I hate submitting a thoughtful comment on a blog entry and then having a window pop up to tell me it won't appear until it's been approved. I've resisted setting up my blog to do that to commenters.

The spam, however, is getting to be too much, and I've reluctantly changed the comment setting to require moderation.

I was able enter the e-mail addresses of approved visitors, so with a little luck most comments from regular readers will appear immediately as always. I can easily add anyone I've overlooked or any new commenters the first time I moderate their comments. I'll try to respond promptly.

So, why haven't I been writing many entries this summer? I'm not sure myself. The main reason is nothing seems interesting enough to write about! We worked hard to get caught up on a lot of things before having a barbecue last weekend. None of our guests seemed to notice the yard, which really didn't surprise me. I was proud of it, though.

This weekend I dug up some irises and gave them away, and Phil cut off all the hollyhocks. They're beautiful when they bloom and a mess when they're done.

Hardly anything is blooming here now. I'm admiring the rose of Sharon bushes around town, but I've never been able to get one to grow here.

I hate to admit it, but it's starting to feel like fall.

        

This hawk made my day.

I was in the back yard as the sun was going down, and I heard the distinctive noise a hawk makes (one that's not easily spelled). I looked up and wished I could get a picture. Then I remembered I'd put my camera in my pocket earlier because I hoped to catch a monarch butterfly on the butterfly weed. For once I had a camera at the right time!

The hawk was quite a sight with the setting sun lighting up its wingspan. It flew around over the yard for a few minutes, and I kept taking pictures until it disappeared.

My husband's comment was, "That's where all the rabbits are going," and he's probably right. Still, it was beautiful.

        

How do you keep your potted plants from frying when you go away during the summer? I thought I'd share some of my experiments and experiences. Of course the best thing to do is ask someone to water while you're away, but in our case the neighbor who collects our mail and newspapers is the same one who hates amaryllis plants.

Two years ago when we were gone for about six days, I tried putting plants in about an inch of water in the bathtub .



As you can see, that worked pretty well. The water had all been absorbed through the bottoms of the pots when we got back, so I don't know how well this would work for longer than a week. Drawbacks: The tub doesn't hold many plants, and bugs might come into the house with the pots.

Last summer , I tried to do the same thing but on the patio. I put the pots in the shade in as many basin-type containers as I could find and put water in the basins.



That worked OK, too, although a couple of plants did wilt temporarily. Drawback: I didn't have enough plant saucers.

Then I vowed not to travel in July again. I waited until we got back from our trip in May this year to fill the patio with flowers, tomatoes, and seedlings. Who knew my elderly aunt would need to be moved this month and I would decide to go up to Oregon to help?

This time I tried a variety of things. I put the seedlings in a spot that's in the shade most of the time and is watered by sprayers on the drip irrigation system. They were fine. I expected water to collect in the trays to tide them over on days when the automatic watering was off, but it didn't. Drawback: The spray seems to shoot over the plants and not enough falls onto them. I've actually left them there since we got back, but I've supplemented the watering by hand.



I knew I'd find a use for those pink hospital basins if I saved them long enough!

The pots on the lawn under the crab apple tree were fine when we got back, too. They were not too wet and not too dry. I had figured that they would use less water if they were shaded. In the background you can see the other containers lined up at the edge of the patio. All of these plants were watered by the automatic lawn sprinklers. I put basins under some of the ones on the patio to try to catch water to be absorbed through the bottoms of the pots, but I don't think they collected much water.



A bonus was the purple-leaved plant in the foreground looked much healthier than when we left. I realized full sun on the patio had not been the ideal spot for it, so now I have it where it gets partial shade all day.

We hauled the pepper and tomato plants back to the raised beds and laid the drip hoses over them. No, we didn't cover up any plants in the beds since almost none of my cool season seeds even sprouted! The plants we left back there did so well while we were gone that we decided to keep them there at least until we have a freeze. Drawbacks: It was a pain to carry all those heavy containers back there, and we won't always have room in the vegetable beds for patio pots (I hope!).



My biggest worry was the plants in the wooden planters on the patio. The planters are in full sun, they are not easily moved, and water goes right through them. I decided to try leaving full plastic water bottles with slits in the bottom on the soil around the plants. I also put a patio table over one of them (a daisy) to shade it. I tested the bottles the day before to try to get the rate of flow right. When we got back, it looked as if the plants had had a wild party while we were gone.





