As most of you know, we moved here last June with no gardens. Hete is the results of my hard work since we moved in.

There are rocks on the side of the house and there were also some along the front that we removed. I will be removing the ones along the side next year for more flowers. always a work in progress but I am happy so far.

anyone know where to get inexpensive and good quality calla lily bulbs other than white that you have purchase. I like to know from your experience. Thank you everyone! I am trying to grow more calla lilies but with more color :)

Margo, you home improvements look great! I've just recently had a shade garden put in around my windmill in the back yard and now it's fully planted (all by things I had on hand or from plant swaps.) I'll post a picture soon. I've also been adding to the front yard. The front is the sunnier area so it's mostly flowers there requiring lots of sun..

Nicole, maybe you could ask Shirley S since she raises so many lilies.

These two little ladies like to hit my plants before a drink from the feeder.

ahhh so cute, are they married Margo? They are looking at each other so lovingly.

These teo hummers are both females and not friends. lol

I do enjoy their antics.

Now have birds in my birdhouse for the second time this Spring. My cat spends lots of time on the screened porch and fortunately realizes she can't get to them, but I know she wishes she could.

Margo, like me you have been hard at work in your new yard. I don't think I posted about my garden club picnic and plant exchange (it was on Tuesday). Things went great and I came home with 6 new plants - 3 quite large and only 1 of them in the ground so far, but I have been getting some plants that had been on my screened porch for months and months into the ground. It was overflowing with plants! It's so hard to dig here, that it's no easy project.

Just checking in to say HI to everyone.

We have had a very wet and stormy spring. Today is just hot and sunny.

Amy, not sure if you check in or not but I wanted to tell you how much I'm enjoying the long beans from the March RR. I grow a variety of long beans, but none were like these. I believe they just said white long beans. Do you mind sharing where you got them in case I don't get to save seeds from these. I'm actually leaving one on the vine right now hoping it will make seeds.

Annie, I've got two castor bean plants from the March RR seeds. Hope you got plants also. If not, maybe mine will make seeds to share.

Nicole, I agree with Margo to ask Shirley about calla lily bulbs. I believe she grows a variety of them. She sent me one some time back, but it only lived one year.

Margo, love your pictures. Yard and house look great and I always enjoy hummingbird pictures. They aren't coming to my feeders or flowers as much this year as normal. Maybe it's our crazy weather.

Jeanne, what plants did you get at the swap? I love our Euless Garden Club spring and fall plant swaps. There is a Hurst, Euless, Bedford swap almost every month, but I haven't been to that one yet. I used to go to spring and fall swaps in Fort Worth and Denton County every year, but no one is having those anymore.

So nice to be reading what's going on with the members this month. As for the garden club plant swap, I got two lamb's ears (never tried to grow them before and they seem to do well here so I'm hopeful), an elephant ear (the bulb has a plant of about 3' at this point), a butterfly bush, a salvia (I think it's called Black and Blue - it's quite large and really pretty), and an ajuga plant. I also got ajuga at the Raleigh plant swap and they are different types. I'll have to look up the exact names. I can't believe how well the plants are doing considering most of them got put in the ground when it was starting to feel like summer temperatures. With the first ones I put in the shade garden we had several days with some rain so that was a big help. Most days I drag around the hoses to at least give them a bit of water. I know I am going to be so tired of doing that by the end of the summer.

Also, I've finally figured out what doesn't appeal to deer or rabbits. Nothing has been chewing on the plants so far. I know last summer I wasn't planting the right plants!

Finally got my new herb garden in. I am using pallets for this. I already did one for tomatoes. i line the edges with black garden cloth to prevent soil leakage. We scraped up a square section of grass, put the pallet over and filled with soil. I pull off several of the wood strips for more room on top. A quick way to get a small garden started. I have to go out to water so will take pics.

Ok. I am totally over Houzz. I had a picture it did not post. It won’t let me put up pics, won’t autocorrect, punctuate, or capitalize.

I wish we could do a facebook page instead. I would do it but have no idea how. I belonged to a group (actually have seen other older members on them). We did swaps, contests and other fun things.

