The mildew on my sweet pea vines had gotten worse. Flowers were fewer and had shorter stems. So I bit the bullet and pulled down the vines late Wednesday morning while the marine layer kept the temperature at a comfortable level.
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| This was what the raised planter containing the sweet pea vines looked like a week earlier |
It took me over two hours to clear the raised planter of the vines and to yank out the thicket of self-seeded Erigeron karvinskianus and Oxalis weeds underneath them. I filled one green waste bin with those materials alone. Cutting the remaining presentable sweet pea flowers slowed me up a bit.
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| These are the front and back views of the first small vase full of flowers I cut. Earlier in the week I also cut small bouquets for 2 friends I met for lunch and a next door neighbor recovering from surgery. |
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| These are the front and back views of the bouquet containing the vines' final flowers, now sitting on the desk in my home office |
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| I held onto some of the snapdragons that occupied one corner of the bed. They'd been shaded by the sweet pea vines and the flowers stems were lanky. I eventually pulled 3 of the 6 plants I had there. The remainder may follow soon. |
After the bed was cleared, I added fresh planting mix, mushroom compost and a basic dry fertilizer.
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| I mixed those materials in on Thursday after pulling the remaining sweet pea vine roots out |
I now had room to allow the remaining five sprouted dahlia tubers to spread their roots.
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| These 5 dahlias were the last to sprout and none of them look vigorous but I'm hoping they'll take off now that they're out of their small plastic pots and the sun is shining (at least during the afternoon hours). This group includes one 'Break Out', 2 'Lady Darlene', and 2 'Romantique'Dahlias. |
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| This is the bed after planting. It looks pretty spare at the moment but, in addition to the 5 dahlias, I sowed sunflower seeds, Helianthus annuus 'The Joker' and 'Greenburst'. (I've sown 'Greenburst' and 'Ruby Eclipse' sunflower seeds in other areas of the garden as well.) |
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| I also uncovered this mystery vine. It's shown up in this area once before. My best guess is that it's an offshoot of the Pandorea jasminoides (bower vine) growing up the nearby arbor, although the leaves are much smaller and the vine's more twisted than that much larger plant. |
Now, my focus is keeping the dahlias and the seeds in all three raised planters watered and healthy. Some of the dahlias are already showing signs of leaf miner activity. I tried spraying them with insecticidal soap but I may need to get more serious.
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| The dahlias, zinnias, and sunflowers are all off to a late start this year but, even if I'd cleared these beds earlier I'm not sure it would've made much of a difference given the gloomy conditions and unusually cool temperatures we've had until now |
It's probably going to be another six to eight weeks before I see any dahlias from my cutting garden, much less zinnias or sunflowers. Unable to stop myself, I picked up a smallish dahlia on my last trip to the local garden center and potted it up.
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| I pulled the sad contents of this pot out, replacing them with Dahlia 'XXL Veracruz' and trailing Fuchsia 'Lena', a bright pink Calibrachoa, and plugs of a pink and green coleus (Plectranthus scutellaroides) |
In addition, other areas of my garden are still pumping out new flowers.
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| Daylilies don't make good cut flowers but new ones keep popping up to add color to the garden. Clockwise from the upper left are Hemerocallis 'Apollodorus', 'Cordon Rouge', 'Strawberry Candy', and the largest mass display yet of 'Spanish Harlem'. |
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| More lilies are appearing by the day too. On the left is Lilium 'Conca d'Or'. The plant on the right is supposed to be Lilium 'Pretty Woman' but it looks much pinker than the flowers I've had from other bulbs I've purchased with this cultivar name. |
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| Salvia clevelandii 'Winnifred Gilman' is suddenly covered in blooms |
A heatwave is predicted to hit Los Angeles Country this weekend as we head toward our Independence Day holiday on Tuesday. However, it currently looks as though the marine layer will still be present during the morning hours along the coast, which should keep our temperatures down. I'm hoping that'll be the case anyway.
Best wishes for a pleasant weekend wherever you are.
All material © 2012-2023 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party