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Since my son starts 7th grade in a few short weeks (with a new inhumane start-time of 7:30am), this is our last chance to leave town before school starts. I’m torn between a desire to get caught up around the house and garden (summer garden, I hardly knew ya) and a desire to escape to the coast. Yep, I’m going back to Mendo. On this trip, I intend to really relax and finish reading Harry Potter. I want to hit some local nurseries too. I was planning on a trip to Portland, OR, but the timing didn’t work out.

In the garden:

My monstrous tithonia (Mex. sunflower) snapped under its own weight! The day before it snapped, I thought it might be leaning a little and made a mental note to stake it. I snoozed, I lost. Before it snapped, it was spectacular at 6-7 feet tall. I never knew tithonia made such a great cut flower until I used them in an arrangement. The blooms lasted a long time and the stems stayed nice and straight. Luckily, I’ve got 2 smaller plants coming along nicely. Whiteflies love my tithonias, by the way. I never really noticed whiteflies in my garden before and I’m wondering if their presence is related to all that mild weather and moisture we had in spring.

My lavender is between blooms but looking good. Sedum, cosmos, black-eyed susan, gomphrena, portulaca and others are blooming bravely in this heat. Other plants shut down when the heatwave hit.

Gotta go deadhead now. I need to MULCH! Oh, to clone myself so I could be in two places at once.