Week 22, Year 1: The Destruction

After a fairly uneventful, but beautiful September, the frost rolled in with the first of October. I had to deliver the death chop to almost all of my plants in order to save them for next year. It was pretty heartbreaking, but yesterday, I painstakingly cut all of their growth and brought them inside. Eventually, I plan to bring the pots down to our storage room in the parking lot/basement of our apartment building. It is actually not a "dry" storage area, so the semi-dampness might be the perfect hibernation zone. However, because it is four floors below, and I will need to keep watering the pots throughout the winter, the newly sheared containers are hanging out in our bathroom.

The frost is supposed to go away next week, so I plan to let the containers enjoy a few more days of sun before sending them into official hibernation. The only container that avoided the chop was the newest container of mums, which are supposed to be frost resistant - we shall see on that one though.

A couple others made it indoors to see how they make it throughout the winter.

Otherwise, it is time to start enjoying the store bought cut flowers.

Stay tuned for some final thoughts on this summer's success. But, for now, enjoy the rest of the pictures of the destruction:

Week 17 - Year 1: Aerial Views

Given that the mood of my more recent posts has been fairly gloomy (you know, death, disease, suicide, etc.), I thought I would take a breather from the doom and gloom and showcase some happy pictures of our garden from above and below.

Week 16 - Year 1: Midnight Traveler

A few weekends ago, we got home late from dinner around 11:30pm and I had to water the plants late at night. When I stepped outside, I noticed we had a new guest. A tiny frog had somehow climbed four stories to rest on one of our columns. He must have been a very strong climber and some how shimmied his way up the brick posts that hold up the decks. He was breathing heavily (you will notice his tongue is hanging out) and I was worried about scaring him, so I quickly stepped back inside without watering anything.

Of course, we quickly disturbed his privacy and started a photo shoot, which probably did not help him calm down from the climb. My husband suggested he might need water, so he subtlely placed a bowl of water next to the little guy. I'm not sure if he used it, but we both hoped he might like to stay if we set up a plush place for him.

Sadly, when we woke up the next morning, our froggy visitor was gone. The only thing in the bowl was a small lady bug trying to tread water. While we were sad to see him go, we enjoyed our visit with our amphibian friend and hope he made it back down safely.

Week 16 - Year 1: And Then There Were None

Like the character's in Dame Christie's epic thriller, my plants are dropping off like flies. This is probably not surprising as we are reaching the end of summer and transitioning torwads fall. This month my plants have battled with being indoor refugees, humidity, weird infestations, dropping nighttime temps, heavy winds, downpours and extreme changes between dry and humid air. Needless to say, not all of them have made it. Here's an update on the latest casualties:

Browallia

Sadly, it looks like these guys got the bug infestation. They began wilting and turning brown in early August and finally gave up the fight mid month. I left the roots in the container because browallia is supposedly a perennial. However, if it died from a disease, it may not come back at all and/or infect my other plants, so it is a catch 22. I think I will have to quarantine it over winter. I am still watering it though with winter in mind.

Sunflowers

These guys barely made it a week! They just wilted and never recovered. I had planted them in the container that was previously inhabited by the now departed campagnula, which had the little white flecks all over it and in its soil. We thoroughly cleaned the container, but apparently it wasn't enough because I found the same white flecks in the sunflower's soil. It's depressing to lose these guys so fast.

Begonias

Early this week, I discovered that half of the begonias had basically given up. It looks like the plant got too heavy for its stem and just keeled over. Fortunately, 1/3 of the plant was still standing up right so it is not totally dead. I was able to salvage the other 2/3 as cut flowers to enjoy at the office.

Week 14 - Year 1: Suicidal Lobelia?

The PGA players are not the only ones being affected by the wild Wisconsin weather this week. We have had a nasty combination of humidity, blinding fog, excessive heat and torrential rain. This has spelled disaster for some of my flowers, especially the newbies who are still trying to get situated in their new environments (a.k.a. the sunflower hybrid has basically wilted).

However, one of our veterans took even more drastic measures in response to the conditions. The right container decided that life was no longer worth living this week and took a header off the deck. Literally, the lobelia, nierembergia, soil, window box and window box hanger took a dive off the deck after some heavy winds. Fortunately, no one below was hit by the falling missile, and the results were pretty funny.

After retrieving the fallen window box, my husband felt the lobelia must have been after a Darwin Award (Darwin Awards are given to people that make the biggest spectacle out of trying to remove themselves from the gene pool in the most idiotic way possible). Apparently, the lobelia decided that taking a header off the deck was not enough, and also managed to throw itself another three feet from the box when it landed. I've since replanted both, and the lobelia still seems bound and determined to die, so we may have to let it go. The nierembergia seems to have survived it's little joy ride and is probably hoping that its next box mate has less suicidal tendencies than the lobelia.

Week 13 - Year 1: Emergency Succession Planning

My garden is under siege, and we are not winning. Unfortunately, it looks like the trip inside may have invited a few nasty pests to wreak havoc on our plants. Early this week, I noticed small white dots on the bidens and calibrachoa in the middle container, and on the champanula. Plus, there were green dots on the nicotiana. I did some internet research and did not come up with much on the white dots, but figured the green dots were the most dreaded of all garden pests - aphids.

I'm still not sure what the white dots were, but various home remedies all failed, and I had to say good bye to the victims. I tried two solutions. The first was a combination of water, liquid dish soap and baking soda in a spray bottle. The second substituted vegetable oil for baking soda. The idea is to spray the leaves to get the buggers to slide off and not come back. It was definitely too late to get rid of the white guys. The aphids seemed to respond to the vegetable oil, but I'm still not sure if the battle has been won and it looks like they may be attacking the browallia.

