Growing Flowers Is A Difficult Summer Experience

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Summer has passed, summer has not been

For a long time, experts will analyze the anomalies of this summer. And we, ordinary gardeners, will remember it for a long time. And it all started in spring, it was difficult: with strong winds and night frosts.

But there was no summer at all, it passed by our region and did not even bother to drop by. We did not wait this year even for a summer-warm week, and, most importantly, there were no warm nights that make the year fruitful.

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I must say that we already knew the forecast for a cold summer in early spring. We were warned that it would be cold and rainy. But I didn't want to believe it. However, the reality exceeded all expectations. In our memory, there were no such summer seasons. Indeed, earlier, even in bad weather years, there were such periods in the summer - from two weeks to a month, when the weather was wonderful, and the plants received a good charge of heat and sun.

However, contrary to all forecasts, in the spring we planted seedlings of watermelons and melons and other thermophilic crops. Somehow I happened to read the very correct words of the famous field grower Maltsev, who believed that growing plants is a game of chess with Mother Nature. At the same time, he said, nature always plays with white pieces.

It is behind her that the first move is - she is the owner of this game with a person. Nature sets the most difficult, unpredictable tasks for gardeners, and we will find out the result of this game at the end of the season. And a person must have the ability to predict, reflect the attacks of nature. It is on the agricultural technology he has chosen, on the correct selection of seeds and planting material, as well as on his personal experience and ability to analyze the experience of previous generations that the harvest ultimately depends.

Winter-spring preparation for the upcoming summer season went very well with us. I think that many years of experience in growing vegetable crops, taking into account the mistakes made before, affected here. Indeed, even in the previous year, we had failures during this period. And in many ways, all gardeners know this, success depends on the soil in which the seedlings are grown. This time we had a universal soil, which we received as a prize from JSC "MNPP - Fart" for participation in the spring competition of the magazine "Flora Price". Thanks to the manufacturers for the quality product. Seedlings of plants in this soil felt comfortable, grew well and developed in it.

At the end of April, the seedlings grown by my hands fell into reliable male hands. This is also a big plus for plants, because, despite all the unpredictable moves of nature this spring: cold snaps, frosts, stormy cold winds, the husband was able to use agrotechnical techniques, covering materials, the accumulated vast experience of working with plants and his inherent intuition to beat and reflect all the attacks of Mother Nature.

But with flower seedlings it did not work out so smoothly. Here nature was the master of the situation. Although the seedlings were taken out early to the site, they remained all spring in boxes on the shelves made by my husband in the greenhouse, because the cold earth and repeated frosts over and over again did not allow them to be planted in a permanent place in the flower beds.

Plants suffered, languished in small containers. And then they threw away the flower brushes and bloomed right in the greenhouse. At the end of May, the greenhouse was filled with the scent of blooming petunias. There was a lot of planting material, the area for planting flowers was significant, and therefore it was not possible to protect such areas with covering material.

From many years of experience in working with land, we noticed that the earth is warmed from hibernation by May rains, especially thunderstorms. This year they were not, May was cold, sunny with strong winds. And since it is impossible to drive the cold out of the earth without rains, it turned out to be a paradox: with this warm winter, the earth was icy in early June, the nights were cold, and the threat of frost was constantly felt.

When we came to the site after a warm winter, we were happy: at first glance, all the plants overwintered well. And only after a while they began to detect losses - the result of a snowless winter.

But for the first time, and quite magnificently this spring, forsythia bloomed, although it was not sheltered for the winter. All thermophilic shrubs overwintered successfully, but there were attacks among perennial flowers. So the warm winter had its pluses and minuses.

And this spring, for the first time in all the years of work on the site, we gained patience and waited for favorable weather. Even my husband, although he was already disturbed by my boxes of flower seedlings in the greenhouse, was tormented and patiently endured all the inconveniences caused to him. Only occasionally grumbled. But no matter how I tried to water my seedlings carefully, still drops of water fell on the plants of peppers and tomatoes developing below. In addition, the boxes of flower seedlings blocked some of the sunlight entering the greenhouse.

At the beginning of June, many neighbors and acquaintances could not stand it and planted heat-loving letniki and seedlings of vegetables in the open ground. The reckoning was not long in coming - from 7 to 8 June we had a severe frost. Already in the evening an icy breath was felt in the air. We walked along the paths and decided whether to shelter our landings or not. And they began to cover all the beds as long as there was any covering material - they wrapped up pumpkin, cucumber beds, potato plantings, corn, etc. And in the morning they were horrified: even the covered potato ridges froze in some places - the icy air went in stripes. One large-fruited pumpkin was very frozen, and nothing remained from the corn plantings, except for the whitened and frozen tops spread on the ground.

It was hard for us to look at the grief of those whose seedlings of tomatoes, cucumbers and other crops died. But Mother Nature did not rest on this, and she dealt us another blow in a day.

