I’ve barely touched anything since I did my yearly planting back in June. Everything got more than enough (really too much) water with no intervention on my part. I also fortunately put down plenty of mulch in June, so despite all the water (and probably in some cases because of it), the weeds have remained pretty well under control.
My side garden is doing pretty well. My basil was a failure, but the parsley and sage look great, and I’ve enjoyed not having to purchase a huge bunch of parsley when I only need a handful. The phlox and liatris are just coming into bloom, and the coreopsis is a gigantic ball of yellow goodness, like usual. I’ll probably need to divide some things, most notably the coreopsis, mini iris, and the Russian sage, but I’d like to find someone to take them first. I may put the word out on Freecycle and see what kind of contact I get.
I can happily report that the lilac has come back after my landlord’s depredations of last Fall. I need to find a way to get rid of the useless limb on the right (I don’t keep a tree sized saw around), and the poor thing has mildew, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot that doesn’t have mildew right now, so I don’t think that’s a bad thing. (I actually am not sure how my phlox doesn’t have mildew. They’re terribly prone to it, and there’s been so much water it really should have it. I didn’t think I’d gotten one of the mildew resistant cultivars, but I’m beginning to think I did.)
The back yarn pot garden looks pretty good when you step back. The impatiens and the lovely red flowering begonia I bought are doing well, and adding a lovely splash of color. The poor hostas, however, are riddled with slug holes. The coleus are also suffering from the slugs, and it was cool enough with all the rain that they’re about a third of the size they’d normally be by this time of year. Still, everything back there is healthy enough that it should come back next year and do fine. I just hope we get out of this pattern of wet Junes and Julys before too much longer. It’s thoroughly depressing, and it’s not like we can guarantee good weather into October to compensate for it.