One highlight of my Saturdays is joining up with blogging gardeners from all around the world for a virtual garden tour. This group called Six on Saturday is hosted by The Propagator, who provides the inspiration and forum for a weekly, six photos at a time show ‘n tell. If you’d like to take a peek at the gardens too, just click on the Propagator’s site and give his weekly post a read, then scroll on down to the comments section where you’ll find loads of links to explore. Without further ado, here are my six (okay, I know it’s Monday, but a couple of grandgirls were here visiting and grandkids trump gardening and blogging).
My sweet grandgirls – I mentioned last week that I was away from home visiting family. On one of the days (the hottest day) I took my granddaughters to nearby Illiniwek Forest Preserve and did a little impromptu photo shoot. What a lovely place.
Phlox Cleanup Experiment – If you read my last gardening post, Tending the July Garden, you might recall that before I left on that trip I had tried a homemade concoction for cleaning powdery mildew off my garden phlox.
Powdery Mildew Concoction:
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Liquid Soap (I used organic Seventh Generation)
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 Gallon Water
I also promised I would let you know how it worked.
In this photo you can see the before and after. Pretty dramatic. Not perfect, but I was pretty impressed.
Well… here’s how it looks a week later.
I’m pretty bummed. I think I’m on the right track though. The concoction works well, but I may have been a bit too aggressive in my cleaning and managed to bruise the leaves. I will back off on the liquid soap the next time, as I think it probably disturbs the protective coating of the leaves…maybe just a couple drops. I also think it will work better if I use it when I first notice powdery mildew.
‘Tie Dye’ – On a happier and more beautiful note, my hibiscus ‘Tie Dye’ is still busy producing stunning flowers in my front yard. (And Japanese beetles are still trying their hardest to devour them.) I showed you a closeup last week, but here’s a step back to show you it in scale relative to my front porch.
Daylily season is (sadly) coming to an end, but some of my late bloomers are still putting on a pretty good show. My husband and I enjoy this little deckside patch of daylilies while we enjoy our evening meal.
Annual Regret – It’s this time of year when I lament not having planted more flowers which would provide color through the fall months. I do have zinnia, petunias, cosmos, hydrangea, and a few other late summer bloomers trying to keep the show going. Joe Pye Weed and a native aster are also doing their thing right now keeping the bees buzzing and butterflies happily flitting about.
‘Mighty Chestnut’ is one of my late blooming daylilies which provides a punch of late summer magnificence. It’s a heavy bloomer – so many scapes and SO many flowers. When it is finished blooming, I hope I will remember to take a division or two from it and get it going elsewhere.
Let me end this week’s six photo tour with this thought:
“We might think we are nurturing our garden, but of course it is our garden that is really nurturing us.”
Jenny Uglow
Barefoot Lily Lady 
Beautiful garden and beautiful quote
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Thanks, Jaya. It’s always a joy receiving a garden compliment from someone else who loves and appreciates gardening.
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Fantastic family time in garden! Stopping to smell the roses so to speak 🙂
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Yes, it was all too brief, but fantastic.
Thanks, Liam, for being another voice of hope and encouragement in the world of Alzheimer’s education.
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Back at you 😀
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Love the photo of your granddaughters holding hands, so beautiful! Gardening is not for the weak of heart, but yours is looking well! Have a beautiful day!
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Me too. I might frame that one. 💕
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Beautiful garden. The Daylily in the last photo is a stunner
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Thank you! The amazing thing about that last daylily is that it is still heavily blooming. It’s down near the street, so a lot of walkers stop to take a gander.
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I’m wondering about the powdery mildew mixture….I’ve tried a few and found that the moisture lingers longer on the powdery surface, and if it’s a sunny day it sometimes causes sunscald. Hairier leaves (like on monarda) are even more affected with burn. Is “Mighty Chestnut” red red, or leaning toward orange in person?
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Yes, I definitely had that problem too. My experiment definitely scorched the leaves. I also probably bruised the leaves by rubbing too aggressively. I have read a few more articles and am going to try again. I think it would help to use a more gentle soap (like Castile). One helpful site said to rinse the plant if you begin to see signs of distress. I believe it would have been more successful if used at the first signs of powdery mildew.
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I just realized I didn’t answer your question question about red or orange. The blossoms are a deep red-orange—definitely orange, but heavy on the red. The throat is a deep burgundy, which contributes to its overall chestnut red appearance.
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