June Garden Progress

The garden is starting to look good. I have finally spread about half of the mulch that we got at the end of April. A lot of snapdragons and other re-seeding annuals have been pulled or transplanted. The snaps that survived the winter are in full bloom.

Evening Primrose (Oenothera speciosa ‘Siskiyou’) , in all its glory, blooms and oversteps its bounds as usual.

All the pots are planted. I used mostly coleus and fuchsia cuttings from last year’s plants and canna tubers that didn’t fit in the garden.

All seeds are up. Lettuce in the fish box has been cut a couple of times.

Beans are growing.

The tomato is growing but doesn’t have any flowers. It’s a little behind the rest of the neighborhood. The tomato is called ‘Dan’s Favorite’. It thought it sounded interesting. It was labeled “mid-season slicing tomato”. I really don’t know what that means. I’ll have to wait for a taste test to see if ‘Dan’s Favorite’ is also mine.

The first Heavenly Angels Poppy opened. There are many walnut sized buds promising a colorful show.

So far it’s been a busy week. The forecast predicts rain today. I am looking forward to it. So is the garden.

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Garden Thug

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Mexican Evening Primrose (Oenothera speciosa ‘Siskiyou’)

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Once again, the Evening primrose is out of control. It’s growing into the path and coming up a 3 feet away in the middle of the lemon thyme groundcover. Plant catalogues state it “can be aggressive”. That certainly is an understatement.

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I've been trying to weed them out all summer one by one. Time for radical surgery I decided. The plants really need to be dug out because the roots break off easily.

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The roots are everywhere sending out shoots in all directions. Roots live under the stepping stones and come up on the other side.

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It’s impossible to get them all. The best I can hope for is to slow them down. I also dug back about 6 inches inside the little brick edging that is supposed to be their boundary.

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Evening Primose has a pretty pink flower in spring and long bloom time. If I had done a little research before I planting, I may have found out that it should be contained or given free range in a lot of space.

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After 5 years in my garden, I wish I had done my homework before I planted this little thug.

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Evening Primrose

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Mexican Evening Primrose, Showy Evening Primrose 'Siskiyou'

Oenothera speciosa

This plant is a showy but a fairly aggressive spreader in my garden. There are people that say it could take over the world. I continually tell it not to go past the brick edge. (I don’t talk to my plants very often. Ah, maybe I do.) I pull, dig, and hoe the plants that get on the wrong side of the tracks - I mean bricks.

The blooms started in the beginning of June. They still look good today. The pretty pink profusion of blooms has found a way into my heart.
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