New plants, new season

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I’m trying to rebuild my container garden, which was decimated by the heat and humidity and relentless sun (as well as my relentless schedule which didn;t allow me to perhaps water them as much as I should have)…Fall is finally here! It has been raining cats and dogs, we’ve had several days of continuous rain…it’s been wonderful for the plants but awful for me – I have gotten drenched more times than I care to count! The weather has cooled dramatically (for Houston) and this has also been good for the plants. So heartened that whatever I buy migth have a good chance of making it, I went and got a few new plants…I decoded to change the potting soil completely of the pots that had the geraniums, so it’s taken me awhile to plant..but here they are:

I chose petunias (one of the petunias is actually a remnant of the ones I planted back in May!) and a red dianthus to replace the portulacas:

I planted them about a week ago; these were taken today, so you can see they’re doing well:

It does worry me that the ones in the middle seem to have yellowish leaves, I’m hoping the fertilizer helps them:

I also bought a lavender mum, seen here still waiting to be planted:

And a tiny lavender-pink rose (it seems frail so we’ll see if it survives!):

And a red gerbera daisy:

You might be able to see that I’ve lined my ceramic pots with plastic. I didn’t want to do it, it seems so un-eco friendly, but I’m hoping it will help keep the moisture in longer…we’ll see!

I also have a mystery plant that started growing in the pot with the echinacea, here it is as it was a couple weeks ago towering over the echinacea:

And how it is now – frankly it looks like a weed to me, but some weeds have pretty flowers, and this one does – they’re light pink – and it was growing so vigorously I figured any plant who can take the sun and the heat this well deserves a chance – so I left it alone. I’m glad I did! I wonder if it will crowd out the echinacea but well…I’m willing to let the plants settle that!

A couples weeks ago my orange-yellow rose was also flowering. I did lose two roses – the buttery yellow one everyone thought was the “yellow rose of Texas” and the white one. But two survive – this one and the red one.

Last but not least the red impatien continues it’s climb back up from its near death experience, here it is about to bloom about a week and a half ago:

And today with its beautiful red flowers:

And a growth spurt!

Fall finally feels like it’s here, so here are my indian corn to adorn the door and the pumpkins (this year I thought, why not get more than one pumpkin? If one is good, two must be better, and three best! LOL):

• 1 Nov, 2009
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