A stormy gusty wind hit us, destroying everything in its path. For three years we were happy that our huge greenhouse can withstand any winds. This time she could not resist - the joint seam of two canvases of the top of the greenhouse came apart. But the roof did not completely burst. The husband repaired the seam, but it was not immediately possible to restore the joint to the end, a leak appeared along its entire length. The only thing that reassured me was that when it rained, water poured onto the path, not the garden.

All gardeners had to experience a lot of such non-standard blows during this summer.

And only after June 10, we started planting flowers in open ground. Having suffered in seedling bowls, the plants finally felt the spaciousness, their roots were able to master the spaces they needed. But the plant holiday did not last long, the sun hid, and rainy cloudy weather set in. If there were more or less favorable days, then at that time there was a strong wind.

And the immature plants, which had not yet had time to properly grasp the roots in the ground, shook in different directions, they began a new difficult period. We never tied petunias to sticks, but this year we had to do it, otherwise their long flowering stem was shaking in the wind, and beautiful flowers lay on the ground. As a result, all the rods that the husband and grandson prepared for the decorative wattle fence in winter were used to garter flowers. The making of the wattle fence had to be postponed until the next year.

The work with flower plantations was done a lot this year, because we have four hundred square meters of them. A lot of summer houses were planted, I will not frighten readers with all the numbers, I will just say that only 120 different varieties of petunias were planted!

And the flowering was peculiar today. Petunia, which blooms profusely throughout the season in normal years, bloomed in waves this summer and fizzled out by the end of August. And only giant cascading petunias - hybrids of Tornado Cherry and Tornado Silver bloomed magnificently and delighted us all September.

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Different varieties of scented tobacco also behaved differently. Some immediately after landing in the ground threw flower arrows and bloomed. Pleased with the early and long flowering, as well as the smell of the variety Sensation.

Other varieties refused to bloom and began to increase the mass of leaves, and blossomed only by the end of August. This is how the Lesnaya Skazka variety behaved. Fragrant tobacco of the Aroma Green variety outwardly looked very unusual, but it did not exude the unusual aroma promised by the manufacturer this summer, apparently, there were no warm nights. The package of yellow fragrant tobacco from the "Gavrish" company contained yellow and white tobacco, although this year only yellow was badly needed.

Snapdragon was acting strangely too. Some varieties bloomed immediately, but the flowering was not long, others refused to show their beauty, and only by the end of August, the entire snapdragon bloomed magnificently and adorned the site.

There are many unusual stories to tell about the behavior of flowers this year. Of the perennials, aquilegia and poppies were very pleased. Aquilegia bloomed beautifully, especially those that were grown from seeds sown last year gave their flowering magnificently. We were also very pleased with the delphiniums, they are also from last year's sowing.

These flowers were soloed among the flowers, starting in June and blooming without ceasing all summer. And then throughout September they retained their decorative effect. We do not know if they will have the strength for the next year, so they tried to please with their flowering.

Phloxes also made me happy. Strange, but with this wet and cold summer, they did not suffer from powdery mildew, the foliage was all healthy. Lilies this summer did not bloom as luxuriantly as usual, some did not even bloom, but grew only a stem with leaves. Apparently, after all, this summer was not to their liking, they do not like cold and dampness.

But even the snow that fell did not prevent the tulips from smelling and blooming, all spring they gave us bright and joyful pictures with their flowering. Today we were at the AgroRus exhibition, talked with the beekeepers of our region, everyone complained about the cold summer, especially the cold nights, and said that now the bees did not bring honey, they only stored it for themselves so that the bee family could overwinter. Due to the cold nights, almost no flowers gave us a scent. Every year we had a lot of hawk moths on our site, this year only a few butterflies appeared.

And yet, over the summer, all the ornamental shrubs have grown and got stronger, despite the unfavorable weather. We are very grateful to the staff of the Northern Flora nursery for the plants that we received from them as a prize for participating in the landscape design competition.

All of them overwintered well on the growing bed, not a single plant fell over the winter, and in the summer, despite all the vagaries of the weather, they grew up well, fluffed up, Potentilla has already presented us with not only foliage, but also lush flowering. Next spring, all the plants from the growing bed will find their place in different corners of the garden.

Despite the unfavorable summer, we have received an unusually rich harvest of most crops. Melons crops especially struck us - in such a summer they grew to the surprise of everyone, the result was stunning. My husband always said that there were three of us: he, me and our land (he called her a horse). And this horse took us out in this difficult summer.

And we will talk about the successes achieved in vegetable beds and melons in the next issues of the magazine. Summer is over. We are not discouraged, we are gaining strength for the next spring, for the new season. We think we will be lucky and the new summer will be warm, favorable and comfortable.

Read the next part. Fighting for the Harvest - A Rainy Summer Experience →