Gardening Fever

Hello my friends - I've not forgotten you and feel appropriately guilty for not stopping by more often, but apparently my obsession with gardening is overpowering. (I can get so obsessive at times!)

Anyhow, I wanted to share a few photos from my "garden" that is really just strips of dirt around my apartment, but since I live in a corner unit, I have a bit more than most...I finally got all my Mammoth sunflowers in the ground. They'll grow to be 12' tall.

I planted the rose bushes along the side of my unit when I first moved in here (about 5-6 yrs. ago) because there was nothing but pine straw and weeds..

Last week, I placed some bricks (that a neighbor gave me) on the ground to make a border. I think it looks more manicured and loved. I planted about ten mammoth sunflowers behind the roses. They should look striking towering against that brick wall. When they start to get taller, I will plant my morning glories next to each stem for them to climb up for a lovely contrast.

This morning I scratched my arms bloody when transplanting my potted lemon bush (left) in the place of the paper whites that I dug up. I will relocate them around the Bradford pear tree in the back

I have two potted lilacs and they are producing some small blossoms:

I purchased them about the same time I did the lemon bush and they too would probably do a whole lot better in the ground, but I'm running out of space. My thought was to take them with me when I move, but I'll probably be here for another six years the way time and money slips away.

One of my hanging baskets containing mixed salad greens

Containers on my back porch with leaf lettuce and Kohlrabi (center) - the oblong planter to the left has peas.

The pink azaleas are blooming in the front

I added another oblong planter box containing herbs on the ledge out front.

One of the potted Jade plants keeps blooming and growing like mad so that I'll have to transplant it AGAIN this year. (leaf lettuce in the small, square pot)

On my front porch, I have a rubber tree and a monkey plant that has fuzzy leaves and tiny lavender blossoms when it blooms.

My next big ordeal will be to separate my huge Aloe Vera plant that blooms yellow every year...I'm going to need help because it must weigh about 100 lbs. and I don't want to break it...the other big pot behind the Aloe has evening primrose and tuber roses...

The Amaryllis flowers are popping out everywhere - they grow wild around here and when they are all at once in full bloom it's quite impressive a sight to see!

I recently purchased some passion flower vine seeds (and more herbs) that I will plant in a pot and in the ground next to the pillar on my front porch so that it can twist around that...I have several other flower seeds growing, that I'm going to plant all throughout my available garden space and around some of the trees once the seedlings get bigger. 

The ones I look forward to the most (besides my sunflowers and morning glories) is the snapdragons, bachelor buttons and forget-me-nots....I'm still waiting on my tomato seedlings to grow big enough for me to transplant them. I think maybe next year I'll buy the tomato plants instead or start the seeds earlier.

Poor Gizzy has been coughing a lot lately and on Saturday I called the Vet who suggested Children's Robitussin, but every time Gizzy sees me coming with that stuff, he clamps down like a pit bull, so needless to say he never gets the recommended dosage. He's slowly improving, but if it gets bad again, I'll have to take him back for an allergy injection. The last one he had was back in November and the Vet thinks that is not too much (because you have to be careful with steroids.) Meanwhile, I'll give him a 1/2 Benadryl twice a day and his cough syrup when/if I can manage without upsetting him too much - after all, he's got an enlarged hart and a heart murmur, poor little fella!

To make things even worse for the ole boy, the weather has been quite warm lately (88-90 F) and that cuts significantly into our outdoors time and there's not much to do than sleep:

But, as long as he's sleeping, he's not coughing - so it's all good!