It’s mid-July, and after two weeks of rain the heat has come back to Alabama with plenty of humidity. I just started a new outdoor job, so I have endured it first-hand. This week I learned how to drive a tractor and a forklift. I am a city boy who is learning these things for the first time.
In the garden I am working mainly on maintaining everything. I had my first grape tomatoes this week. My Petunia integrifolia, a trailing petunia species with small purple flowers, is blooming again after cutting it back a week ago. I am taking some cuttings of a few plants I want to increase.
Here are some recent photos:
Clinopodium coccineum ‘Amber Blush.’ It’s a southeast native that has tubular yellow-orange flowers in fall. I got it from the Birmingham Botanical Gardens Spring Plant Sale. There are some full-grown specimens in Auburn University’s Davis Arboretum.
Citrus myrtifolia, myrtle leaf orange. I repotted it today.
Lilium ‘Black Beauty’ is continuing to open. That’s Agastache ‘Tutti Frutti’ in the left corner.
Stachys officinalis. This poor plant wilted and withered to the ground in early summer while I was gone for a few days. It recovered, though. I have read that it doesn’t grow well in the Deep South but thought I’d test it for myself.
Asclepias tuberosa is flowering (center). Stachys coccinea (right edge) is growing back after I cut it back last month. It has had two flushes of flowers this year so far.
Ruddy Gardener 