Half of the month has already gone by for July. I spent my birthday week enjoying the company of my niece from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She flew in to celebrate my 70th and my husband's 80th birthday which is in 3 days.
The weather has been extremely hot, so we have spent a lot of time in the neighbor's pool and sitting in the shade on the back porch.
Keeping the hanging baskets watered enough was quite the challenge all week. They were getting so stressed with the heat and I took all of these photos before the heat wave. Now, they are looking pretty sad, and I may end up tossing them out today.
The Fushia's are doing wonderfully in spite of the heat. They only get a little afternoon sun. I will winter all of these plants inside to enjoy again next year.
The two Impatien baskets are getting so big, and I've seen the hummingbirds checking them out from time to time, but they do prefer the feeder most of the time.
Another of their favorite flowers is the Crocosmia that also is near the feeder. I'm so happy to have these bulbs back in the gardens for them to enjoy.
Meanwhile, back to the baskets after that little segway.
In May, I brought all the houseplants out, repotted them and hung them up for the summer months. They have already grown so much and seem to like being outdoors. Also, with all the humidity we are experiencing I haven't had to mist them at all. ;-)
The lime Pothos plant started turning yellow on a lot of its leaves this winter. After I repotted it, I trimmed it back hard and fertilized it. Now, it has new leaves growing and the coloring is a lot better. I might have saved it just in time.
The Blue Fern in the containor pot on the other hand is not happy with being outside. It may not like the mid-morning sun where I have it and the leaves have burned somewhat. I didn't notice how bad it was until it was too late. I'm going to have to cut out the bad leaves and move it to a better location before it stresses any more than it already has.
Lastly, the lettuce baskets do not like the intense heat, and they started to bolt. I decided to pick all the good leaves and emptied these baskets until I replant fresh seed in August for a fall crop.
At least I still had enough young leaves for a nice salad that night for dinner.
I picked a few snow peas from the garden, some fresh Nasturtium flowers, and made a nice dill dressing, now that was tasty.
The flowers at the top of the lettuce tower are filling in nicely and adding some color to them besides just green. Well, this is an update for mid-July concerning all the hanging baskets that surround my back porch. I hope you enjoyed seeing the progress and now it is time to go out and harvest some veggies before it gets to hot today.
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