The porch plants

 

New Miss Lavender is doing really well. No fertilizing, and kind of dry and hot these days!

I've got two or three pots of purple petunias.

This coleus made several very large leaves, but has yet to sprout upward further...we shall see what happens with it.

Personally I'm getting much better at attending events I've signed up for...like the Tailgate Market yesterday morning, and docent volunteering at the Center for the Arts big gallery exhibit in the afternoon. Fortunately in the morning it wasn't unbearably hot in the shade outside, and in the afternoon the gallery was frigid with air conditioning really turned low. I stood in the doorway to the very hot patio for a few minutes to warm up.  And I came home after a late lunch of a Bento Box at Sake Sushi of scallops teriyaki - with leftovers for another meal! Guess what the next 3 hours were? Yep, a solid nap! This elder knows how the old machine works, and needs resting when doing lots of "out there" activities. As an introvert, I especially need my alone time to re-charge!

Sharing with Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, 

Today's quote:

The goal of life
is to make your heartbeat
match the beat of the universe,
to match your nature with Nature.

The goal of life is to be a vehicle
for something higher.

- Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion.  

The porch garden at end of July 2023

 

Some cuttings seem to be doing ok in the square bed. I had to severely prune the begonia (see below) and just stuck a stem in the dirt to root. We'll see if that works.

Nobody really likes the afternoon sun, so coleus is kept most of the time where just morning sun hits it.

Another blogger suggested when I top off the buds to throw them in my dinner, so basil buds were a good addition to leftover stew that night.

The hanging geranium continues to produce blooms, and survives the heat up there! I have to make sure to flood it with water at least every other day. Our forecast rain storms seldom happen!

I tried hanging up the peppermint plant, because it's got these long stems going out so gracefully, but it was too hot, so it's back on the porch floor.

The Nonstop Joy Begonia looked so beaten down after the one storm we had last week. So I've tried taking off all the sad looking flowers and leaves. But yesterday I cut every one of the growth buds on the stems, like I do on the Basil. It wouldn't really help the plant to keep growing longer stems that just fall down. So maybe now it can make some new growth closer to the stem. That's my fingers crossed.

Here's the porch yesterday. But I've switched the mint and the coleus as hanging planters, to keep both of them happy. Neither one can take that afternoon sun that comes directly at them. This was taken in the morning.

I confess I haven't worked much on plants...2 orchids are demanding to be repotted, and I hang my head in shame. 

Today's quote:

Fearing no insult, asking for no crown, receive with indifference both flattery and slander, and do not argue with a fool. 

-Aleksandr Pushkin, poet, novelist, and playwright (1799-1837)