Of course, what really happened was there had been a wild wind storm in our absence. The bottles were all empty when we returned. The Trader Joe's basil, in the first picture, is OK now. The daisy, though, has dried up and died since we got back. I don't know whether it was lack of water or the blast of sun when I pulled the patio table off.

Tips

If you decide to let your container plants fend for themselves while you leave town for a few days, here are a few things to keep in mind.

• Don't try to leave them for more than a week.
• Your plants will need less water if they are out of the sun. It won't hurt sun-loving plants to be in the shade for a few days. You can use patio furniture for shade.
• Try out your arrangement in advance. I started by putting the plants on the lawn under the tree in basins to collect the sprinkler water that fell around them. The first time they went through a sprinkler cycle, the basins filled with water. The plants would have drowned if I'd left them in the basins. You might be surprised at the difference in the amount of water different parts of your yard are getting from your automatic system.
• The water bottle idea is promising. I learned that the bottles just needed a quarter-inch slit in the bottom; if they had more than that, they drained within a few hours. I also learned you can control the rate of flow by tightening the lid (which slows the drainage) or loosening it. You need to experiment in advance—and hope it's not windy while you're gone!
• When putting plants under lawn sprinklers, you have to put them at the far end from the sprinkler head. You want the water drops to fall down onto them; you don't want the pressure of the water coming out of the sprinkler to mow them down.

Other lessons learned

• Wooden planters will never hold enough water. Next year I'll sink the gallon pots into the soil in the container.
• Give plants a break if they're struggling in full sun. Put them in the shade and see if they do better there.

The watering in some of the spots I tried while we were gone worked so well that I've left the plants there to save myself from some of the hand watering. But the best idea is still to avoid leaving town in mid summer!

        

Other people's vacation pictures can be boring, but these are of flowers! I've been wanting to photograph my cousin's garden in Oregon since last summer, and I had a chance Monday. Here's her entry way:



I've seen petunia balls this big in public places but never in a private garden until I saw Tremaine's.

As you go out the back door, the first thing you notice is this pond.



This is where I learned that either photographing fish is difficult or I'm a worse photographer than I realized. They are large and bright,and I wish I had better photos for you.






Tremaine even fed them to get them to the surface for me.














As I wrote last year, walking around the back yard brings back pleasant memories of visiting my mother-in-law's garden. Everywhere I look, I see a flower to ask about or compare notes on. I guess I'm not the only one who likes rabbits!



I don't remember my mother-in-law having any garden signs,but Tremaine has some pretty ones.





Here's a close-up of the hydrangea I wrote about last year. I can't believe how blue it is because hydrangeas growing here are pink or lavender. Acid in the soil is what makes the difference (Oregon has it; we don't).



Our tour of the flowers ends at the garden shed. Of course the garden shed is as pretty as the rest of the yard.



This is a close-up of a flower growing out of one of the pots hanging on the wall. Tremaine bought it at a grocery store, and neither of us knows what it is. It's unusual, huh?



Tremaine has a little container garden around the corner. Unlike me, she's been harvesting strawberries. (I have foliage but no blossoms or berries.) She also has tomatoes, a huge tarragon plant, and much more.

I just had time to hit the highlights during this visit. Guess I'll have to go back again!

        

Believe it or not, I almost killed my laurel bushes by not watering them. I'm serious.

I love my laurel bushes and not just because of the name. These are evergreen and have flowers with strong, sweet scents. I've had them for 15 or 20 years, and for a time they rose almost to the top of a 6-foot fence.

A couple of years ago, they started turning brown. I cut off the dead branches. More branches died and I kept pruning them off until the bushes look like this now.



I finally got around to taking a couple of the branches with the brown leaves to the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension , and at the same time I started searching on line for answers. The only thing I came up with was lack of water. When Wendy from the university called me, she said the same thing.

As unbelievable as it was, it wasn't surprising. I'd noticed the soil appeared dry but hadn't done anything about it.

How could I let this happen?

Keep in mind that these bushes thrived for 15 or 20 years without my ever watering them. I counted on their getting enough water when we watered the lawn next to it.

