TOO hot to garden!

Around this time every summer I get tired of watering, tired of trying to keep things up, it is just too hot. Many summers by July, there are watering bans, and the  only things I can water are the potted plants on the carport and porch.  I catch water in a large bucket placed under our window unit air conditioner, and use that to keep my potted plants watered all summer long. 
So, I am very thankful that most of the plants in my yard are drought tolerant.  They can stand a LOT of neglect and heat!  Daylilies are a great example. I don't get too many blooms mid-summer, but the plantssurvive.  Fennel is another hardy plant, no matter how hot or how dry, and they provide necessary food and moisture for the black swallowtail butterflies that lay their eggs on fennel plants. Many varieties of rudbeckia, or black-eyed susans, are very drought resistant.  Many seem to thrive in the heat - blooming profusely throughout the summer. 

Garden memories

Gardening is so special to me.  It connects me with my past - my mother, grandmother and aunts all loved flowers, and many of the plants that I have originally came from them.  I believe that it is important to preserve flowers and plants in the same way that we save animals, trees, and other things from extinction. Many are getting harder and harder to find.  A perfect example is the old fashioned re-seeding petunia.  There are all kinds of petunias available now, but do you remember that smell? the smell of the petunias in your grandmother's yard? They were white and several shades of purple/lavender.  SO beautiful!
Another favorite of mine that grew in my grandmother's yard were Sweet Williams. You can find them now, but I don't think the new varieties are perennial.  What about "raggedy robins" - do you remember those? Most people call them batchelor buttons, but my grandmother called them raggedy robins, and they are native to Georgia. 
Flowers bring back memories for me.  When I was a little girl, I was taught by my mother how to make "necklaces" out of clover blossoms by tying stems of one around the stem of another. My cousins and I would tie them together and make not only necklaces, but halos for our hair and bracelets. We'd also pick 4 o'clocks and string them like beads with a needle and thread, to make leis. 

This peony came from one that grew at Grandma Sanvidge's house in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Lilac like the ones in Wisconsin.

Flowers were also part of summers in Wisconsin.  My Grandma Sanvidge grew beautiful peonies, lilacs and clematis.  The first clematis I ever remember seeing grew on a trellis by her back door.

more essentials - flowering shrubs 2

Scotch broom - I love this early blooming shrub, but it is SO difficult to keep.  Several times I have had one, had it live several years, and then suddenly be gone. I have yet to learn the secret.  If you know it, please share.  Below is a close up of the blooms - so pretty, and the foliage makes a great filler for an arrangement.

Snowball bush.  This one is just starting to bloom, and it looks green.  There are varieties that have HUGE balls of blooms. This one is an old fashioned variety that came from my grandmother's house.

Sweet Shrub is a native plant.  Mine came from my mother's and is in a shady area.  It smells like HEAVEN! I think the smell is stronger if it is in more direct sun.  LOVE this plant!

Essentials - flowering shrubs

my list of essentials for a southern garden include several flowering shrubs: mophead hydrangeas

oakleaf hydrangeas - this is mine in 2011- below is a close up

azaleas - this one is a very unusual color that I got from my mother. Below are more of my azaleas - most of which were rooted from my mother's.  Even though I probably shouldn't have planted them so close together, I love how they look with all the colors mingling.  This photo doesn't show it, but there is a solid white one in the mix too!

native azaleas - there are many colors. This yellow one was given to me by my brother, Ken.  The first close-up is this same bush, the second close-up is another one that I love. I don't know the names of them unfortunately.  I just got a new one from a friend, who gave it to me in memory of my mother.  It's pink and I haven't decided yet where I want to put it.

Rose of Sharon, or althea is another favorite of mine. I think it must be the "mother plant" of hibicus.  Can you see the similarities? My first one  actually came from my husband's grandmother.  Her's was purple. It reseeds itself, and it is very interesting to me that  sometimes they are purple and sometimes white.  I also have a double one that is pink, that came from my Aunt Opal.

As an "intro" post.....I've been gardening and growing things my entire life.  I seriously cannot remember when I wasn't interested in what was growing in my mother's and my grandmother's yard.  We called my maternal grandmother "MAMA" and she was my original mentor when it came to flowers and growing things.  She first taught me how to grow a carrot top in a jar lid, or a potato in a jar of water.  I can picture her yard right now in my mind and heart.  I don't remember learning the names of plants/flowers either - that's something I've taken for granted, I guess.  I learned so much from these first two gardening greats in my life, and didn't even know I was learning.  Mama's house was built in the 1800's, nothing fancy, just a small farmhouse.  She and Papa raised 11 children there, and grew or raised most everything they ate.  And OH the flowers! In front of her house, Mama had persimmon bushes, irises, azaleas, wisteria, a mimosa, wedding veil spiria and kerria.  In the back there was a long row of day lilies, sweet william, daffodils, roses, grancy gray beard and milk and wine lilies.  We (the cousins) knew which ones we could pick and which ones we couldn't.  There were pear, apple and figs.
I remember when we moved when I was 11 - my mother had been living in the same house for about 30 years, and couldn't bear to leave everything behind.  I can remember that she wanted to bring at least one of everything she had.  The house we moved into had a BIG yard, but lots of pine tree - not good for growing things, but if anyone could make something grow, it was my mother.  So, that was my start, helping my grandmother and my mother in the yard.  Neither of them were much for flower "beds". I think they both saw the entire yard as theirs......