I will try to post my pics later. Grrrrr

Sorry about your picture problems, Margo. I usually do fine with pictures, but sometimes it's a challenge to see all of the postings under the heading.

Anyway, yesterday (full sun and hottest day of the year so far with mid 90s) I watered plants in the front and back yard and cleaned up my screened porch along with transplanting some of my potted plants into larger pots. I don't think I'll be doing a lot today! I knew one of my Rose of Sharon flowers would bloom today (this is one I moved from my previous house) and the deer love to eat the buds and blossoms so I coated parts of it and the leaves around it with horseradish this morning. We'll see if that allows the flower to remain on the bush. This plant is one I raised from seed years ago. I'm sure it was a seed I got in a trade. Have no idea from whom.

Adding pictures of my shade garden which is progressing nicely and then my cleaned up screened porch. I didn't take a before picture of the porch. It was a real mess with empty pots, spilled dirt from repotting out there, dead plants, an old battered tablecloth, etc. Unfortunately with the heat, I won't be sitting out there much for awhile.

Great pics. I’m trying again but if you ron’t see a pic, it was failure yet again.

Omg. It worked. This is my pallet tomato garden.

Herb garden.

Great idea, Margo! So happy you could get the pictures posted. I've never seen a set up like yours - very creative/

The flower on my Rose of Sharon has been open all day and there is a bud beneath it and so far nothing has eaten them. I'll have to try horseradish again when I have something special in bloom.

Jeanne, my friend puts Irish Spring soap around her tomatoes to keep deer out. I use it to keep raccoons away from my potted plants. it works. Maybe get some and cut it up and hang from the Rose of Sharon. I use organza bags from Dollar Store.

Hope all the "Dads" and other special men in your lives had a good Father's Day!

(Margo years back I heard about Irish Spring and tried it in Lexington. It didn't help there. Don't know if it would or wouldn't work here. So far I've only seen deer in my yard once this Spring but there were 4 of them then. Hopefully my neighbors have things that taste better.)

Ruth,

I have been out of town. I finally checked my Castor Beans. Yes, two of them are up and about 4 inches tall. I was late in planting them. I know I planted more but I can not remember where I put them....tik, tok, tik tok!! I am so excited for them to become beautiful plants/trees.

Irish Spring soap...I believe I have read this or done it before. Irish Spring is very familiar!!!

Jeanne, what is the horseradish trick? I can not remember that either.

I was in Philadelphia for several days. Yes, we were to check out 2 or 3 carosuels but we never made it. There is simply never enough time to do what needs to be done or enjoyed.

Happy day....

Annie, the horseradish "trick" is something I just thought of on my own. Apparently intensive taste and strong odors repel the critters so I was thinking of anything I had that checked those boxes and that I could easily smear around the buds and flowers. I had a jar of horseradish in the refrigerator so it has worked on my rose of sharon and yesterday I smeared some on the daylily buds. I'll check how that worked. Of course it hasn't rained so that would undo my experiment if it happened. Possibly it worked because no critter interested in those and able to reach that high has been in the backyard over the past two days. Who knows. With those daylily buds only lasting 1 day and the rose of sharon not much longer, I wanted to at least see my flowers this year.

I'm going to be close to Pullen Park this weekend so if the lady who is riding with me has time maybe I will manage a carousel picture. We'll see. Hope you had fun during your travels.

I am so mad at myself. I didn’t spray enough deer deterrent before we left for 4 days. The deer ate 5 lilys, 5 sunflowers, 4 hostas, the tops of a big group of coneflowers, and a bunch of growth off of our new nine bark. The biggest shock was how they ate a bunch of tomato foliage. I have never had deer bother my tomatoes!

it is either not enough or the deer here don't care about the smell here. I have sprayed the last two days and shaved Irish Spring soap around everything. We will see how that works.

Margo ~ soooo sorry, how upsetting it is to come back and see what happened.

Jeanne ~ ur windmill is so cute!!

I had to pull out all my nasturtiums due to black aphids, ughhhh. what a waste!!!

