Gorgeous irises Jeanne. I had some at my last house and just love them, but sadly, don't really have a place for any at this one. Not enough sunny spots (our place is surrounded by elms and oaks, so very little sunshine) and really don't have the space for a nice stand of them either. We expressly sized down the yard in the city when we moved from the house 10 blocks away to this one. Hubby doesn't want to spend his entire retirement mowing grass. He feels he has enough mowing on our 40 acre getaway place an hour away, so he hires a yardman to mow our small city lawn every other week.

Today I planted up some blue Borage seeds in a large pots at the side driveway gate. I also put out snail/slug pellet bait over the key areas of the front and side yards where they are so bad. Snails have just been horrible this season. Next I need to put out the Spectricide granules to go after the bazillion pill bugs out back that drive me crazy. They are getting worse and worse in this yard.

But my most important gardening event today was to discover that my 20-25' loquat tree IS NOT DEAD! It took such a severe hit this ysear during the Texas Snowpocalypse/Ice event in February. It got down to 2º and sinsgle digits for nearly a week where I am. This is what it looked like after the freeze. It STILL won't release the brown, crispy leaves easily some 3 months out from the blast. But this morning I went out to inspect it and this is what I found as high as 6-7' up on two main trunks:


And this is the growth at the bottom near the dirt line that started shooting out a week or so ago, now grown out to about 8" with fully developed leaves!

I'm so excited I'm not going to lose this tree! Heck, this thing may create a bunch of new branches, fill out nicer than before, and finally allow me to shape it better and eliminate its tendancy to put on growth/width toward the fence (cedar fence is left photo, just out of view), which I'd like to correct, making it a more upright specimen. I do like a gardening challenge.

While @ my mom's house yesterday, I got the bejeezus scared out of me by a snake. I almost stepped on it! Not 5 minutes before, my husband had reminded everyone to look out for snakes. Luckily, it turned out to be an oak snake this time, not another poisonous one. It had such a beautiful pattern, and was at least 5 feet long. My husband picked it and took it to an area away from where we were working. My son was still chuckling about it this morning, and how fast I was moving and yelling, "snake, it's a snake!!" LOL!

Planted a friends garden this morning with a little help
Radish ,beets, carrots , tomatoes, cucumbers, and lima beans

Now feasting on watermelon for lunch.

Congratulations Peggy on your loquat tree. We in AL didn't get hit as hard as TX did, but it was enough to think I lost my pawpaw tree.
That's alright Tiffany I almost did the same thing when I moved a welcome sign to closely scrutinize a plant. A king snake was enjoying his solitude and waiting for a chipmunk to come by.

Today I have been potting up phlox, gingers, cannas. It's already too hot to plant in the ground here, no rain in 2-3 weeks. Been continuing the battle with nutgrass.

it was HOT friday, saturday and sunday and I was out in the heat all 3 days. watering. weeding-not much since I try to keep after it as much as possible. friday after work I planted a new Itoh peony-it's a beautiful shade of yellow. then spent the next 2 days watering like crazy as there isn't any rain due any time soon. took up some of the stones under the pergola to get to the roots of a huge clump of spiderwort. I had to pry up the belgian blocks along the edge and then the stone. what a pain in the tush. checked on the wind walker salvia. it's good. not transplant shock. finally pulled up a lawn chair and sat down to water again in peace. cloudy and cool the next 2 days so a break in the action.

I need to work on getting rid of an area of Spiderwort before it takes over more than it is now. On one of these threads someone mentioned a product that will kill Spiderwort. I really think I am going to resort to that although I hate to but this area is large. I just need to find out what that stuff is called that will do the Spiderwort in.

Today is repot day. I have some Alpinia purpurata busting out of the pot, and need to step up a bunch of Anthurium seedlings

Kabby said:Congratulations Peggy on your loquat tree. We in AL didn't get hit as hard as TX did, but it was enough to think I lost my pawpaw tree.

Thanks, Kabby. It's even putting out shoots higher up and way out on limbs since I took this shot, though it will NOT release the brown dead leaves even when I try to poull them off the low branches. Hope your pawpaw is coming around. I tried pawpaws several years ago. They started growing and putting on leaves and then both died a slow death within 6 months. Either they didn't like our alkaline soil or I did something wrong.

I used to live in Montgomery on two separate occaions, the 2 years before and after we went to Iran (Shah was still in power). Dad was a fighter pilot stationed at Maxwell AFB for Command and Staff School the first time; War College the second time. We liked Alabama a lot, particularly the coastal areas. Lovely scenic highway east-west down on the coast.

Peggy the pawpaw is doing fine now, lots of lush foliage. I have very sandy soil so I guess that's a good thing.

What years were you in Montgomery? Schools? I was used to my family moving every 3 years, USDA. It was a rude awakening to have folks move away from me, especially after just one year. I still have a horse friend from 50 yrs ago, she was military.

What did I do in the garden today? Absolutely nothing. I've been in the street and tomorrow as well. Getting hot!

We lived in Montgomery for school year '58-'59 when I attended Floyd Elementary and then again in '62-'63 where we went to Bellingrath Middle School. First time we were there we lived just 4-5 blocks from Floyd Elementary. If you're familiar with Montgomery, the last time Dad was stationed there, we lived out on Narrow Lane, which went out to the country club. That house sat on ½ acre (which my brother and Dad cursed come mowing time). The back 1/4 of the yard was a ginormous bank of the best smelling honeysuckle ever. There were also 6 mature pomegranite trees by the house producing lots of fruit.

@Peggy8b I'm going to send you a tree mail, I don't want to get too off topic.

This AM cleared a square and planted last of the peppers
weeded beets and strawberries found to red will pick tomorrow IF some thing doesn't beat me to them.
Found the cleome in the beets Not in the flower bed
Still glad to find some , guess I will be transplanting

I did a bit of weeding, very minor, but this is how you keep the aggressive type from getting too aggressive.
I also gave my tomato plants some extra water as well as my Scarlet runner beans, somehow after soaking them overnight, they are still not sprouting. Stubborn.

Maybe something ate your beans
I planted 8 only had 3 come up so I dug down ....no beans something ate or carried them away.

Spent 3 hours doing maintenance on the greenhouse sprinkler system

No they are still out there.

It rained hard this morning and that never encourages me to get out in the gardens. The mail arrived with my Lily of the Valley order. Ordered 10 and got 13! Planted them out along the cedar fence in this alcove in the side garden that is shady virtually all day long down low where they will be. Hope they don't compete too much with the Lamb's Ear that's alreaddy there.



Higher up in this alcove gets some sun for about 4 hours a day, so I'll be planting out a true Mountain Laurel (not the TX Mtn. Laurel) in there when it arrives. They won't take TX hot sun but higher up in this alcove, it likely will get enough sun to do OK. Some shade in the deep South and mulch on their roots is recommended. I'll likely use red oak leaves, which are plentiful in the back garden. Should keep the area damp for the LoV, which they like as well.

Moved a bunch of seedlings back to the greenhouse predicted 45 tonight
Only 50 and rain now .

In the past week, or so, I put in the last of my new roses and trimmed the old ones.
Put in five tomato plants I got from Bomato Taby.
Put in one last plot of corn down South.
Weeded, and replanted day lillies.
Put down red mulch and bought ten bags of Cocoa Bean Hulls that goes in rose and peony gardens.-- (We drove into Cambridge, Mn to get a hose reel that other half wanted at Fleet Farm and across the street was a Menard's, which we checked for Cocoa Bean Hulls, as other stores were sold, out and I found some.)