However, a couple of years ago, about the time the bushes started to die as I look back now, my husband moved the lawn sprinkler head out from the back corner because the laurel bushes were blocking the spray. As far as the lawn was concerned, the move was a complete success. In fact, you can see from the dark area in the mulch that the sprinkler now waters right up to the edge of the lawn. The laurels no longer block it. At the same time, however, the sprinkler no longer waters the laurels!

I had no idea it would make such a difference, and now I feel as guilty as if I'd hurt my own children. I'm soaking the laurels by hand now and hoping they'll come out of it.

Coop Extension

Did you know you can take samples of weeds and sick plants to the UNCE office on Mill Street for identification? I talked to a master gardener who filled out a form about the plant and who told me it might take up to a couple of weeks for someone to call me about it. I got the call in less than 24 hours.

        

I almost blinded myself a few minutes ago checking to see where the sun was. It was just above Peavine Mountain and dropping fast.

I always observe summer solstice—the longest day of the year and the first day of summer. I used to feel sad because summer had barely started and the days were already getting shorter. Last summer, however, I learned it stayed light almost as late all summer; in fact, the sun will go down only a fraction of a second earlier tomorrow night according to LiveScience.

The days do get shorter, but the change actually occurs as later sunrises. Score for late sleepers like me! Then in the fall the sun starts setting noticeably earlier each day until winter solstice.

Summer evenings bring back childhood memories of playing outside in the twilight. Now I enjoy the comfortable temperature and the peacefulness, even if it's just through an open window while I work at my computer.

This year I learned a few things about the twilight I love. Twilight, according to the LiveScience article, is light that "gets scattered over the horizon by the atmosphere," and it lasts the longest at this time of the year.

I need to drag myself away from the computer and TV sometimes to enjoy it. Just so the mosquitoes aren't out!

        

It's probably not too late to visit the plant sale at Reno High today. It's scheduled to be open until 4, and they have a lot of strawberry plants to sell. Look for the greenhouse behind the football field.

I happened to see an ad for it in this morning's paper and checked it out. It's an "agriculture program of AACT" and supports Washoe County horticulture students.

Prices are $2 for gallon pots, $1 for 4-inch pots, $40 for large hanging baskets, and $20 for small hanging baskets. Some of the hanging baskets are gorgeous. I bought tomatoes, oregano, a geranium, and a dianthus. They also have peppers, daisies, and others.

While we were in the neighborhood, we stopped at the farmers market on California Avenue. The Casa Bonita display of yard art caught my eye, and I splurged on a rocking peacock and a little turtle bejeweled with stones.

After you give the bird a nudge, it rocks for a long time. Maybe I'm easily amused.

Really, I'm usually too cheap to buy things like these, but I really like them and know I'll enjoy them for years.

        

When we drove past this house in Salina, Kan., a couple weeks ago, I made Phil go back so I could get a picture. I didn't stop thinking about gardening or blogging just because we were on vacation!



I wonder if the birdhouses are just for looks or if birds live in them. I've never seen anything like it before. By the way, this is a back yard, and it shows one of the differences between Nevada and Kansas: Kansans don't put fences around their yards.

Some things don't make sense, but that's OK

I even bought plants while we were there! We were in the middle of nowhere, visiting a ghost town where my great-great-great-grandparents are buried, when we drove past Arnold's Greenhouse. At first I thought it would be foolish to stop, but curiosity won.

Don't take my word for how remote this place is; look at the map on their site. There are no big towns, much less cities, nearby. Yet this nursery blew me away. It's the biggest one I've ever seen. It had a long row and many varieties of succulents. It had rows and rows of coleus. It had rows and rows of tomatoes. It had a long row of herbs. We didn't even make it to the trees and shrubs. The only negative thing I have to say is the prices are high. For example, six-packs of flowers are $3.29.

I saw a lot of plants I'd never seen before and decided to take the plunge and buy a few. After all, we had our pickup and at least I could keep them watered, unlike the plants I'd left on the patio at home.

