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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 24 2015, 9:46pm
Post #51 of 94
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My hardy Hibiscus are in bloom!
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Meneldor
Valinor
Jul 24 2015, 10:41pm
Post #52 of 94
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8 cups cut up rhubarb
1 quart water
Cook thoroughly - strain.
Add 4 cups sugar
1 cup orange juice
2/3 cup lemon juice
shake of salt
Bring to boil - boil 1 minute.
When serving, add 1 gal ice. Add 2 litres Sprite or 7 Up.
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 25 2015, 12:41am
Post #54 of 94
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Arandiel
Grey Havens
Jul 25 2015, 1:30am
Post #55 of 94
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Thanks - it goes with the territory
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Living in Colorado means either going with whatever the weather throws at us or taking on more frustration than I care to deal with.  Our cherry lasted for over 30 years in a semi-protected part of the yard and gave us an amazing bumper crop last summer - pie cherries, as it was a Montmorency. Actually, our house sits over the remnants of the farm pond that was here when our part of town was a cherry orchard. Sour cherries are marginal in our area - the orchards were wiped out over four decades ago - but sweet cherries are nearly impossible for us. So I just have to pay the price for Western Slope (Colorado) Rainiers when they're in season.
Pets can make indoor greenery tricky. Even if they don't destroy the plants, there are some that they just shouldn't be around - nibbling on a leaf of something toxic is too frightening a prospect!
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Arandiel
Grey Havens
Jul 25 2015, 1:45am
Post #56 of 94
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Somehow, it reminds me of Klingons (scrape 'em off, Jim!). Or the Borg (Resistance is futile).
I have yet to find any solution other than pulling it and hoping it doesn't spread too quickly - and never, ever, ever letting the seedlings live. Even when I've resorted to herbicide - nothing. We once had a tarp on the ground for a couple years, and that killed the bindweed under it, but we just can't do that with the whole yard. sigh.
I'm glad you like the plants I listed! Of course, they usually (usually) don't get very big here; our summers are typically hot and dry, with occasional thunderstorms, and living at just under a mile above sea level tends to keep things smaller. This year, though, we had a long wet spring, so some of our columbines were over 3 feet (one meter) tall - remarkable, for us!
Sorry to hear about your houseplants; they can be particular about moves, can't they? But I hope you find some new friends for the ones that made it through.
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 25 2015, 2:37am
Post #57 of 94
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Montmorency sours are pretty tough trees. That was a good long life though.
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Just something you may want to consider, with all you have to contend with (I know your temps fluctuate madly!) - the Romance series of pie cherries form the U. of Saskatchewan. CRAZY cold tolerant, to Zone 2. I have Carmine Jewel myself, makes a 6-8 foot cherry 'shrub'.
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Starling
Half-elven
Jul 25 2015, 4:48am
Post #58 of 94
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There is only one way to get rid of it
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Move. 
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Starling
Half-elven
Jul 25 2015, 4:50am
Post #59 of 94
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I can't really play in this thread,
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'cos it's winter here. *cries* 
A couple of years ago I tried to start up a gardening thread but there was no one for me to play with. *cries again*
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Roheryn
Tol Eressea
Jul 25 2015, 8:47am
Post #60 of 94
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you lost me at Lawn Guy-land. Picture *that*, will ya? 
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Roheryn
Tol Eressea
Jul 25 2015, 8:54am
Post #61 of 94
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Well, if the seasons around here
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would just catch up to the seasons up there, we'd be all sorted. I still don't know how it can be July and the middle of winter!
I've got a few veggies growing in the garden my mother started for me, but she planted these when she was here recently and, true to form, I've done absolutely nothing to help them along. I'm guessing this doesn't count, since it's really her garden in absentia.
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Ethel Duath
Half-elven
Jul 25 2015, 2:58pm
Post #63 of 94
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You could garden sideways, in your head . . . with containers (!?) I hate to have Starling cry.
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Dame Ioreth
Tol Eressea
Jul 25 2015, 3:41pm
Post #64 of 94
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You could start a Guy-Land section of your garden and make it look like Sherwood Forest. 
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 25 2015, 3:47pm
Post #67 of 94
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It is winter, but if you start up a weekly thread or whatnot in season
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'cos it's winter here. *cries* A couple of years ago I tried to start up a gardening thread but there was no one for me to play with. *cries again*
I can bore you til you cry some more. Will that help?
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Ilmatar
Rohan
Jul 26 2015, 7:30am
Post #68 of 94
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Your pics are so lovely too - thanks!
