Sunday, July 29, 2018

Flowers that Thrive on Neglect

I've heard that the acidity of the water you put on hydrangea makes the color.  So no water at all must mean bright blue. This one is at our old house, and I can barely keep up with watering at the new house in this hot dry year.
I used to have over 50 different dahlias, but I used to dig the bulbs every year and carefully identify them and store them in the basement.  When I quit digging them, the varieties narrowed to the ones that can survive in the ground all winter.  This is one of my favorites - Called Key West when I bought the bulb years ago.
This one is called Oenesta - very hardy and the bees love the abundant blooms.
This dark red nameless dahlia came from my friend, Bill.  It is very hardy, has abundant blooms, but kind of weak stems so it isn't that great for bouquets.
Plate dahlia - I've forgotten the name - very strong stems, lots of blooms, and it comes back every year.
Duet - I used to have a plate dahlia with these colors, but haven't seen it bloom for several year.  This one bloomed for the first time this year after several years without blooming.
This one might be a cross - don't recall it from the past.
My friend, Karen, gave me several lilies, and I'm just loving them!  Easy to grow, they smell wonderful, and they are very drought tolerant.

Gladiolas are showy and don't require much tending.  I have many varieties blooming and many more that haven't bloomed yet.  It really is my favorite time of year, even though it keeps me very busy keeping some water on everything.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Roof Repair in the Blazing Heat

While this roof doesn't look that bad, it definitely needed to be replaced.  The underpinnings of it had rotted (probably from moisture from the huge hot tub in the basement after 20+ years), and although it didn't leak (yet), our contractor son, Tony, had let us know when he did a minor repair on it last year that it was "Squishy" when he walked on it.
So Tony made time for us in his busy summer building season to replace the roof.  Our grandson, Jesse, is following in his dad's footsteps, and is the hardest working 21 year old man I know.  They do amazing work in a real short time. Tony stripped the old roof, resheeted it, and put new metal on, while Jesse hauled debris away, lugged plywood to hand up to Tony on the roof, and counselled all the sightseers who dropped by.  They did all this in one and a half days including driving over from Eastern Washington to do the job.
I'm pretty sure a good mother wouldn't put her son on a dangerous roof to work in 90 degree (in the shade) weather, but I'm always proud of him and his excellent work and willingness to drop everything to come to our rescue.  
All done and it looks so good - enjoyed admiring it from the lake as I swam today!