I chose one that's a wandering Jew cousin with purple foliage and flowers, a browalia, a sweet potato vine, and a rhubarb plant (4-inch pots for $3.99 each).  Don't laugh! I know people are always trying to give away rhubarb, but I've decided I wanted some recently and this was the first time I'd had a chance to get some. I also found some parsnip seeds, which I'd looked for all over this spring and hadn't been able to find. Phil boxed them up so the wind wouldn't destroy them.



This story would have had a happy ending if the plants hadn't been the victims of a horrible accident.

We wanted to bring back some limestone post rocks—fence posts made of limestone in the old days . The area where Phil's grandparents farmed is famous for them, and his father used to have to cut them. A cousin offered us as many as we wanted. Here's a picture of Phil and the cousin loading a post.



What does this have to do with the plants? Well, Phil took the box out of the bed while he was loading the posts. Then he backed up the truck to position it under a post. . . . and he backed over the box. Squashed it.

Two of the pots and a lot of the foliage were crushed. We pushed the pots back into shape, tamped down the soil, broke off the damaged foliage, and hoped for the best. A week later, the wandering Jew relative and the sweet potato vine are looking OK (although they've lost their flowers). The browalia and rhubarb look dead, but I'm giving them time to come back from the roots.

Natural world in Kansas

I had a chance to observe some nature while visiting cousins at a rural property near Kingman, Kan. I thought the frogs were really cool since I never see them here. (This was a manmade pond.)

Home again, home again

I was so glad to get back home! I'd hated leaving my yard just as the irises and peonies were getting ready to bloom. For some reason, however, they almost seem to have waited for me. The irises are in full bloom right now, and the peonies are still just starting. And the weather! Beautiful!

Unfortunately, we had a freeze while we were gone. I'd left my patio plants along the edge of the lawn so the lawn sprinklers would water them. That worked fine, but the duranta and heliotrope I'd babied through the winter and the calla lilies froze.

But that's gardening. Plants are replaceable, and that's part of the fun.

        

You might be interested in a couple of upcoming plant sales.

Tomorrow the Great Basin Community Food Co-op will hold its "Annual Spring Seedling Parking Lot Sale ." (Try www.greatbasinfood.coop/ if the link doesn't work.) It will be 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the new location, 542 1/2 Plumas St., Reno. I'm assuming these will be mostly food seedlings.

Next Saturday, May 22, the Washoe County Cooperative Extension will hold its "Annual Master Gardener Plant Faire" at 5305 Mill Street (near McCarran) in Reno from 7 to 11:30 a.m. They promise a "wide variety of annuals, perennials, vegetables, herbs, grasses, shrubs, grapes and more in 4 in. and 1 gal. plants" and warn that they sell out early.

Sorry, I don't have any information on prices.

        

Have you assumed it's too cold in Northern Nevada to grow cactus? A local man proves it’s not.

As you’re driving down a residential street in the area of Baring and Sparks boulevards, Charles Barnum’s neat but colorful front yard will catch your eye. Look more closely, and you will see it is landscaped not with grass, shrubs and perennials but with cactuses, yuccas and a few other succulents.

According to Barnum, low temperatures coupled with wet soil are what kill cactus, not necessarily the cold. To amend the soil to keep it from being too wet, he adds potting mix, garden lime and pebble pumice to clay soil (which is common in the Truckee Meadows) mixed with sharp contractor's sand—never gravel.

Barnum has about 300 kinds of plants in his garden. He has obtained them from all kinds of sources including other cactus growers and construction site waste piles. He grows many from seeds and cuttings and says he doesn’t worry about the poor odds of success. “Buy three if you want one,” he jokes.

He’s willing to experiment. Rather than assuming cactus roots would freeze in containers, Barnum grew them in containers for years before beginning to plant them in his front yard.

Against the advice of those who say shredded rubber mulch will rot cactus, he’s begun using it and is very happy with the results. In fact, he says, wet organic mulch rots and kills cactus if it comes in contact with the stem. He says he even digs the rubber mulch into the soil to keep the soil loose.

Barnum goes through the garden every day and kills any blade of grass that appears, and he does the watering by hand. It’s not as labor intensive as it sounds, though—unlike most local gardeners, he says he can go on vacation whenever he wants without worrying about his plants.

For additional photos of Barnum’s collection, visit Northern Nevada Cactus Garden and cactiguide.com.

Also posted on ThisIsReno.com .