Unfortunately, I had to trash the bidens, coral calibrachoa and champanula. I tossed the dirt in all of their containers too and scrubbed the containers down to try to get rid of the bugs. I also bought some organic insecticide to try to wage my own war on the invaders to prevent further contamination. We will see how that works out. So far, it's bugs 3, Me .5 (nicotiana are still hanging in there).

So, we had some openings in our garden and it was time for some succession planning. It is a bit early to be thinking fall, but I figure there is not enough summer left to plant any thing but hardy fall winners. So, here are the successors:

Replacing the bidens & calibrochoa in window box #2: Hardy mums & lemonade lantana.

Replacing the champanula - Sunflower hybrid.

New addition - Z_____ (I know it starts with a z, but I can't remember anything else!).

These guys have the funniest new buds. They hold everything in until they are ready to open, so they look like little pouches.

Week 12 - Year 1: The Great Indoors?

The downside of living in an apartment building is that you do not have much in the way of property rights. This week, I was painfully reminded of this fact when we received a note that the building would be power washed on Thursday and Friday and that residents were to remove all decorations from their porches, unless of course you were okay with having them be blasted in a blaze of water glory. Immediately, I was concerned for our plants.

We moved almost everything inside (while dealing with the additional challenge of putting them somewhere out of our cat's reach). It made a pretty funny picture - lining everything up on whatever ledge we could find. The whole apartment smelled like a garden when I woke up the next morning.

But, not everything was easy to move. The black eyed susan, clematis and morning glory have all wrapped themselves hopelessly around the spindles - leaving me in a catch 22 situation - move them and risk destroying them or leave them and risk a drowning. And, even with the ones we could move, who knows what lack of sunlight and closed conditions could do to them? Therefore, we decided to leave them outside and risk it. We also had to leave a couple window box hangers out because we discovered that a family of hornets had moved in, and we did not have any Raid handy for an attack.

To make matters worse, it rained on Friday and when I got home terrified to see what had happened, it appeared that no one had been there at all and our neighbors said they had not noticed any difference either. Of course, we had to move everything back outside, but we may be doing this whole thing again on Monday ...

Moving everything inside did bring some fun revelations though. For one, we have definitive proof that there was indeed a bird's nest in the sweet potato/coleus hanger. Fortunately, it has since been abandoned (could you imagine having to try to bring that inside with a defending mommy bird in the mix?). It's kind of hard to see, but I tired to capture it:

Second, the petunias' color is even more unique under house lighting. While they appear to be a silvery purple outside, inside they have pinky edges while the deep purple ones appear to blue indoors. Similarly, the shamrocks seemingly white flowers are actually the palest shade of lavender (though the photos were not able to capture this).

Week 11 - Year 1: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

While I've already discussed the Bad (See Life Support) and the Ugly (See RIP), I thought I would continue my progress report of sorts by looking at the "Good." Overall, many of my plants are doing exceptionally well and I'm very happy with the progress I have made in my first attempt. Using the law school curve (forgive me, but its still pretty fresh in my mind), I would grade my "good" guys as follows:

The "A+"s (yes, they have A+s in law school, for the "best" in class):

Black-Eyed Susan Vine

This plant has always been a sure winner. From the first day, it has thrived. The only problem it faces is that it is out of room to grow. It is starting to grow downward on to the porch below, but I do not think it will grow long enough to actually get in anyone's way (at least I hope not).

Petunias

These guys are obvious winners. They have succeeded in spindling down their vines and make a nice visual from across the parking lot when you drive up to our building. I've even taken snippets in vases with me to work and they manage to last a full week without natural sunlight in a vase. I highly recommend them for any beginner. I chose to omit the picture, because they've already been featured a lot in this blog.

The "As":

Shamrock

I'm very proud of this little guy because it was near death when I bought it. I've nursed it back to health and it seems to be doing very well. The flowers are very understated, but incredibly charming up close as the the leaves & flowers look like shamrocks with little bells on them.

Browallia

This little guy has tripled in size. I started out with one straight shoot of leaves and flowers and now have a large, round plant with lots of blooms. This one does not require much maintenance and is happy to just keep blooming without interference.

Verbena

This plant is also thriving. It just keeps spreading and brightening up its box. It is also easy maintenance and often just chucks the dead heads itself.

The "Bs":

In law school, every class must finish with a B average, so most of my plants should fall in this category on this curve. Since math is not my strong suit and I'm too lazy to showcase every plant and figure out what their grades should be on a curve, I've featured the more interesting Bs below.

Morning Glory

This plant started out as an A with steady blooms. However, they have been downgraded to a B because it has not bloomed in a few weeks. I think its because the morning glory only wants to grow upward and it has nowhere to go, so it keeps growing on itself.

Every time I look at it, I can't help but think "Its alivvvvvvve" and it creeps me out a little. I could try planting a trellis, but we are already in July, so I will probably let it go for now. I just try to keep it from attacking the heliotrope, but otherwise let it do what it wants.

Sweet Potato Hanger

This hanger of vines is also doing exceptionally well. While it does house some neighborhood birds, it has managed to growth very large and withstand drought and bird-mangling. Some days it is looking more peaky than others, but it always bounces back, which is a great quality in a plant destined for a rookie's garden.

Begonias

This guy keeps wavering between A and B territory. Mostly, because he can't stand up straight. He keeps leaning. I will pack more soil in there, but inevitably, he eats it up and starts to lean again. Otherwise, he looks great.