Round Two

With much sadness and frustration, I have watched most of the flowers I planted back in May die in their pots over the last few weeks and I am not happy about it.  I had petunias, geraniums, snapdragon, marigolds, moss roses and some filler vines and about 90% of them are dead.  I have searched the Internet for answers.  It can't be a bad batch since there are so many different plants from different greenhouses.  My neighbor thinks it is because the sun is too hot on our decks (they are on the south side and get sun all day).  I read something on the Internet about how you shouldn't fertilize greenhouse plants until a few weeks after they are transplanted and we put those little fertilizer spheres in the soil when we planted so maybe that caused it. 

Yesterday, although I said I was not going near anymore greenhouses, I went to the WalMart greenhouse and bought new plants.  I am going to remove the withered plants (in some, the whole pot died) and try again because I just can't accept having a summer without flowers.  I am going to move more containers to the front of the house because the flowers placed there are mostly still alive so maybe the south side is too hot.  I can't believe this though, since my mom puts flowers on the south side at the farm every year and they never just die within weeks.  I bought only the most robust, heat tolerant flowers I could find.  I bought vinca, which are used in landscaping in Las Vegas.  If they can grow in Vegas there is no way they can't grow on the south side of a house in N.D.  I also bought some very healthy and established geraniums which grew as big a bushes in our garden when my family lived overseas in the Middle East.  We lived in a mountainous desert environment and they still grew so they should be able to take the sun on our deck.  I also bought more moss roses, which are more like a cactus than a flower.  Even the ones I planted before are looking weak which makes me believe there has to be something wrong with the fertilizer.  They are not easy to kill.

I hope to get this done this week and then enjoy these flowers until the first frost.  And if they die, I guess it will be a sign that I need to give it up for this year.

In addition to the flowers, I also bought this fun tomato plant for the garden.  We only had three plants originally and left a space for a fourth and I finally remembered to get one.  Hello Mr. Stripey! 

 

I have always thought heirloom tomatos looked interesting!  Who would have thought I would find this at WalMart?

The plant fun continued when Justin came home from work with a pickup load of native grasses which we are going to be using in our landscaping. 

 

They all look the same but there are several different varieties and as they grown during the summer and get their seeds they all will look different and have some different colors. 

 

Changing the subject, here are a few pictures from the weekend.  Tessa went swimming for the first time and Ben had his first lake trip of the summer. 

 

Not surprisingly, he loved floating around in the water and playing with his cousins. 

 

Tessa liked the water as well.  I didn't realize how cold the water was until I got in myself and I am surprised she didn't seem to mind! 

 

He wanted to keep his baby close by!

 

Tessa was surprisingly amicable to wearing the infant life jacket!  She fell asleep in the boat.  I think it felt like a big pillow to her!

 

Happy girl in the sun...

 

OK, I have to go cry and pay my respects to the piles of dead annuals on my deck now.  I am almost reluctant to plant the new ones because I am afraid they will go from being healthy and in full bloom to sickly and wilted in a week.