So far this morning I’ve had a kitten with a foaming mouth…another kitten peeing in the dog’s bed…that dog’s bed totally not fitting in the washing machine, having to be stopped mid-cycle and dragged, soaking wet, out of the house to the back patio where it had to be hosed off and now left out to air dry.
All that before my first cup of coffee from coffee of the month clubs.
Foamy Kitten (Hermes) is fine, probably just tasted one of my new homemade soaps. Kitten Who Thinks the Litter Box Needs Changing is likewise fine, seeing as how I haven’t killed him. Yet. The dog bed may never recover, though I’m sure he won’t care if it turns out all lumpy.
It’s 8:46AM and I now need a nap.
We got the one half of one side of the landscaping done yesterday. Et voila:
It takes so much longer than you think it would, well, because we’re doing it right (ie. making an actual trench/sand footing for the stones) and because of the sun…the awful, blazing, blistering sun. It’s the humidity as well, but the sun… So we won’t be finishing this up today until *after* 3PM when we start to get some shade over there.
Existing plantings in that area include Maranta arundinacea variegata, Pancratium zeylanicum, Curcuma sparganifolia, Curcuma rhabdota, snow-on-the-mountain, Hawaiian Ti, a Gloriosa superba lily, and a transplanted trident maple tree that’s being trained for bonsai (back there by the fence). Adding to that will be (at the very least) Bearded Irises Gypsy Romance, Night Ruler, Play With Fire, Batik and Mariposa Skies. *happy sigh*
Changed a few other things around yesterday, as well. The marigolds, to a man, got their butts kicked in the past few weeks by mildew I think, so I salvaged the seed pods and consigned them to the composter. Replacing them are Firewitch dianthus:
And galliarda:
This is Mahogany Midget coreopsis, brought up from seed:
And transplanted-so-as-not-to-be-strangled-by-the-Angelonia variegated liriope:
You might recall our travails with the small crepe myrtle that anchors the front bed…it took three forevers to leaf out fully, but when it did it did so with a vengeance. The resulting shade has killed the bachelor button, polar bear zinnia, regular old zinnias, the black-eyed cuphea, and a dahlia. So I bowed to the inevitable and planted some part-shade things over there:
That’s two colors of coleus, one Pseuderanthemum laxiflorum, and two crossandras.
Out back we’re doing some rearranging, putting the lime tree in the hole the trident maple came out of, composting some “finished” plantings, continuing to harvest red rice beans, peppers and key limes.
The three different carrot crops are coming along nicely:
The Fresca strawberries were rescued from the strawberry pot (a useless invention if there ever was one) and planted between the yellow pear tomato and the struggling cucumbers.
We’re mainly coasting at this point in the veg garden, until the weather cools off a bit and the lettuce, celery and other greens can be planted. I do have some onions and leeks going, the latter of which are just not digging the heat, I think. I’d also like to get a fall corn crop in, which means those red rice beans are going to have to go at some point. But how does one sacrifice such huge, healthy, consistently-producing plants?
Guess it depends on how much I want fresh corn, eh?