Garden Pics From My Actual Garden!

Things have finally filled in to the point that I can get a good couple of shots without a dead looking hydrangea in the frame.  April 2011 is weeks ahead of last year. The star jasmine is out in its full glory, and the first flush of roses beat out nearly everything in the garden.   Cleome is up and blooming, though significantly shorter than normal for bloom time. The salvias are looking like its mid June.    The coneflowers, beebalm, and garden phlox are totally ignoring all this and are all about 4 inches high, wondering what the heck all the rush is for.

The jasmine, as you see, is definitely blooming, so obviously the disease from March didn't kill it, however, it did lose most of its leaves.  New leaves have come up, but it is looking about as wimpy leaved as any jasmine I've ever seen!!!  Still, its not dead, and no longer losing any leaves.  Hopefully I can keep it clear for a year so it can recover can get a little less tragic looking.

#sfgirlbybaycontest

Finally, a close-up of the Showy Evening Primrose, so you can see why I didn't rip it entirely out this year.  It is so invasive but so pretty.  I have to pull some out every week to keep it in check.

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Out, Out Damned Spot!

Well, it has finally happened... after a full year of fooling around in the garden with little a care or bother in the world, never covering our mouths when we coughed, touching plants left and right without handwashing, leaving weeds all over the place and other general misbehavior.

Yes thats right, The Children of the Corm garden is... diseased.  Under quarantine.  Fungus coming out of our ears.

It all started on a brilliant warm muggy day last week when I went to my car like I do every day, and passed by the large jasmine vine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) I have growing over a 15 foot section of fencing.  Hmm, I said to self, why are those few leaves bright orange?  Eh, I'm in a hurry, I said to self.

The following day, also bloomed bright and humid and I looked at the ground outside the fence and noticed that the now pretty orange leaves were on the ground.   Hmmm, I said to self, must look into this when get chance.

Zoom by a week, because time flies, as they say, when you are not paying attention to your plants well-being, and there are now many many many orange leaves, even more on the ground, and every single other green leaf now has big spots.

The nursery confirmed that I had a major case of fungal leaf spot, and get this... the jasmine is going to lose ALL of its leaves.  Distressing under any circumstance, but considering this lovely (or formerly lovely) plant is supposed to be blooming in just over a month, this just sucks.

Decisive action has now been taken, (after a week of sloth, but lets not remind me).  The jasmine will undergo three separate 10 day apart drownings in fungicide... so will all plants near it.   So did the other jasmine on the other part of the fence just in case he even thinks about fraternizing.  I have bagged up the diseased leaves and will continue to do so.

Hopefully that will rid my garden of the pestilence.   Secondary action was also taken.  The nursery has instructed me to fertilize the plant like a maniac, every week until bloomtime in hopes of pushing up some new healthy greenery on what will shortly be a bunch of strappy twigs running all over the fence.

sniff.  He was sooo pretty last year, see?  now look.  I took a walk around town today noting that nobody else's jasmine seems to be a mess.   I passed dozens.  All of them green and leathery healthy as can be.  grrr.

Not only that but I'm back on the claritin.  The only thing I like about cold weather is it equals no claritin. Acho.  Meh.

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Star Jasmine With Or Without You

Great Griefous, I have been working like a maniac.  It's out of control.  I've checked on the garden each day for about 2.4 seconds, and fortunately it seems to be growing just fine without me.

My kitty, Siggy, who has decided that she'd rather run away then never see me if I was going to be at work all the time, took off one night this week out into the streets of Charleston, and after a full 10 hour day of work, half a second to eat something and 2.5 hours of trying to find her and finally succeeding, I have had enough for one week.

She really really wants to be a garden cat.

During the week without me, the star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) went from half bloomed to fully bloomed, with the heavenly smell so strong that I can smell it inside when the doors and windows are closed.  This might potentially be because my house has the R-value of a pasta strainer.  It IS the most smelliferous at night though really all the time its just pretty fabulous.    The night bugs also came out this week.  Yay, night bugs.   You can tell they are still a little trigger shy, like "Oh crap? Am I the only one out here? chirrrrrrrp. Dang. This would suck." But they are starting up bit by bit.

Last fall I planted a small stick of star jasmine by the gate not realizing that the anemic looking vine on the other part of the fence, with most its leaves fallen off due to scale, was also a star jasmine.  A few treatments last fall, and a good dose of neem oil in February and what do you know, healthy and happy and blooming back wall.  And the real treat is over on the other side where my parking area is.  (ignore trashbin area please).  

They are also blooming everywhere in town.  I'm not sure how this can be because I feel like the banksia roses are also everywhere, like there could not possibly be enough fences in the city to support such populations.  When one fades the next seems to take over the city.  I wonder what will be on those (same fences?) come July?

PS. for those of you considering this plant, its hardy to about 40F (5C),  but seemed to handle a few below 30 nights we had this past year.  The ground never freezes here, so thats probably a consideration.  Also, mine blooms in both shade and sun.  Its says its a sun plant, and certainly its more bountiful on the sun side, but it has plenty of blooms in what I would call a full light shade situation.  Evergreen too, if you don't have scale all over it!

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