border filled in and more

Yesterday Susie brought me some purple coneflower and lambs ears from her garden. I knew that they would be almost enough to fill up the perennial bed, but I'd still have a bit of space. I stopped at the Farmer's Market on the way home and got another mallow, a pink salvia and an Autumn Joy sedum to round out the best. Last night I got it all planted and watered in. This AM it looked pretty good except the tops of the coneflowers are a little droopy. Hopefully this will resolve itself. After watering the side yard today, I saw that the mallow was falling over, so I grabbed the stake I was going to use for the hollyhock and used it to stake the mallow back into place.

I still have some coleus that has not been planted, but I finally planted the 6 pack of red velvet last night. I planted it back by the 2 Miss Biloxi camellias. I just need another 6 pack of coleus for the other side. I may send my mom to the Farmer's Market tomorrow and have her pick out whatever she likes.

I picked some leaves off Tom tomato and the wave petunia last night so I could take them to Underwoods today and find out what to do. The diagnosis was fungus and I got some neem and pyrethrin spray to treat the plants and some fertilizer for my veggies and I also got a 6 pack of purple upright annual verbena to edge the perennial border.

One of my major goals for this weekend is to get rid of the box of dirt that is by the oak barrel. Step one was to move the lirope that was living (amazing it is still alive after all this time- I only heeled it in and have NEVER watered it) in the box and finally plant it up front. I planted it on the house side of the ditch in the area where they backhoe scraped up my yard getting the yard waste. I watered them in and will water them for a few weeks while the get established, and that is it. I still need to figure out what to do with the dirt (right now I'm leaning toward dumping it along the back fence) .

I watered the grass on the driveway side of the yard as it was pretty much dying from lack of water. Tomorrow I will try to get the front yard watered, which is having the same problems. I also REALLY need borrow the weed eater from Bobbie to cut the yard (the mower would be better but it is such a pain to transport).

I stocked up on stakes today and staked 2 of my 3 other bell peppers and my eggplant with 3' stakes and used 5' stakes for the hollyhock, mallow and delphenium. I may need to buy taller stakes for the peppers, but I hope not. I did see that the other yellow bell pepper now has one actual pepper on it. Hopefully the fertilizer I used today will be a good think and will help more of the blossoms set fruit. Despite his illness, Tom tomato continues to set fruit.

I want to get some sort of plant to place between my two azaleas to add a little color to that area (since I am watering every day). I had been thinking of a geranium because for some reason I thought they grew in shade, but apparently not! I went to Country Boys thinking maybe I would find a nice big begonia or double impatien or something that I really liked. Didn't see anything that looked just right for back there (I'm now thinking astillbe). I was looking over the herbs and while playing around found varigated peppermint. It was SO fragrant! At this point, it almost looks like a low creeper like pennyroyal, but it is stupposed to get up the 24". I just had to get it. I also got a Better Bush tomato, that is supposed to be a standard eating tomato but made for containers. When I got the Roma, my mom's comment was "no slicing tomato", so now we have a slicing tomato as long as it grows.

I need more pots badly. I hit up K-Mart and got 3 more bronze pots in two sizes. The smaller pot is the new home of the varigated peppermint. I am going to plant up some coleus in one of the larger pots. The other one will just be extra for right now, but I love those pots so much I'll kick myself later if I don't get enough now. This evening I hit Garden Ridge and got some more cheap pots, some small ones for more of the Chinese Laterns and a big one for the Better Bush tomato. Now of course, I need more potting soil.