Rain, Finally!

Well after over two months without a drop of rain, the skies finally opened up on Monday and Tuesday, with a total of 0.26" of much needed wet stuff.  Areas not more than a mile or so from my house got much more rain, but that's the hit or miss nature of our Summer storms.  With the rain has come lower daytime temperatures, topping out in the low to mid-100's, but also much higher humidity.  More rain is forecast through the weekend, so I'll keep my fingers crossed that the total for the week will approach 0.5".

Despite the oppressive heat of the past few weeks some things are still looking good in the garden, especially the lemon grass I planted back on May 1st; what was a sparse planting now looks like a jungle, so I guess I need to plan on making some Asian dishes soon.

Lemon grass, then.

And now!

The repairs to the backyard irrigation system are holding and between that and the rain, the sunflower seeds I planted last Saturday are starting to sprout.  In the photos you'll notice that I'm using 1/4" soaker hose instead of solid tubing and drip emitters, as it works much better when seeds are dispersed throughout the bed.  I run the line from end-to-end three times to maximize the water coverage.

I love how this one is peaking out of the soil.

The calla lilies I bought on clearance at Target have finally sprouted, although it looks like someone chomped on the leaves before they unfurled.

The Climbing Don Juan and Climbing Iceberg roses are still blooming, but they haven't gotten nearly as tall as I'd hoped.  Of course, when the weather cools down they should start to take off.  If you remember, the Iceberg was supposed to be Pink Peace and I'll never know if both of them were mislabeled, as the other one didn't survive, so now I'll have to look for another Climbing Iceberg to even the planters up.

After cutting down the hollyhocks thinking they were done for the year, they decided to rebloom on much shorter stalks; not as impressive as the dozen or so 6' flower stalks, but they're still pretty.

You can see that one of the dwarf white ruellia survived and is blooming as well.

I recently posted that a second 'Minerva' seed sprouted, and now I'm sad to report that but for some unexplained reason, it failed to survive more a a couple of weeks.  On a happier note, the other seedling has doubled in size and is now nearly 3" tall.  I'm keeping it under the cloche until it gets too tall for it because I'd hate to lose it as well.