My 5 week old gardens are still very bare but my few plantings came from a variety of sources and I've noticed that my POP's are snobs and really do not like living here.
I have planted stuff that I have ordered from online nusersies and though some of it is not growing at rates that satisfy me, some are, and those that are not are at least alive. Alive is where the bar is set for now. Next year maybe I'll try for beautiful. The 26 hedge roses I planted are doing well and I'm hoping to have an actual flower blooming for bloom day on July 15th. The lavender and clematis (also from online nurseries) have hardly grown at all but they do not look dead. The zinnia seeds (see below) I direct sowed are even coming up! And then there's the passalong plants...
The lily of the valley I got from nice
freecycle.org lady is alive but barely holding on, the other unknown plant she gave me - dead! The bachelors button from garden buddy - dead! The
raspberry and
coneflower garden buddy gave me that just planted on
Sunday - not looking good!
What is it with these POP's? I'm starting to think transplanting them to my garden is like taking a teenager who lived her whole life in a mansion and moving her to a one room shack on the side of the road. They are in shock! They hate my dirt! They are too use to living in garden utopias and I cannot give them that right now! Must thou dwell in great dirt, eat from rich compost or fancy fertilizers and drink from underground sprinklers? Is my love for thee is not enough?
Raspberry and Coneflower POP's in pots directly from garden buddy. They look okay, right?
Here is one of the
Coneflower plants from this morning.
WTH??
Code Blue!!! I'm really trying hard to stay organic but the miracle grow is looking better and better...
Here is the big Rudbeckia - I'm pretty darn sure that this is where the seeds are on this one so I'll be looking on the internet to try to find out how to harvest the seeds. If you know, please share!
Here's the purple Coneflower. This looks odd to me, more like it's just dead. How do I know if there are seeds here? 
Speaking of seeds, below is my attempt to protect my freshly planted lettuce seeds. Within 1 hour of planting them it started raining, and raining, and raining. At some point I looked out the back door and there was water standing in the planter boxes, so I drug this freebie umbrella out of the basement. I have no clue if flooding them will keep them from germinating but I'll be watching them closely over the next few days. Go Bulls!
