You're invited regularly visit my site to see our changing garden. Every time I take a walk through our families' garden, even if it is the second or third time on the same day, I notice something different. It might be a happy accident of nature or a newly blooming flower, a beautiful combination, a great fragrance. Walking through the garden and stopping to look is always an adventure full of surprises.

Visitors find it hard to believe we don't use chemical fertilizers, or pesticides. I do add compost to most gardens yearly, as nature intended.

August 3, 2010

Crape Myrtles are thriving in the Heat of the Garden!

While I am wilting, the crape myrtles are covered in blooms. I believe it is their best summer ever. I always knew they needed full sun, heat and well-drained soil to thrive but I didn’t realize they needed a few sunny days in the 70’s to leaf out and a few hours of 85 degrees before they will flower.  I learned all of this reading the latest issue of Pacific Horticulture. Check it out at: http://www.pacifichorticulture.org/web-extras/71/3/crape-myrtles-in-western-oregon/

June 21, 2010

Summer Garden Tour

I can’t explain the growth of the garden this summer, unless it is the heavy rains early in the year that spurred them on. But then again, the heavy rains were followed by below average rainfall in May and June. All of my flowers are blooming weeks too soon and they seem to be on steroids, despite the fact that I only feed them with compost. No chemical fertilizers are used anywhere in my garden. The hollyhocks are now nine feet tall. An oriental lily at the pool towers over me by two feet. The mulleins too, are skyscrapers.

The hollyhocks tower over the 5 foot fence.	The mullien planted themselves in the vegetable garden.