The heat is getting to me. I even have A/C (not central, but still, it helps…) and I still feel it. I went to a class at the gym and then to the bank and I’m still recovering hours later. I looked at the temperature and it’s a mere 30C, I can’t even fathom how people live with the kind of temperatures that are soaring in Europe, where they’re not accustomed to it, and many other places where they are.
My garden is managing to survive it, with a little help from my hose and sprinkler. It is so hot that I only go out there to water in the morning or evening and while I’m at it, I pull a few weeds and deadhead a couple of plants. Very lethargic gardening. This morning I also managed to spend a minute on my compost bin, which I haven’t been using this year, except for putting in some garden waste, mostly very dried up things that will never break down if I don’t add something else. So, today I chopped up those things a little smaller, added some water and some compost accelerator and kitchen waste and I hope with a little more attention I might get something out of it. Does anybody know whether used potting soil is a good addition to the compost? I put it in, so I hope so.
I’m pretty happy with some of the plants I added to the garden recently, particularly the hydrangeas, one in the front and one in the back. The front one is an ‘Annabelle’, a very hardy and practical plant for that spot. It produces lovely white globes of flowers. It doesn’t get a lot of light so maybe that’s why the globes are on the small side, but still, lovely. In the back I planted a Firelight, which is a later bloomer and is only now coming into its own. Its lovely white blossoms will turn dark pink in the fall. Looking forward to that. I had planned to uproot an old honeysuckle bush in the front garden and replace it with another hydrangea, but the hot weather came and I lost my mojo for a big job like that. Perhaps in the fall…
Maybe the reason I’m so thrilled about my hydrangeas is that I longed to plant one for years but always thought the conditions in my garden weren’t right for them. I’m so glad to be proven wrong. I finally took the plunge last year and decided the risk was worth the cost. Whenever you plant something you take the risk that it will mysteriously fade away or just never really thrive. It’s the heartbreak and the delight of gardening, this risk-taking. My sister gave me a jack-in-the-pulpit at least three years ago that I planted in the front yard. It has never flourished and when the heat of summer comes, the few leaves that have bravely come up in the spring wither and die back and it has never flowered. I’m not sure whether there’s a spot in my garden that it would like, but it’s not the one I gave it. Maybe next year, if it survives another winter, I’ll dig it up as soon as the shoots appear and try it out in a spot in the backyard with the hostas under the lilac. It has proven itself to be a survivor, although a sickly one, so it deserves another chance.
If you’re a brave soul and can keep gardening in the blistering heat, I commend you. I, sadly, am not that sort. Heat and I are not friends. We don’t see eye to eye. We have desultory arguments that always end the same way; I back away into the air conditioned house, flop down on the couch and let it win.
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