Sunday Garden Survey with Sammy and Alice

Friends, I have let our little flower garden -- admittedly a work in progress -- get out of control. Sammy and Alice helped me take a little survey of the situation this morning before it got too hot. As you can see below, the garden area is rather indistinguishable from the yard -- Sammy is in the garden, Alice stands on grass in the yard (it is filling in from last year! Hurray!).


Since Sammy likes to run through my garden, I have been reluctant to plant anything that could be easily mowed down. I once had a small iris bed within the garden & Sammy trampled it into extinction. So with the combination of the heat and the fact that I've been in and out of town, I just let it go & the weeds took advantage! The sun and high heat scorch everything now -- the only things that really thrive are the crepe myrtle.

The knock-out roses will take the heat and sun, too, but my other hybrids are just in survival mode. I planted some bee balm in the spring and it has spread, but the leaves look a little battered from heat. The cat mint is a great plant and doesn't seem to mind the weather, tho it is not blooming so profusely.

Bee balm among the weeds. I thought this would bloom, but so far, nothing:

Cat mint:


I bought a plumbago yesterday, so cleared some weeds out to put that in. They are such a pretty annual and will bloom well if you keep them watered. I thought I would try to work about 45 minutes every morning this week to clear weeds and mulch.

Plumbago:


Now planted, in the far bottom left corner of the picture. The walkway looks a bit like a bridge to nowhere, but it serves a purpose: I built it because it was the place the dogs kept running through, so I made them a path! I'm thinking of adding another to the right of it, another natural walkway for the dogs. It keeps my plants safer. I think I will get some more plumbagos to fill in & then mulch.

I got a little ways, but still have lots to do as you can see. I left part of the pool fence up because it keeps the dogs from racing through the bed so much and it is a convenient place to hang beach towels!

Most of my potted herbs have done okay, but I need to repot some of them. I've never had good luck with rosemary until this year. I purchased a variety bred for our climate and it has done fantastically well! It is called Arp rosemary & it will take high humidity:

My basil likes the afternoon sun & thrives as long as I keep it watered:
I'm really pleased with how well my figs are doing. The potted fig is a magnolia variety; the other is a celeste. Figs only produce on second-year growth, so no figs this year. I planted both last October.
Sammy and Alice say they are going to make me stick to my weeding plan!

Beating the Heat

With our temperatures hitting triple digits -- day after day -- everyone seems content to snooze away the hot afternoons......

Happy 4th of July!

From high atop GK's patriotic perch:


Happy Independence Day!!!!

Fresh Figs in Pea Ridge

One of my favorite things is fresh figs -- Alice helps me pick figs every evening!



These are from the Brown Turkey tree -- we are waiting on the Celeste and the Italian Cream varieties to ripen!

Can You Spot The Coon?

BB and Beau have been really working the show ring lately, so we decided it was time for some R&R in Pea Ridge.

Whilst on a deer & bird & general wildlife feeding expedition, BB and Alice spotted a coon waiting for his supper! Can you spot the coon?

A new horse!

We got a new horse! Unfortunately we had to sell my first horse Whiskey River. But W.R is still at our stables and now belongs to the new barn manager! He is gonna be a roper. I'm so happy that he has such a great home, where I can still see him and ride him!

The new horse is names No Shadow of Doubt (registered) Beaujolais (barn name) Beau (for short). He is a fully trained western pleasure horse and he's ONLY FIVE! He is a beautiful full bred quarter horse. I am so happy to have him and now I can start to show competitively. He is so funny! He loves to play. I am so happy to have him. Sorry I didn't post this a while ago. I have had him for three months but have been down with him a lot and do a lot of 4H.

Even though I miss Whiskey I love Beau!

A Really Bad Game

One of Sammy' s favorite games used to be pushing a tennis ball under "the bridge" and digging it out. Those were the days.......

Here is the back of the bridge, and as you can see, it is accessible from both sides and it doesn't require outside help to get the ball out. In other words, Sammy can play this game by himself.


Last week, the yard men, not aware of the importance of this placement, moved "the bridge" to a more logical spot in the yard. Naturally, Sammy had to look for a new place to hide his ball. Now, the most exciting place to push a tennis ball is underneath the shed:

Unfortunately, this game requires outside assistance to retrieve the ball --

It turns out this wasn't the right ball, so we had to go digging some more:


Here we go -- right ball!

Rejects from under the shed:

Once we had the right ball, here comes Sammy to return it to its hidey-hole under the shed (Notice Alice by the fence -- Alice does not partake of this bad game):

No, no, no, must redirect. We move from the side yard to the back yard to throw the ball -- Sammy action shots!



And yes those are wood chips in the yard! Sammy's ball games have been a bit hard on the grass, so we spread mulch to deal with the mud problem. Now it looks like a dog park, which it pretty much is.
We moved "the bridge" back to its rightful place, but Sam still thinks hiding his balls under the shed is a superior game. We don't!