NW corner veranda

Status update of northwest corner veranda.  Morning glories have topped the pergolas and this is about as dense as they get.  The morning glories are waning.  I haven’t seen a Heavenly Blue or Moonflower so it looks like the purple and pinks took over and won.  The morning glories seem much thinner than previous years.

Note to future Mark:  veranda level container mix needs to be turned and planted with more variety next Spring and then weeded properly.  It might be a good idea to introduce mushroom compost as well to aid in water retention and provide better nutrition.  I think veranda level boxes drained and dried out too quickly this year.  This seems counter intuitive since I didn’t turn or touch the container mix in the veranda main boxes.  Perhaps there also might have been lack of proper nutrients provided in both alley and veranda level main planters.  No added slow release ferts were added in Spring and MG soluble fertilization was added infrequently.   Need to come up with a proper proportion of compost/cubic foot.  A 10% ratio would mean 3 cubic feet of compost to cover two veranda level main boxes.

The purples, which I consider the weed of the MG family, is all I got this year.  They look nice in certain light but can’t compare to Heavenly Blues which are absent.

Garden spider

Spiders start work early evening by spinning a web and waiting for an errant bug to stop by.  The webs only last so long.  Here’s a spider still doing business in the morning.  This will be her last catch of the day.  Sometimes I have to be careful at night in the garden because there can be quite a few spider webs.  The spiders are harmless but I feel badly about ruining a web which took so much hard work to make.   Maybe later this year I’ll get a night shot.

Purple Morning Glory

Purple and pink morning glories are usually the first to bloom.  The Heavenly Blues bloom later but are more rare and have problems competing.  Most years I seed Heavenly Blues to give them some help to even out the odds.  This year I did nothing so we’ll see if any Heavenly Blues make it.

Squirrel

A  rodent also known as a squirrel uses telephone lines to get around without being eaten by  local cats, raccoons, or coyotes.

Cleome and Sunflowers

F11, 1/60. ISO200, 57mm


These are the two main flowers I am now growing. I introduced Cleome into the garden again this year and it is a prolific seeder. This sunflower was a volunteer from its ancestor’s seed sown last fall. Plants that reseed themselves and grow on their own next year is a goal of the Bucktown Garden.

A bumblebee

F11, 1/80, ISO200


A bumblebee stops by when I had the camera set to F11 so the shutter speed was slow and thus the blur. From now on I’ll put the shooting info in the caption.

Veranda Cleome

Pink Cleome blooming amongst morning glories on NW corner veranda.  Cleome is a big tough plant.  We’ll see how this plant fares when the morning glories get big.