It's the 4th of July... must be time to prune...

Time to prune the wild asters. I have found that if i trim them to "half as high on the 4th of july"... they get full and bushy rather than tall and leggy. So most of the asters have been pruned. The one exception is the asters behind the weeping atlas cedar. I haven't been able to get back to it (need to dig out some of the violas that are taking over the paths).

Perfect weather day today... so I spent the day doing shrub cutting... managed to cut down to stump level, seven shrubs that were about 5 feet tall. Five of the shrubs were on the front of the house, one on the back in my main flower garden and one down near the garden room. They were getting totally out of hand. And there is so much lush foliage that you barely realize that i had cut out so much.

Now that they have been cut, i need to prune the remaining foliage on the other plants. It's a never-ending process. But i managed to prune the shrubs when they were in the shade. My folks stopped by and took a load of shrub remains and i'll take the rest out to them tomorrow... Dad has a pile that he is gathering for bonfire purposes and i'm happy to make contributions.

Top-down view- June 27, 201

Top-down view- June 27, 201
Originally uploaded by pjslomer

Here's a view of my main garden taken from the 2nd floor window.

Vegetable garden is growing...

Garden is growing
Originally uploaded by pjslomer

Here's my nicely caged vegetable garden with sunflowers. The tomatoes have really gone through a growth spurt. The extra fending is going to come in handy to hold them up. The pumpkin, squash and melon plants took a beating with the heavy rains but they seem to be rebounding well. The beets are coming up slowly and i planted more seeds to fill in some of the space. The peppers are holding their own. And out of all the bean seeds that i put in, i have one plant!... so i reseeded. I don't know if a mouse found the seeds or what is going on.

Veggie Garden Notes

The tomato, cabbage and pepper plants seem to be doing pretty well. They have survived their earlier trauma and are starting to grow nicely. I mulched the tomato patch with newspaper and grass clippings. The pumpkin, squash and melon plants are progressing nicely as are the sunflowers on the outside of the fence. The beets are coming along very slowly and i'm disappointed that only one bean plant came up!... Last night i planted more beans and i didn't notice any of the older seeds, so i'm thinking that something ate them.

Daisies and Snaps...

4. The other view
Originally uploaded by pjslomer

hold each other up in a grand fashion... along with the california poppies and dianthus.

Recently there was a knock at the back door and my gardening protege Aubrianna stood there with a pot of sunflowers that she had planted just for me! How delightful to have a youngster who loves gardening... and those sunflowers are about three times the size of the ones i planted. Thank you Boo!

Garden- top down view 5-27-10

Garden- top down view 5-27-10
Originally uploaded by pjslomer

There is a certain exuberance in the garden... all the seeds giving birth to all these new little plants. The violas have gone crazy!

I've noticed in the vegetable garden that the melon, squash, pumpkin and sunflower seedlings are bursting forth. The beets seem to be taking a little longer... and the beans haven't shown anything yet.

A little more planting...

Here's my little vegetable garden... it measures 7 x 12 and is nicely fenced in to keep the critters at bay (more or less).

Yesterday I purchased two heirloom tomato plants (Costoluto Genovese), along with a red pepper plant (Sweet Pimento Lipstick Pepper). They have since been planted along with a new variegated sage, a chartreuse oregano and a columnar basil. My parsley plants survived the winter and are rather voluminous... we had parsley potatoes for dinner tonight.

It was pretty special to see the look on my Dad's face when they visited today. I will remember that smile for a long time.