I visited the botanical gardens at Cornell University a little over a week ago. The job's tears in their herb garden were well into their flower/seed-making phase and Cornell, like myself, is in the frozen North. We had very late hard frosts in this part of NY so we got a slow start on the gardens to be followed by unusual heat and drought. In other words, our growing season has not been good.

The plants I saw were maybe 2-3' tall. I would guess yours should bloom any time.

FataMorgana

Oh, you live around Ithaca? Just beautiful. The summer before my senior year in college, I spent a couple months at Cornell. I remember the dorm didn't have air conditioning, but I never felt hot. I had a lot of fun there. What I wouldn't give to have summers like that again!!

OK, thanks for the info and nice pic, FataMorgana. I'll wait with bated breath and see what mine decide to do. :)

I live 1.5 hours from Ithaca so Ithaca isn't something I visit all the time. But when I do, I like to visit the Cornell Plantations gardens.

Summer temperatures are generally very doable without air-conditioning here. The average summer has few days above 90F. Plus if you live near one of the many large lakes or in a wooded area, the temperatures are very comfortable. Western NY State has the Finger Lakes as well as the Great Lakes plus not to mention urban forests are quite common. Beautiful place to live and visit. Not hard to imagine that tourism is one of the region's big money-makers.

FataMorgana

The gardens sound beautiful. i imagine you live near Rochester? Yes, I actually took my first (and last, LOL) sailing lessons on Lake Cayuga. Oh, tourism is a big money-maker there? Didn't know that. Urban forests? Now that's interesting. What will they think of next? :)

Oh, I was thinking something else as well. I bet if you live in a cooler climate like NY long enough, you eventually get used to it and take the summers for granted. At which point 90 F would seem really *hot*. OTOH, when you live in the South, 90 F doesn't seem bad at all during the summer. :)

Rochester is the closest major city. And yes, 90+ F degree days are difficult for people here to take. Go to any summer event in that sort of heat and you are sure to see at least one ambulance come at some point because someone dropped over from the heat. I know that heat is baby stuff for folks in warmer climates. But we can get freezing temperatures for half the year (first frost is mid-Oct. and last frost is mid-May) plus we can have dismal grey weather with weeks of not seeing the sun. That would be just as much of a killer to warm-weather people as 90+ heat is to us. Folks that have lived here their whole lives have a hard enough time with our cold and sometimes sunless weather.

Cold hardiness and not heat tolerance or low moisture needs is the biggest concern in choosing plants for my gardens. That is what has made this summer so difficult. I got heat and extended periods of little/no rain. So many established plants failed, didn't flower/fruit, or are barely limping along. They've suffered so much that I hope they get some reasonable weather this fall to help build their reserves back up because winter always kills off the marginally surviving plants here.

FataMorgana

Yes, cold temps could be very deadly to people used to warm weather, including making them much more susceptible to things like colds and the flu. I personally would be very concerned about slipping on ice.

That's too bad you've had such a hot, dry summer. Didn't know those happened in NY. :) Maybe you should have planted some Mexican sunflowers--those are kind of tough. LOL. I've got oodles of those flowers in my garden, they come back year after year (from dropped seed), and they last till frost! About as easy as you can get.

However, a lot of my plants succumbed too (such as cardoon, beans, and onions), but the recent rain and cooler temps have brought many of the others back. My pepper plant finally has a decent-sized pepper on it. Yes, I hope that you get some better weather soon and that winter doesn't come too early up north.