Random Stuff

The temperature in Southern CA has shot up crazy. We were in 100s for straight 4 days, it's slowly getting better. Some of the flowers got burned because of the heat.

Sowed seeds for Lettuce, Swiss Chard, Onion and Indian greens last week.

Also planted 10 Iris tubers.

My Golden Dorsett apple tree has its first flower in bloom.

Watching the humming birds visit my Canna flowers make me happy. Before I run to get my camera they are gone.

Coleus

Coleus plants are eye-catching and so easy to grow. I love them for their colorful foliage, they add a splash of color to the garden. Bees visit the flowers often. I learned that the flower spikes should be nipped to keep them growing as a perennial. I am planning to grow them in a couple of containers.

Look what happened...

I do not know the name of this plant, but a terrible thing happened to it. Some creature chewed up all the leaves in a day! I was so shocked to see the leaves gone when I checked out the plants one fine evening. I found the culprit the next morning. A hornworm was wandering in the pot, they are notorious for eating tomato and pepper plants. It was looking for more leaves. Hornworms are these disgusting creatures who can devour plants in a very short time. You know that they exist on your plants by the trail they leave behind (black poo on the ground). Anyway I killed it. I thought I had taken take of them when I removed my tomato plants. Here is the poor plant :( All that's remaining are the stems.

Semi Cactus Dahlias

I Love these Dahlias.

This one is huge, bigger than my palm.

This one is called 'Western Spanish Dancer', so cute.

Here is my other beauty I posted earlier:
http://zone10newbiegardener.blogspot.com/2010/07/dahlias.html

'stuttgart' Canna

I got two Canna rhizomes and they sprouted as two plants but now I have 10 plants. They multiplied so quickly. The tallest one is over 7 feet and I love the huge banana like foliage, it gives a tropical feeling. The flowers are in apricot color. I accidently planted them in part shade, looks like that's perfect for them because of the leaves getting scorched if it's very hot. I also read that it's tolerant of wet conditions which is where it is right now. Don't you love when the accidental stuff you do turns out perfect?

Gladiolus

My generous co-worker shared gladiolus corms with me. I planted these in Apr/May I guess. I love the flowers and very happy that the humming birds visit them.

Roses

I have 4 rose plants in my backyard, 2 red, 1 peach and 1 white color. What's happening for the past couple of months is, something is eating my rose plants. I sprayed a solution containing chili powder, garlic and salt which is supposed to be one of the non-chemical ways to protect a plant but alas! it didn't work. Just look at this plant, you cannot even see the plant, it's completely gone.

This plant bearing red roses has been with me for the past 10 years. It was in a pot all these years, I transplanted it on the ground few months ago. Beautiful red roses, huh?

You can see clearly that the leaves have tons of holes in them. What could be eating the plants?

Tomatoes

So when I got back from 4 weeks vacation, I was shocked to see my tomato plants. They were so big, grew out of control even with the cages and had huge hornworms. Yuck! Hornworms are large green caterpillars, luckliy none of my tomatoes were affected. I trimmed the plants a couple of days ago but still more work needs to be done in the backyard. Here are some pics: