I Love Zinnias

Yes, I do and I try to grow them every summer. I usually have a mini variety in pots and semi-doubles in the main flowerbed. This year I tried some new types but they didn’t quite make it. I find that mysterious, as zinnias are the one flower that will grow for me anywhere. In fact, they were the first flower I grew in the all cement yard next to the outhouse.

Well, as you can see some of them are recovering from the drought and heat of early summer and beginning to bloom. I believe this is a Candy Cane mix. I also have them in white with pink streaks, and pink with white streaks. They add a lot of splash and I will certainly grow them again next year. Last year one of my neighbors had a great bed of cactus type zinnias in their front yard. I want them next year but I’m afraid they’d look too crazy in with the candy canes.

And yes, I wrote an article about zinnias. Actually, I wrote this last winter but deleted it a few months ago and re-wrote it for summer. I had planned to introduce a “flower of the month” thing to my column but it seemed hokey so I dropped it. I wanted a winter series but I’ve since come up with better ideas. I also liked the photos in that article, but since Examiner is migrating to a new style we don’t have control over our layout and things look wonky unless they are super simple.

Squirrel Flophouse

It has been hot here. Well, that is an understatement. It is more like an unrelenting summer of 90+ degree days with no relief. At least it has rained here and there so I don’t have to worry about my garden being dry anymore. The grass in front is growing again but the back is a disaster. First, most of the grass died. Then, we had heavy rain that flooded the back lawn. Now when I go out barefoot I feel the weird texture of the crunchy grass that has been pounded into the ground by the rain.

Aside from the heat, my big activity has been squirrel watching. This little guy (we call him the “squirrely squirrel” because he is a little nuts) is often sleeping on our porch, rolling around in different positions like a little kid. Yesterday he flopped into one of my potted plants. I usually keep seashells on top of the soil of my potted plants to deter squirrels from digging. Well, we found him sleeping on top of the shells.

As for Examiner I’ve pulled back from them a bit in favor of things that pay more money. I did write a little heat series earlier this month, beginning with an article on preventing heat stress in plants. Next I did a story on facts about brown grass as it seemed to be a bit of a fascination at the time. One of the TV stations (I believe channel 11?) was running a “worst lawn contest” and everybody I knew seemed to be talking about their brown grass. An easy offshoot of these topics was “Five heat tolerant plants”. No wonder there is so much bamboo in North Baltimore. Them, yesterday I wrote about larkspur simply because I am tired of writing about heat.

Summer Flowers and Tomato News

The other afternoon we went to the Peabody to get tickets for an upcoming performance of the ballet Sleeping Beauty. Well, for some reason they were not sold at the box office but in the dance department. Because of that, we got to take an interesting walk through the Peabody. When we went through their courtyard to get to another building I noticed that they have a nice little variety of summer flowers out there already. Besides these, they have hollyhocks and pincushion flowers.

I’ve been a little busy this week but thankfully there were some tomato related news stories I could write about for Examiner. First, late blight was reported again this year. Also, cold damage is now plaguing home gardeners. I found out about both of these issues through the Grow It, Eat It Page on Facebook, so I am finally convinced that Facebook has some use after all.

Tulips, Open Doors, and Cement

Yesterday when I was walking to work I spotted tulips in someone’s yard. Technically, it was still March so this seems rather early to me. I then spotted a snapdragon on the way home. Despite the wild winter we had, things around town seem to be doing well even though it is so early in the spring.

I was busy with many things yesterday, including posting an article about Open Doors, a program for people struggling with addiction. They do many things, but they are currently working on a new community garden. When Paul, a program director there, contacted me I was happy to write about them. This is the kind of thing I want to do more in my column of because it unites gardening with city living. Their current project is only a short drive from where I work so when they finish I would like to go out there and photograph it as a follow-up for my readers.

I like things like this and the City Hall garden as I hope that it encourages people to see the potential of their yards. Now, even though I live in a rowhouse I’m lucky enough to have grass and dirt in the back yard. I’ve struggled, though; with the all-cement yard at other places I’ve lived. When Paul talked about needing sledgehammers to remove old building foundations I remembered one garden I had. There was a rosebush surrounded by a broken cement wall, but it was mostly buried in garbage. It was next to a small, odd building (also full of garbage) that my neighbors told me was once an outhouse. It took me a long time, but I cleaned it up, tamed the rosebush, and planted some fabulous zinnias and celosia. Whatever was out there for years must have improved the soil because one year the celosia was almost as tall as I was! You never know what kind of good stuff is under all of that garbage.

Daffodils and a Garden Plan‏

I have not finished planning my garden this year. I know, I know, everyone else has done this already. But, there were a few things I was thinking over and waiting out. I have to reconfigure things a bit because of a new shady area. But, that is not bad because the now shady spot was once a scorchingly sunny area where my plants often dried out. This year, I'm going to have bright shade tolerant flowers in that area, like impatiens. I decided to grow mostly flowers and herbs. Last year my vegetables did not produce the way I'd like them to and I think I'm going to give that a rest for this year and only grow pleasurable things. I'm going to get seeds for tall heirloom flowers and I will also wind morning glories around my bean poles. With my square foot vegetable bed, I might reconfigure it in the a more traditional herb garden design, with some kind of round shapes.

Just after I did a lame "What's blooming in Baltimore?" post for March, flowers are suddenly out everywhere. I've seen flowering trees, iris, and am starting to see zillions of daffodils. The tulip poplars look like they are emerging. These daffodils are behind the Rotunda, up against one of those little buildings back there.