Like washing the car, sometimes watering the garden will bring rain!

We had a series of thunderstorms last week right after I watered the entire yard and some real rain finally fell in our neighborhood for the first time all summer.  It was enough to keep me from having to water the pots for a few days!  You could smell the relief from all the thirsty plants and animals.

The bad news was that the lightning in the storms started fires near Chelan and other places in the state.

While that certainly isn’t humorous, we had a funny moment here in our garden with some fire.  Leon had been deeply offended by a grass sprout in the front garden that had the nerve to grow big and go to seed where he couldn’t help but notice it from the front window.  He determined the easiest way to rid the world of this vile invader was to light it with a torch.  He didn’t realize just how very dry the yard was.  The grass burned, alright, but so did much of the bearded iris bed that surrounded it and some branches of the rose bush and other nearby plants!  Luckily, with the hose handy, he controlled the flames before any serious harm occurred and he wasn’t arrested for violating the burn ban!

The humorous part to me is that this turned out to be a great way to clear grass out of an iris bed, always a tedious task!  My brother and I laid down a thick layer of bark, not knowing if the iris would survive.  Because these iris never bloom, anyway, it would have been no great loss.  But the beauty of rhizomes is that they are survivors and the iris are up through the bark now and growing great guns!  So, while I don’t recommend a fire during a drought, I will explore this as an option in wetter years with some controlled burning.  My hope is that the fire also cured the rhizomes enough to help them bloom next year–wouldn’t that be crazy?

My favorite impatiens is blooming in the greenhouse right now.  This is Impatiens flanaganae, a rare tuberous variety from Strange Wonderful Things in California.

 

The flowers of this plant feature a brilliant combination of color and form–exotic, graceful and plenty big enough to get noticed.

I haven’t had a lot of time for the garden, but here are a few pics of seedlings:

Here is another picture of the delicate Geranium bohemicum–I like the lighting here.  These small flowers may never put on a huge show, but combined with the lovely foliage, they promise to bring charm to the garden.

Few people would likely grow Kenilworth Ivy from seed, but I love this plant and so I am starting some to plant around in the greenhouse and patio pots.  You can see the effective foliage here and the sweet, expressive little flowers peaking out.