It’s been hot and dry for much of the summer. That’s hard on the plants and I know that I’m going to have to move some things that haven’t handled the heat well come fall.
Meanwhile I’ve been replacing some of the things that we lost in last winter’s deep freeze.
Rosemary is something that I regard as hardy around here. It rarely suffers until the temps fall into the teens. Single digits are too cold so I lost three sprawling rosemarys that lived at the back of the herb garden tumbling down the rock wall. I replaced two of them.
trailing rosemary in the herb garden
We also lost all of our cultivars of buddleia. Some of the wildings survived but those have to be pulled out as they are now clasified as invasive weeds. I can’t find anymore of the dark purple one that I liked. sigh.
So in the place of the butterfly bush that used to live in the corner of the bed facing the barn I put a smoke tree. Well actually more of a shrub.
smoke tree (Cotinus coggygria)
There may not have been much rain recently but the sprinklers run every couple of days. This is the result of leaving your Felcos in the bucket next to the bird bath.
almost ruined
The nice thing about Felcos is that you can buy parts. I’ll refurb these over the winter. meanwhile to suppliment my older (thrice refurbed) Felcos I bought a pair of Fiskars pruners.
little fiskar pruners slide nicely into your pocket.
They have an interesting compound cutting action.
they fit well in my hands
They are smaller and more agile that the Felcos. I don’t think they can handle as much of the brute force cutting work but they are sweet to use for deadheading and other more precise tasks.
Not everything is suffering in the heat. The lilies went nuts this year. The last of the Stargazers are just now going over.
stargazer lilies