MagiStream

Still waiting on the four o'clocks...I don't tnink they will germinate Added some morning glories to the flowers on the deck in their own pot and cannot wait for them to come up. They were so beautiful last year! I still need to find some sacred datura; the variant we have is pretty but doesn't open at night and esn't abe quite the same lovely scent.

Nearly everything we transplanted survived except one kind of tomato which we found ut has to ge directvswn or it will not grow.

The morning glories are in their own pot with their own trellis. We vut runners so the vines can't destroy siding, screens, or get into the grass.

One thing I love about owning all this ---nothing gets pulled or thrown out unless I say so. In a rural setting we don't have any neighborhood asssociations or standards.

I think I might have typo'd or been autocorrected, Cass. Sometimes iPad backfires on me like that.

Well, the storms brought hail. It wasn't large but I am fairly certain the new sprouts just coming up have had it. I guess I will replant them as hail is relatively rate here.

It didn't damage the butterfly garden though. The flowers are stilll intact. I need to deadhead them though.

Our backyard is almost completely garden space, and brick paths. There is a thin strip of grass for the dog.

We don't really have the plants out there yet this year. Not like we usually do. So far the only thing new we planted were some cucumber seeds, which are coming up, but are still small. The rest of the stuff is a mess this year, since we're having some work done back there. We normally have about 4 tomato plants, 2 summer squash, 2 zucchini, and 2 cucumber. Our herbs are spread out for now, but used to all be planted in one "herb bed"... Two types of thyme, basil, lavender, parsley (which survived this winter somehow), sage, oregano, another herb or two I'm forgetting, and dill. The dill keeps spreading seeds each summer, so we don't have to buy any plants. We end up with a dill forest in part of the garden.

As for flowers, we have a variety of hostas on the north side of the garage, along with toad lillies, and fancy grasses I don't know the name of. In fact, we have a lot of random plants I don't know the name of... In the sunnier areas, we have columbines, more hostas, balloon flowers, ajuga, roses, and hibiscus (a white, a red, and a pink hybrid from the two we're trying to get rid of). The knock out roses are going bye-bye with the work we're having done, but may be replaced later.

I have two grapefruit trees in pots. They're only a few years old, but one is getting big enough that I'm going to have to keep it trimmed down so I can fit it through the door to haul it inside each winter. One of the grapefruit trees and an apple tree are semi-bonsai... I'm not good at it, but they're small, at least. I have two varieties of shamrocks, a normal aloe and a tiger tooth aloe (both need bigger pots), a sago palm, a bougainvillea, african violets, jade plant, small orchid, small cacti grown from seeds, and a jar of moss I collected from between the bricks out back.

And my fish tank has java moss in it. I used to have a big fish tank with a variety of aquatic plants, but got rid of it when my rope fish died.

I currently have a little ivy plant and some sort of potted colour (I forgot to take note of the name on the tag when I threw out the pot...oops...) in a window box outside one of my windows in my apartment.

Back home in Australia, my mum and I have an acre and a quarter in a semi-rual area. We have a (very) small pine forest along the bottom edge of the property. Our ground is composed of a very thin layer of soil over the top of clay and shale, so in order to get anythign but pine trees and grass to grow we've resorted to box gardens and enriching small portions of land as necessary.

We've got two box gardens on the go at the moment: one has sugar-snap peas, carrots, strawberries, capsicums, and marigolds; the other has three types of heirloom eggplant, pineapple sage, mint, lemon balm, and a tansy plant to attract lady bugs to get rid of pests. Both box gardens are raging out of control at the moment, since I'm not home to do the pruning.

We've got a small orchard, with a lemon tree, two types of grapefruit, a mandarine tree, and teo types of oranges. In order to get these guys to grow, we enriched the spots by digging in good quality soil and seaweed solution before planting, and continuing to water them with seaweed solution.

We also have a few cherry tomato vines around our pool that just go nuts...we're not sure how they got there or why they're doing so well, but last year we had so many cherry tomatoes it was almost ridiculous.

When I get a place of my own, one of the first things I'll be doing is putting in a garden for vegetable, herbs and fruit, and an orchard...it's so cool to be able to just walk out into the garden ad pick your own food! And it's so exciting to see a seed or plant you put in X weeks ago put out flowers and then fruit...the first time I saw my eggplants had fruited, I was so stoked!

Maybe a third of my bulbs came up. The two plants I was hoping were bachelor's buttons were! And the dark purple ones too! YAY!

Problem... the kittens think all the plants are the best playground EVER, so the poor plants are having major issues. The kittens keep breaking off stems and leaves and crushing things.

And the land lord hasn't given me access to the hose yet, so it's hard to water stuff.
As soon as they do, and the kittens are off to new homes, I'm going to scatter my summer bloom flower seeds and dump another couple bags of composted manure on top of it all. Maybe the garden wall will be fixed by then too.

Last year's attempts at a garden failed spectacularly. Everything died in the sproutling stage.

But I'm trying again this year. I've got some green onions that actually might make it (provided I can keep the snails and caterpillars out of the box). Two tomato plants but they're still small; I'm not sure if they'll fruit. My lone watermelon plant is all of two teeny leaves peeping out of a pot. My cucumbers are flowering already but they have ants.

Should I be worried about the ants, or are they good pollinators?

My mom, the gardener, says that ants are usually ok. They do pollinate, and some plants prefer ants to pollinate them. The problem will be if they are the kind of ants that farm aphids, so watch for that. Mom says she's only had ants eat fruit that has fallen, and sometimes if another bug starts a hole, the ants will take advantage of it, but they aren't the ones who directly cause damage to things like corn and tomatoes.