Soaking It In

Do I dare say that it’s hot? I mean, it is summer. That’s what summer is about.

But it’s slowly turning into the phase of summer where anything after 11am until after 5pm you don’t want to venture out unless you are swimming in water. It’s almost like winter where we hibernate for awhile inside.

For most of the garden plants this is their thriving point of the year, such as the daturas. They’ve grown by leaps and bounds and are flowering away, already producing seed pods to spring forth new progeny next year.

In the compost bin an unknown cucurbit sprouted and has since climbed about 12′ up the pine tree on the neighbor’s property just behind the compost bin. It flowered a few nights ago with a white flower, and based on that, I’m going with it being a gourd of some kind. Not sure what kind it will end up being because I don’t recall a recent period in which we threw a gourd in there. I guess it could have been buried and the right conditions in the compost bin allowed it to germinate. We’ll see if any flowers get pollinated!

The milkweed seeds have thrived, or at least most of them. This is Asclepias tuberosa or the butterfly milkweed. It’d hiding out near the pineapple sage which thinks it was given orders to grow huge and spread out over the entire bed. I am constantly cutting it back and thinning out lower branches that shade the milkweed. I had another patch of this species in another location but I suspect some hooved vermin munched on them as I can now only find one plant.

I believe this plant is going to be common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca. We bought three plants as small seedlings about six months ago and they are just now doing really well.

And of course the tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, is thriving. My mom gave me several more pots that from plants that has germinated in her grass and I suspect that with the plant already producing seed pods we will have plenty of plants in the garden next year. However, in the past they have not come back from overwintering in my garden here in Texas so I’ll probably save seeds to germinate next January just in case.

I first came across necklace pod, Sophora tomentosa when living in Florida as it is a native. I grew it in our container garden and like most of our plants, sold it before we moved. I was happy to get this necklace pod last spring or summer and it has done well in our garden.

Chris trimmed back the ‘Wendy’s Wish’ salvia a few months ago but it has rebounded and looks wonderful! It’s a great statement piece in the garden, almost like the pineapple sage.

And finally the pink banana trees are blooming now. I’m looking forward to our golden lotus banana blooming this summer. *crossing fingers*

I’ll sign off with a cute toddler photo. I got a set of these chairs from my friend Becca. She was the one who taught our Bradley Method classes two years ago and she and her family are moving to Utah in a few months and are getting rid of most of their furniture. The chairs sit near the sandbox and playhouse, perfect for relaxing while Forest plays! He approves of the chairs, too!