Falls Colors

Think of all the wonderful golds, brown, and bronze colors of Fall and make a plan to add some to your own gardens. Of course, you will want a multitude of chrysanthemum in all colors. Create a focus around your garden fountain with a mass of yellow chrysanthemum in pots of various sizes. Sprinkle in a few begonias and impatiens for good measure. Depending on where you live it may be a little early for pansies, but do keep them in mind, those happy little faces can't help but make you smile.

The Difference in Rain and Water

Every day during the extremely hot June weather I watered my flower beds. Everything looked as if it was barely hanging onto life. The roses had no buds or blooms, in fact, all of the flowers that usually keep me happy during the hot summer months looked like they had contacted fatal diseases.




My attempts at fertilizing were futile. It seemed the more I watered the worse things looked. In desperation I ventured out with my handy pruning shears and dead-headed every flowering plant in sight. I had read that a blooming plant's mission in life is to produce seeds in order to proliferate for future generations, therefore the more blooms the more seeds. When dead headed, which by the ways means to cut off the blooms before they turn to seed, the plant will produce more and more blooms in an effort to fulfill its mission.



By the time I was finished dead-heading roses, cutting back Iris, Butterfly Bushes, and geraniums, my yard looked like it had warped back to the ending of the long hard winter months. I didn't even want to think about gardening much less go out and look at mine.



Just as I was getting ready to take bids on cementing the entire area around my house, July came with unusually rainy weather. This was surely a sign that I should have more faith! We had rain almost every day for about 3 weeks. I began to wonder if somehow I had been miraculously and mysteriously relocated to Seattle.



The cooler weather and RAIN brought my garden back to life. It seems that all the fertilizing and dead heading paid off handsomely and for the remainder of July my roses bloomed profusely. They are still blooming, but the hard August sun makes the rose bushes appear to have become Moses' burning bush. The geraniums however seemed to be fully recovered and I believe my re-blooming Iris has regained enough strength they will be able to do their thing for the rest of the summer.



It was absolutely amazing to me the difference between a few rain showers and watering everyday made in my garden. Of course the cooler weather brought on from the rain clouds would make some difference, but a portion of my garden is in deep shade, and the rain as opposed to the water made as great a difference there as in the full sun area. My newest research is being done in the area of rain barrels or larger garden fountains. I plan to have several before next summer.

What's the big deal?

Water has always been a fascination for us. Not only do we as a civilization need life giving water to survive, it provides us with beauty, solace, and inspiration.
Analogies of fountains have been made thoughout the ages by many great writers as a means of expressing the likeness of life itself to a flowing fountain.
Down though the ages Man has used water as a means of recreation, improving work methods, and maintaining personal grooming and hygiene. These things have become so "normal" we seldom stop to consider how important water is to us. Share with us some of the interesting and innovative ways Man has used this resource over the ages.
Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go. ~Blaise Pascal