White hibiscus flower up close

- I love these giant Hibiscus moscheutos flowers.
- I LOVE this digital SLR camera we got last spring!!! (It’s a Canon Digital Rebel XT)

For the past two days, my Autumn Blaze Maples have been at their peak color. I have three of these trees, which have been in the ground five years now. One has been sick — it’s been chlorotic, which isn’t supposed to happen to these. It lost its leaves in August, and some new ones…
Sometimes, it’s just useful to take the lazy approach, right? Like propagating cuttings in water. Yeah, you’ll read a lot online about how you should dip cuttings in rooting hormone and place them in a sterile medium, waiting several weeks to see if the roots are growing. But sometimes, it just works to put them…
One of the things I love about my Ruby Meidiland roses is that they bloom profusely right around the Fourth of July. They make a nice foreground to the flag that hangs on my house behind them. You can’t see the flag in this photo, because it was taken on June 29th, but the blooms…
Last week, we had two nights, I think, with low temps around 26°. That’s cold enough to kill some cherry buds, and I’m not sure how mine are doing. By the way, mine are Lapins cherries. This branch is showing a lot of brown cherry blossoms, but I really don’t know if that’s simply what…
We did some fun family things today, like going for a long bike ride to the park, having a picnic with all the kids and playing frisbee. But I also got some time in for gardening. I put the Grubex on the lawn today to protect it from grubs. I hope it works well. I…
We’ve had some light frosts off and on for the past few weeks, but this morning was the first serious freeze. My outside thermometer said 30 degrees this morning, and it’s usually a little high, because it gets some heat radiation from the house. The news guy said this was the first freeze of the…