As much as I love flowers and gardens, I have to admit that I am usually heartily sick of my own by the end of July. This year I have not been keeping up with the weeding, and so this dooryard garden is a reproach to me every time I come home.
All my perennial flowers are pretty much spent, and it is just too hot to contemplate preparing a bed and planting more, even if I could be sure that the deer would not decimate them.
I do love the shapes of the garden, and the beautiful seedheads and leaves, but the blush is off the rose, as it were. In fact, the roses themselves have proven to be a little too finicky for my laissez-faire style of gardening.
Even the nearly indestructible cone flowers are beginning to look a little peaked.
And this guy is just mocking me.
Tell me truthfully now, do you get tired of gardening by mid-July? Come on, you can admit it. We're all friends here. ;)
Posts
It's just too hot to garden!!
ReplyDeleteYes, yes, I do. I was just walking around the garden yesterday and noticed how everything is looking worn and ragged. And my coneflowers look much the same as yours. Do I really want to invest more money and plant something this late in the summer? No. Its hot, too hot to weed and certainly too hot to dig.
ReplyDeleteI am with you on this one.
Our garden is designed to be very self-sufficient. Almost no weeding is required, and I don't plant annuals. We just water and cut blooms.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, it is almost too hot to even do that little bit.
So true. I only have a few little pots, and I'm ready to toss them all! (except for the roses!)
ReplyDeleteAmanda:)
My purple cone flowers look like yours! The weeds look pretty healthy though! LOL
ReplyDeleteIt is too hot to do much of anything! I wouldn't be tired of it if it wasn't for that though! I can always find something to plant!
It's too hot to garden! My flowers look dried and tired. It rained a bit this morning, I'm hoping that will revive them without me having to go out and water them. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, but it's different this July because everything is new, as we've just moved here. Love your last pic, btw!
ReplyDeleteI would love to know how Beverly has designed her garden. I have annuals in pots, but none in the ground. I think that's the way to go!
Could you hire a high school student to weed and pay them a little bit?
Oh Mary, Yes, Yes!!! I feel the very same way.
ReplyDeleteoh yeah, i admit it. my flower beds always look bad this time of year.
ReplyDeleteI am SO very tired of watering. By this time of year I have usually decided I have way too many plants and flowers to care for! LOL
ReplyDeletetina
tinam61@yahoo.com
I am SO OVER my veggie garden. The tomatoes are the only thing producing at this point. I want to mow the whole thing over already. :o) It's so hot lately and it pours for hours every day. The garden is looking nuts.
ReplyDeleteweeding, deadheading, trimming back...I have better things to do. BUt the hummingbirds don't seem to mind and my garden is in full bloom (but it came on much later than yours) I was going to weed today but it is raining, too bad huh?:>)
ReplyDeleteI'm a spring time and autumn gardener. When it gets super hot and humid, I don't even like to go outside. My plants suffer, and by this time in the season (and only officially a little more than a month into summer) I'm finished fighting weeds that thrive in the heat and flowers and vegetables that are barely surviving.
ReplyDeleteYou got it right! While we lived in TX my honey would hire a landscape company to take care of us during these Hot Sizzling months.
ReplyDeleteWe just moved to NY recently and I have to say I've enjoyed summer more than I ever have my whole entire live. It hardly ever passes 80 degrees and we even had a day last week with a high of 69. And as my hubby says "this is like winter in FL". As FL is where we are both really from.
So, now we're here we're in an apartment while our home is being built and I wasn't able to enjoy gardening at all this year. But I have enjoyed all the lovely pics that everyone is sharing as that has given me a nice little taste.
And now I must close my long comment by saying, THANKS for "Keepin' It Real"!
I will admit, by this time, I'm tired of weeding, pruning, dead-heading and such....a nearby town always has a garden tour of lovely homes and the gardens in late July. I try to go--this gives me a "shot in the arm" to keep up with my own little garden. I also plan a day that I get together with friends and walk through our gardens. This is a REAL incentive to keep going. I also think of the beautiful personality my garden has in late summer and early fall. Happy Gardening!!