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I'm glad to hear that keeping a varied landscape is a good idea, and am hoping that the natural corners would lure in hedgehogs and other animals - we are already visited by pheasants.
The old apple trees look like they have mostly been left to grow as they please, so their trunks are a weird combination of growing "main trunks", cut parts and younger shoots. I could not identify any graft scars. But they are clearly different from each other in their shape and leaves, and one makes green apples while the other has red ones.  The blooms were wonderful indeed - and one of the new saplings, a 3-yr-old of the "Jaspi" variety, was covered in white flowers when it was planted.
And one very young, previously unidentified tree has turned out to be cherry! It has four cherryberries.
I never knew lily of the valley and mint could be "invasive" as well? Here the lily of the valley seems to stay very calmly in one area by the back fence, and the mint back in the old place seemed to diminish year by year, rather than spread. Hmm. I must take better care of it if (when) I get it here.
Wow, the amount of bees in your hyssop! So I take it that if I just let it be and don't cut it back, it will take care of itself... Sounds good.
Your hibiscus is beautiful! I don't have anything like that, but here is the European fire lily (apparently there are Asian types too that are different), blooming in June.
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Ilmatar
Rohan
Jul 26 2015, 7:55am
Post #69 of 94
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Everything's growing like weeds...
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Oh yes, "Resistance is futile" really is a suitable motto for bindweed. I have pulled it out by the cubic meter (and it annoys me that the previous owners failed to mention its existence to me when we were discussing the yard, so it had plenty of time to grow and spread before I noticed it at one "wild" back corner, having been too busy with the rest of the yard). The worst bindweed concentration here is on a low rise where it has tangled itself with big stinging nettles, among other wild plants. I prefer nettles to bindweed by a mile - at least they stay put and offer food for some butterfly caterpillars. The nettles have a bad case of the Stockholm syndrome and are happy to sting me (despite gardening gloves - on my arms, face etc.) when I try to free them from their oppressor.
Other than spreading tarp all over the place, I'm convinced that the only way to get rid of it would be fire. Can't do that either unless I burned down our corner of the forest, and neighbor's forest behind it...  Besides I'm sure that bindweed would be the first plant to rise from the ashes like a Phoenix.
I'm thinking of getting some of those plants in your post. We have had a cool and rainy summer, with just enough sunny days in between to keep plants from drowning. As a result most flowers have grown better than average (in the whole country, judging by one nation-wide gardening group in Facebook). But I think my columbines are about the same height than yours, which I think is the norm for them here.
Thanks, I think I will get some new houseplants too... I could use all the money I can possibly have and then some, for plants and garden features alone.
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Arandiel
Grey Havens
Jul 28 2015, 9:04pm
Post #71 of 94
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Let me know which plants you choose -
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I'd be interested to hear how they do in your climate!
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Jul 28 2015, 10:40pm
Post #72 of 94
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Also thistles, wild lettuce, and a whole forest of miners' candles (which are classified in our county as a noxious weed. But Uncle Baggins loves miners' candles, so we let them grow.)
We do have a few desired things, like roses and Engleman Ivy (it covers our house) and thyme and sage and irises. Also milkweed, which we see as a desired flower. But they pretty much take care of themselves.
Indoors I have orchids and African violets and kalanchoe, among other things. I do much better with my indoor gardens than my outdoor ones. I especially love the furry plants. Sometimes I put googley eyes on them and pretend they're critters.
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Cirashala
Valinor
Jul 28 2015, 11:13pm
Post #73 of 94
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I'd LIKE to be immersed in water....
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My garden did quite well last year, but alas- we've had such record breaking heat waves this year (hit 107 in JUNE, beating out a record held since 1883 and our average by 30 degrees F), and had several days over 100 F, and most of the time in the 90's (it is only about upper 70s today, praise God!).
And we didn't have a smidgen of rain from about mid-June til a couple days ago (just a tiny dusting of it and that was IT). If you measure average annual rainfall alone, technically we are always in a drought. However, our lovely Rocky Mountain valley soil is, well, rocky (no pun intended) and porous, so our aquifer is quite handsomely stocked. We also have several rivers and a few good sized lakes in our area as well, so we don't typically get water shortages or restrictions.
However, though the restrictions haven't happened, my poor vegetable garden has REALLY suffered I even upped the watering to 30 minutes each section a night (have a sprinkler system, and six sections) after a power outage screwed it up and made it go off at 10 AM rather than 10 PM and burned all my grass to yellow prickly stuff) and still:
1. My green beans were GONE- died completely.
2. My corn is stunted- only two feet tall despite growing about six inches a day it seems (before the June heat started) and not a single ear.
