Mountains, Texas heat and a Surprise visitor

We have been on our annual
"Rocky Mountain High" camping up in the Rockies near Crested Butte. It was beautiful as usual..and cool!
The wildflowers up in the mountains have yet to
peak, but the flowers in town were breath
taking!
It was a good trip, with lots of hikes, fishing, campfires and oh my goodness stars at night!
The special treat this year was meeting up with our daughter! (Love that hat Jen!)

Before we knew it our week was over and we said goodbye to Jen, and headed back to the Texas heat. Thanks to a very caring young man, the flowers looked good despite the terrible heat! (Thank you so much Travis!)
The time outside these days is spent watering or mowing-not relaxing. The temps have been over 100 for 31 days now, and there is no break in sight. The high Thursday is suppose to be 110. That is actual temperature, not heat index. It's Texas-we always have hot summers, but not quite like this. It hasn't rained in...well....I don't remember the last time it rained. All of Texas is in drought conditions now. We are on water restrictions now as the lakes are going down fast. So, we sit inside these days looking over the garden. As we watched the birds, we noticed a surprise visitor..
All the other birds flew away when I went out to take this picture. I think we have a run away. He (she) didn't seem very scared of me so I know this little one is pretty domesticated. I have plenty of seed and water for it, but I hope it will just visit and find it's way back home soon.

Hope your summer is going well..and is cooler than mine! :)

Can anything survive in the heat??

Summer's are always hot in Texas, but this year the heat hit us really early. We reached 100+ degrees in June-usually it's August before it gets that hot. I feel like all I do is water (and watch out for a snake-no, we have not found it yet!).
It is so discouraging for a gardener to try their best to keep flowers going in heat. I decided to walk around and take note of what flowers still looked happy despite the heat. The first thing I noticed was this Ruellia. I watered it only a few hours before I took this picture. This is all the sun it gets, I know it's not thirsty, but look how the heat of the day makes it look. Luckily by evening it recovers.
The Hot Lips Salvia has a few yellow leaves, but is ok-it just stopped blooming. Last year it stopped blooming when the heat of summer hit, and started back with blooms in fall.
I am so worried about my precious little maiden hair fern. This was a pass-along gift from a dear friend. It gets enough water, it's the heat that is making it look like this.
The candy tuff is just about dead. I will miss it in winter and spring, but maybe I will plant more.
For some reason, my coreopsis is looking like this..and it is not blooming. I thought coreopsis liked heat. The cream brulee in front is doing ok though. That one only gets morning sun, but this one doesn't get much more.

This is only one of several blackfoot daisies I have. This one is doing ok. The others not so good. Note: this one is in a container, the others are planted in the ground. Not sure why that would matter though.
Begonias, believe it or not, are one of the best plants I have found to survive the heat we have. I probably need to use them more than I do.
This bed is primarily shade. I try to keep it watered really good, and I think my efforts have paid off. The hostas and coral bells look pretty good as does the artemisia, juniper and turk's cap.
This little geranium is doing great, but it's because it's close to the back door and I baby it. However, if you keep geraniums in the shade and keep them watered during the hot summer months, they will survive and bloom again when fall arrives.
The window boxes have been a little more of a challenge this year. They are very shallow, so I really have to water them quite a bit. Easy watering though.
The wheel-

barrow with coleus and sweet potato vine looks great I think. It is in shade, maybe gets a tiny bit of sun, and I keep it watered although it does not need water every day.
Impatients? Well, I took this picture when they were looking happy. They are a struggle. I have to constantly water them. They are in the shade of the Bradford Pear Tree which is good, but the Bradford is greedy and takes all the moisture for itself leaving nothing for these flowers.
So far, the crepe myrtles have been very pretty this year. They don't seem to require much attention.
The coneflowers have been a slight disappoint-ment. This white swan usually does great, and there is one pretty bloom here, but they are not putting on the show I usually see.
The purple coneflowers were beautiful, but not now. The color looks faded and the foliage looks terrible. I don't water them a lot, but I think it's enough. Not sure if it's the heat or something else.
The profusion zinnias that I fell in love with last year do seem to thrive in hot weather. The plants I put in this year do not seem to be as healthy as last year, but I didn't buy them at the same nursery which I am going to remember next year.
Cosmos are fine. They come and go not noticing the heat or lack of water. Such fun flowers!
After observing many flowers and plants, if I had to choose a winner of who can survive this heat the best...it would be the Rudbeckia. They are the stars of summer in my book.

Mine seem to bloom later for some reason, but once they start, they are beautiful.
I have them all along the side of the house, in the back, and some scattered out in front. They never complain that it is too hot or that they are thirsty.

I have lived in Texas all my life, so I am use to the heat. In fact, when I was younger I yearned for the hot summer time. As I age, summers are somewhat harder to tolerate, and as our climate seems to change, summers tend to bring us a longer time period of these hot days. But, I read a post from Cindy at My Corner of Katy that seemed to say it best, ".. we who garden here in Texas know that summer is the price we pay for being able to garden our way through the winter months." The more I thought about that, I know how very true that statement is. In Texas you can garden your way through most of the year. We have mild winters and early springs. Mary Engelbreit has a great saying, "Bloom where you are planted." I have always loved that quote. A few years ago I found a wonderful little stitchery picture that sums up my feelings about summers in Texas.

It says.. "I Bloom Here."

Late Summer Surpises

Today was the day..I had to cut back my Susans. I have been dreading this day all week, but it had to be done. I have way too many Rudbeckias to constantly deadhead, but I do cut them all the time to bring inside. I have vases of these pretty flowers all summer. (Don't tell my other flowers, but these are my favorites!) So armed with shears I head out early and find a few late summer surprises.

My daisies stopped blooming 2 months ago..but I found 2 little flowers on the already cut back bed of daisies.





First time for me to have this Dwarf Coreopsis
(auriculata nana)--I found one little bloom proudly standing tall on this plant.

I don't know what this is. It is a water plant in the pond. I planted it a long time ago, but haven't seen it in years. The sun on the pond is heaven!

And, as I went to cut back the Susans, you can see some in the background, I found a bloom on the Hollyhock!

I removed this lantana around the pond 2 years ago, and look what I found!

I brought in as many Rudbeckia flowers as I could for one last vase. I have never had them bloom twice, but I know other gardeners are lucky to have them all fall. Life gets in the way of gardening sometime, but these late little blooms helped remind me that there is always a secret garden out there if we just take the time to look.

"Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another. " John Muir

It's Summer!

Actually, I thought it was summer a few weeks ago! It's hard to garden once the temps get close to 100. I'm out early--around 6:10 before going in to work, then out again around 8:00 in the evenings. I deadhead, do some watering and say a few nice words to my flowers to encourage them to keep on blooming in this heat. About every 5 days, we mow. My husband and I share the mowing responsibilities since our corner yard is kind of big. We try and wait until late afternoon or early evening to mow, and we mulch the grass instead of bag which makes it somewhat easier plus it's good for the grass. One late afternoon after mowing my part of the yard I saw this lizard stretched out on the blue chair on the flagstone patio. He looked exactly like I felt! If I was a lizard, I would have jumped up on that ladderback chair and joined him!
Get ready....our long hot summer is here!