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm still clinging to the hope that all is going to be well in the garden if only I do my job. But the pests have been legion and the battle has me nearly spent. A beautiful plant gets wiped out by one thing or another nearly every day. Okay, you're right, I'm about done. ;D
ReplyDeleteI am so with you this year Mary. I haven't had the time to get out there and everything is drooping. The weeds are taking over my flower beds...I think I'm ready for fall and pumpkins...
ReplyDeleteHugs,
Dena
Nobody could enjoy gardening chores in this heat with mosquitoes swarming all around. If we can get thru August, things will look better in September.
ReplyDeleteMarnie
huh! i thought i was just lazy! i don't have too much weeding, and i like being in my yard still, but my pixie roses drop their petals daily, and i am NOT a daily sweeper. it looks like snowfall in july at my place. when i tidy it up i feel so virtuous. sort of like a hotelier who keeps the place guest-ready. for one day! LOL. mostly i just sit and watch the birds, and do puzzles or read. i spend lotsa time that way, so there really isn't time for other "work"!jkj
ReplyDeleteI remember my first summer in our house,it had a huge flower garden and I was so excited to see the flowers coming up. I couldn't wit to weed, and plant. By September I could hardly wait for the first frost so I wouldn't feel so guilty looking at what I needed to do! I repeat this every year with each year promising, "I will do better this year". You notice everyone says "WORK in the garden", not play. Alas...it is work.
ReplyDeleteLOL - We were just talking about this last night at our house. I still enjoy gardening - in the evening after dinner when it cools down. My garden still looks ok - it is my container pots and hanging baskets that look REALLY bad! I am pulling out all of the flowers in the pots and baskets and starting new. The new flowers will do well until end of Sept. and then I will do it one more time with mums and fall flowers..
ReplyDeletexo
P
I have been tired of mine for more than three weeks. And it shows. I may weed next week. Maybe.
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly why I DON'T garden! :-) Now, that's not totally true, but almost! I love beautiful plants, but I hate getting out in the heat and sweating and being eaten alive by little flying critters! It is not "relaxing". I do have lots of shrubs and perennials in the front, with lots of mulch, so very little maintenance other than little snips now and then. So far, zero plantings in the back yard except for several pots on one of the patios. I can live with that until I figure out what to put in the back that is as simple to care for as the front---I think I just might have to contact Beverly! :-)
ReplyDeleteMary Mary Mary!
ReplyDeleteThis is why we all love you...you use the word "dooryard".
Too perfect.
Garden at night, or dusk anyway, that's when I do.
Ann
Oh yeah! I totally get tired of it by now. When August hits, I could care less about taking care of my potted flowers & just staying inside where it's cool takes precendence. August is the worst month here in the South & I am counting the days til Sept. and cooler weather breezes in.
ReplyDeleteUggghhh, don't even mention weeding to me!
Rhoda
noooooooo, I like it!
ReplyDeleteThis has been a draining gardening year for me...the mosquitoes are out, even in the daytime...the deer are braver than ever this year, coming in so close, closer than ever...ugh...and now it's just hot and humid and I am kind of in that "I don't care" mood. So, yeah, I am with you!
ReplyDeleteBella :)
I am right there with you! We just broke a record for hot weather in Colorado -- the 18th straight day of 90 or above. Our lawns are parched and our flowers droopy -- as are we! I can't wait for a revival of flowers and humans come September!
ReplyDeleteOh yes I do get tired of gardening by the end of July. And it has been real hot here too. This weekend is going to be in the 90's well all week it has been up there. My weeding is getting a little slow. I am waiting for it to cool down a bit. So dear friend I know just how you feel.
