Well all our cool, wet, weather had to be good for something.

13 years ago

While others have been suffering the consequences of high temps, my garden has suffered from the unusually cool/cold weather we've had. The roses rotted before they could open in most cases, daylily flowers ruined, mildew and blackspot running amuck, my beans and tomatoes just hanging in, discouraging to say the least. A couple of years ago I decided I wasn't going to grow fuchsias anymore and tossed a lot of them, then most of the ones I did keep perished in a too cool greenhouse two winters ago. This picture is a sampling of part of the collection I had then. Most were from rooted cuttings that same spring so the baskets aren't huge.

{{gwi:727208}}

Well.... the few I have left and a couple I picked up this spring are loving this weather. I'm going to have to rethink the whole fuchsia thing especially if our springs and summers are going to be more like what we're having this year. I'll post a few pics of the ones that are starting to bloom now on the gallery side.

Annette

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Comments (6)

ianna
13 years ago
That's quite lovely.

The problem with the present weather is that it's temporary. It's part of the El Nino Phenomena. It basically displaces weather patterns. For example rainy weather which should have happened elsewhere, appears in your geographical area because of wind patterns. the El Nino will be followed by a smaller weather pattern called the El Nina. So we are still going to experience more unpredictable weather before things go normal.

A little trick we used in the orient when the weather gets very hot. We put a black netting over the trellis. It keeps the area moist and we also kept lots of terracotta pots filled with water which helps to cool down the area too.
Annie
13 years ago
Oh Annette!
That is so beautiful.
All the purple-lilac colors in the Fuchsia flowers and your house create a cool and welcoming place. Can I come sit under your pergola with you? It is just gorgeous!

That's what I want.

I just love all those Fuchsia baskets. That is dazzling! What else do you have growing around that area and along the path to your house?

The temps here today were only in the low 80s, but it was very humid and muggy, so it felt hotter than it actually was. Then the clouds rolled in - huge, billowing, dark thunder heads that boiled up high into the atmosphere. I love watching them build like that. The sky grew very dark, like dusk, and it suddenly poured down heavy and hard. Wow! Glad I set those five gallon buckets out on the patio to catch some of that rain. I use it to water my house plants.

Beautiful image.
Post more, if you please?
~Annie
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aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
Original Author
13 years ago
Annie, I haven't taken any overall pics of the garden this year so went into my album and pulled a few from past years, the layout is pretty much the same. This year hasn't been a great one for the flowers but then there's always next year. The picture below is from my garden room where our koi pool is.... follow the trail over in the Gallery side for more pictures of my path from the garden room down the path to the lath house, down the steps to where I enter the garden at the side our house.

{{gwi:627734}}

Annette
aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
Original Author
13 years ago
DH made lunch so had to stop before I could post more pics but they're up in he Gallery now.

Annette
organic_kitten
13 years ago
That is an absolutely gorgeous picture. I love fuchsias, and I am usually the kiss of death to them. I'm going to come back and look at this one quite a few times, so please don't take the photo down too fast.
kay
aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
Original Author
13 years ago
Kay, my DH helps me post these pictures, they'll be up for awhile but eventually they'll come down, if you or anyone else wants to use any of my feeble efforts at photography for their own person use feel free, although a lot of my photos could be a lesson on NOT what to do LOL. There's a few closeups of fuchsia blooms on the Gallery side of this forum if you're interested.
Fuchsias have been a favorite of mine since the seventies, I've just started taking closeups of the blooms in recent years, storing them in an album for identification purposes, I have the written descriptions of all the registered fuchsias in book form but you know the old saying a picture is worth a thousand words.

Annette