter half was sunny and nice. To top it off, there was a beautiful full moon. Returned to find that we got over 4 inches of rain at home. That was nice! Sunset from the balcony on the day we arrived. Unfortunately on day 2, the clouds started rolling in - that means shopping! There is a huge outlet mall close by as well as some great gardening shops and nurseries. The dreariness didn't keep some people off the beach! We did enjoy seeing a storm approaching from across the ocean. There was a bad Red Tide the week prior to our visit. As a result, dead fish littered the beach. We were glad that our balcony was spacious enough to sunbathe on because the smell on the beach was not pleasant. T...

I am thrilled with the progress of the grass! I have been watering faithfully and a great rainfall last night really helped. Hard to believe that it looked like this two weeks ago!

Camellia sasanqua 'Cleopatra' Angel's Trumpet Hybrid Musk Rose "Buff Beauty" Fuschia 'Gartenmeister Bonstedt' Shrub Rose 'Sally Holmes' Pentas Salvia "Black & Blue" Mexican Petunia (Ruellia) Pineapple Sage Sedum 'Angelina' Clematis 'Elsa Spath' Miscanthus 'Cabaret' Coleus Variegated Shell Ginger

I'm thrilled to report that the grass seed has sprouted!

I'm like a kid at Christmas time when I get an order from a mail-order nursery! Yesterday my order arrived from Chamblee's Rose Nursery . This is one of my favorite sources for own-root roses and their prices are the best. And best of all, I don't think they have ever made an error on my orders. I now have limited space for roses and my sunny areas are rapidly dimishing so I should be kicked for ordering more. In my defense, I have spots already selected for these and I did limit myself to 4 - that is saying a lot! Here is what I ordered: Graham Thomas & Heritage - Two David Austin English roses that are supposed to perform well in my climate. I have had limited success with these roses but they are so beautiful I can't resist trying new ones. People tell me that Heritage is the best performing English rose for the South. Paul Neyron - A couple who have an extensive rose garden in a neighboring town swears by this one. They grow a lot of hybrid teas but thi...

Another unseasonably hot weekend here (I've given up on us having Fall, I just don't think it is in the cards)! I finished redoing the front lawn and am in the process of watering, watering, watering and keeping my fingers crossed. Saturday morning I went to the Home Depot to buy grass seed and was overwhelmed with the choices. I knew I wanted fescue but good grief, they had red fescue, creeping fescue, tall fescue, as well as blends for shade, semi-shade, you name it. I was fairly certain I wanted tall fescue but seeing the red fescue threw me for a loop since I was not familiar with it. I trotted over to the book section and looked it up in a book on lawns and when I read that it preferred cool summers in higher altitudes I knew it wasn't what I wanted. Why are they even selling that here anyway??? The sunny/shade option presented another dilemma. The area I'm doing is mostly shady but one section of gets more sun than the other. I ended up selecting a bag of each...