ReplyDeleteHugs;
Alaura
Girl I am right there with you! By this time every year the heat and humidity have taken such a toll on our yard until I can't stand to take pics any more....you look at pics from Spring and all the color and lushness and then you look out and see some things looking half dead no matter how much you have watered and worked with it and you find yourself looking for Fall! lol lol We need rain so bad down here...even when Bill cuts grass he gets soaking wet from head to toe before he is halfway thru...some days the heat just takes your breath away...just go back inside and look at your pretty spring pics..it works for me! lol
ReplyDeleteGosh how I wish I could grow a garden! yours is lovely!
ReplyDeleteOh yes! My gardens haven't been weeded in weeks and they needed it weeks ago. It's just to hot to go out and pull weeds all morning.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with yours.
*hugs*
Shimmy
Hi Mary :)
ReplyDeleteI can't believe it! I really thought I was the only one. My garden looks awful! The only thing that makes me happy at this time of the year are my roses and my Hibiscus, but those are getting eaten by those stupid Japanese beetles.... ugh!
Now I can finally sit in my air-conditioning and know that I'm not alone :)
hugs,
rue
I love the pictures of your garden and home. But I had a question about decorating. Do you have a rhyme or reason when you decorate? Or do you just buy what you love and put it where you want no matter whether things match, or not? I am 26 and have been married for 4 years, and like most young people, money is not easily found, but when we go to the thrift store I love buying things. But then I think there has to be some kind of plan to each room, and I don't know if I should just give up and put whatever wherever, as long as I like it. What do you think? Maybe you could do a post on this!
ReplyDeleteI'm gung ho in the spring, can't wait to sink my hands in the soil. But by July I too lose all enthusiasm. We were gone for a few days, left everything well watered. In the time we were gone the temps rose to 105 and the wind blew like crazy. Everything in it's wake was left absolutly crispy. I'll wait to invest in some fall colored mums, fall is much more forgiving.
ReplyDeleteYes and yes..I live in the foot hills of the Sierra's..that's California! We have had a dry spring and so I have been watering since March. The flip side. I thank God we have water to use! We are under no water restrictions. Some places are. Once my Oriental Lilies quit blooming..there is not alot happening in my garden. Oh, I do have a French pumpkin this year, that has been fun!
ReplyDeleteYES.... 106 degrees at 5:30 PM....I am doing well just to keep a couple of pots watered, and enough water to the grass to keep it barely alive!
ReplyDeleteAnd to tell the truth, I'm looking a bit bedraggled meself!! Come on FALL!!
Nope - I am the oddall I guess. I never get tired of it. Of course it is not as hot up here probably. I am waiting for some of the daylilies to stop blooming so I can split them and move things around. Time to start shopping for great end of summer bargains!
ReplyDeleteYes... I just wrote how the only thing looking half way decent in my yard right now is the impatiens - because they don't require fertilizer or deadheading to look good! I am a l-a-z-y gardener...Donna
ReplyDeleteBeautiful captures, as always Mary! We went to Tennessee and when I came home my potted flowers had all died! Everything is wilting as I type..even with our now daily rain.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a wonderful weekend - stay cool!
xo,
Kim
Your garden is nice, even if you're tired of it. I'm not tired of mine in July because where I live, we have so few weeds (its a desert, and nothing grows unless you force it to). But I used to be thoroughly sick of it. We haven't been home much this summer, either, so I'm just dying to enjoy it. And we hadn't even had vegetables to speak of before we left the last time. Hopefully it will be overflowing when we return.
ReplyDeleteI am so inspired in April and May. We dug up half the garden and amended the soil ( remember the bursitis?) and planted new roses and moved plants about. But, we never did the other half and the rains have been torrential when they have arrived this summer and the amendments and some plants have washed away. It wasn't looking too bad though until I was away for 2 weeks and now I don't know where to start. Guess I will wait for fall and throw some Mums at it and hope for the best.
ReplyDeleteJanet