3. Most of my peas died- got only about eight pods (admittedly, they didn't do all that great last year either, though I paid extremely close attention to "companion planting" this year as I really don't want to mess with spray).
4. My cucumbers, though doing terrible last year (put them too close to basil without realizing it), have TONS of flowers on them and it seems like nearly all the plants are still there. However, they aren't turning into cucumbers, and once I weeded some sort of grass that got gray tufts in the top (I have been very ill with my chronic illnesses and the garden only got planted at all out of combined efforts of what little I could manage, and my husband and my best friend who worked their rear ends off to get it done in one day, though the heat combined with illness has made it nearly impossible to weed-I actually succumbed to heat exhaustion 5 times in two weeks and had to go to the hospital twice) now they seem to be drying out and getting paler
5. My carrots seem to be doing ok- hard to tell as they're in the ground lol - but the tops are doing well.
6. Ironically, the tomatoes I actually planted IN the garden plot itself aren't doing that well (my friend's, my grandmother's, and mother in law's tomatoes are going absolutely berserk with this heat, so I have no idea why mine aren't doing that well), and somehow from old rotten ones I tossed into the lawn last year sprung up a couple in the second patch we dug up this year (but didn't plant after locating a 4 foot by 2 foot gargantuan anthill with extremely stubborn ants that refused to die for long enough we couldn't plant it in time) and though they don't have many, they're doing better than the ones IN the main plot.
7. My basil, unlike it's beautiful green majesty last year, are only the size of small basketballs (last year they were HUGE).
8. My lettuce got munched on by a stupid family of rabbits that appeared in our neighborhood this year  I think rabbits are cute and all, but are NOT good with gardens. Will need to fence it off next year...
9. I can't even find my brussels sprouts in the stupid weird gray grass stuff (managed with grandma's help to only weed the 1/3 that had the cukes and peas and green beans planted- ran out of energy and got too hot in the heat).
10. My poor June strawberries dried so fast on the vines that I barely got any at all At least their seeds will help grow more for next year, especially after my husband pulls several huge dandelions out of the patch and makes some room, so that is a slight plus.
11. Can't see my regular onions. Not sure how they're doing....
Honestly can't remember what else we put in without looking at my chart....and I usually pick cherries at my inlaw's (their tree is mature and a phenomenal producer, whereas mine is only a year old and not big enough yet), but their cherries also dried out on the tree and ripened an entire month early with the heat which was very weird. Hoping the apples will be ok in the fall...their raspberries did well, but I was too sick when they ripened to get out there and pick
But one success story at least- last year, I only got three tiny slivers of green onions. This year, I have quite a decent patch of them- seems as though most of them came up And somehow, despite not planting it (was going to do so in new plot until we found the ant apocalypse ) I have three dill....what are they called? Canes? Sprouts? Which is helpful for when I go to make pickles
But I will definitely be visiting the farmer's market this year for canning (at least for cucumbers, as with my chronic illness I can't eat storebought pickles, don't have rhubarb (and want strawberry rhubarb pie- YUM!), extra dill, bell peppers and possibly tomatoes for making salsa, apples (depending on how my inlaw's tree does), possibly peaches if they didn't ripen too early too, and will likely purchase huckleberries (expensive, but SO worth it- I can't go picking in the woods this year as I'm too sick). And for my extremely popular jams (made them first time last year, and they were a HUGE hit with friends and family, even with one super picky "jam connoisseuir"), I'll have to suffice purchasing frozen fruit from a bulk store, which, while excellent for it, isn't AS good as my garden's strawberries.
So yeah- I LOVE to garden and can my produce, and last year put up quite a bit, but the drought and heat this year has all but cooked my poor garden 
Have I ever mentioned that I hate extreme heat????? Sigh....
Starling- I am not opposed to doing a weekly gardening thread even if our growing seasons are opposite of yours Just because one's hands aren't in the dirt due to the weather doesn't mean we can't share fun tips and stories during "off season"
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 29 2015, 1:28am
Post #74 of 94
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I have some Asiatic lilies, Ilmatar
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 Orange, a bit like your beautiful European Fire Lilies.
Mauve in front bed.
These creamy white ones are some of my favorites. Very sweet smell too.
I have a sweet cherry on order for next year. Hopefully we can compare crops in a few seasons!
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Arandiel
Grey Havens
Jul 29 2015, 5:28am
Post #75 of 94
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I'll have to remember that - especially the fact that they stay small!
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Yum! Tell Mom Thanks! //
[
Hmm. I'll tell him its because I love the literature. Yeah. 