Margo, I bought Irish Spring soap bars. I am giving it a go. I read it is supposed to deter voles and moles as well. We will see. Good luck to all of us!! I do like the Irish Spring smell Off to the garden to combat the little !!!!s with my bars in hand...LOL!

Happy weekend!!

I used a potato peeler to spead irish spring soap around my plants. I still spread my homemade deterrent as well. Unfortunately, because we have been so hot, I have to spread it after each watering. If I didn’t have to water so much, I could stop spreading it so often.

so far, so good and I have seen deer twice.

I hope everyone is doing okay in all this heat. I think the fact that it's day after day and we've gotten no rain makes it worse. Anyway, I went to the "open garden" in Raleigh yesterday morning and was so happy to see it and meet the owners. If anyone is interested in viewing the garden, the man who does these garden postings is Jim Putnam and the name of is HortTube. It's one of my favorite things to watch on YouTube.

I'll come back and add pictures later. Have to transfer from my phone. I'll also add a picture of my dayliles which bloomed beautifully after their light application of horseradish!!! It saved my rose of sharon blossoms as well. Now I know what to put down if it's only half a dozen or so buds that I really want to protect. (Again, it may just be no critters where in the garden during that period of time.)

I surprised myself and I was the one who signed up to be hostess for July so I'll post that soon in case people will be away during the 4th of July. Something simple once again.

Stay cool!

Still very hot and no rain here. I'm sure others are the same. Anyway I heard about a perennial sale at a nursery that I really like so stopped today and bought these.

Daylily Cosmic Struggle - labeled as a reblooming type

St. Johns Wort Fiesta

As for the St. John's Wort, I was hoping to find Brigadoon which I saw at the garden on Saturday. It was growing great there and the plant had these golden yellow leaves. Fiesta has more variegated leaves so I'm wondering it it will be more golden in a sunnier spot. For now both are on my screened porch. I won't plant anything out in this terrible heat. So odd because I had what I thought was a St. John's Wort in Lexington and it was a tall shrub. This one is a ground cover. Does anyone in the group grow St. John's Wort?

Yes, hot and no rain here.

My basil is doing great. Made pesto yesterday and Tomato basil soup today. Still have plenty. Trying to decide if I want to dry it or freeze it.

What do y'all do with your extra.

Still harvesting a few beans.

I have peaches but they are still small and green, which isn't keeping the squirrels from eating on them. Doubt any will be left to ripen.

The daylilies are starting to wind down after almost two months of blooming.

I want to do some moving around of some of them when it cools down a little.

My MIL had St. John's Wort at her house in PA.. It was a shrub with beautiful yellow flowers.

Someone from the group sent me some Calendula seeds that are beautiful this year.

I tried to look up the variety. Maybe Strawberry Blonde Calendula. I usually keep the empty packages so I may find it later. Anyway, Thank you. It's my first time to grow Calendula.

I used to put Irish Spring soap in our camper. I read that the scent of the soap should help to repel ants. I probably should hang some on my beans. I saw two different kinds of bugs on them today.

Ruth, I got the long beans at Asian 2 Table. They have a website and you tube channel.

Happy Gardening! typed a long paragraph and everything vanished

Just letting you know I posted the July swap few minutes ago. The game will be Bingo and I'll have the word list posted before Friday. Join in - still simple - but we will be enjoying the Olympics and France as well as the Olympic ring colors and red, white and blue for our great celebration of Independence Day.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6452901/fotess-july-swap-parlez-vous-olympics

Ruth, no extra basil here. I started some early in the year. The first plant from my Aerogarden got large and I used it for quite awhile. Then it was on the decline and I planted some basil seeds of various kinds. Most of those did not make it. I do have a few tiny plants that are trying to grow despite the terrible heat. I'll try to start some more seeds in a few weeks once (hopefully) we start to get rain again.

Hi everyone! I am new here and love to work in my garden. I grew alot of basil this year to dry for cooking and fresh use. I try to harvest enough to last me for a full year until I can grow again. Love reading about yall gardening posts! I am located in Southern Louisiana here.

Seeds To Trade · More Info