Flower Patch Garden Fails and Successes of 2024 - End Excitement

Lets talk about garden fails and successes at Flower Patch for the 2024 garden season.

Hi, I am Pamela and I garden in the mountains of Northern California. Though I am in Zone 8, I have a short growing season and many challenges that I overcome. I love to talk gardening and share my small, compact, and jam-packed gardens with everyone!
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[teinahenderson]

Hi Pam! 😊
So many successes 👏🏻💃🏼🌻 your garden is so lush! I love it 🥰
As far as fails… well, an opportunity to learn! If we don’t try, we’ll never know ❤

[annwoleben]

Your garden still looks beautiful to me.

[monicamacauley]

I’m still trying to plant my Fall veggies here in SoCal 9b but with 90+ temps I’m afraid they’ll bolt.

[dustyflats]

If our weather keeps getting warmer in WI we could garden year round. I am hoping the snapdragons come back again because they will be beautiful just like the seed packet showed as they are resprouting and look to be very thick—fingers crossed 😊.

Our tomatoes were stunted from too much rain, cloudy weather and early blight. I’m up to my eyes on beans of all kinds and peppers. I always plant more peppers because we never get many—not this year! They loved where I planted them and are actually Huge bells and now letting them turn colors. Pimentos, habanada, lunchbox and mild hots all did well, but those Tabasco are still taking their ‘hot’😉 time.

The perennials—some are done sleeping, creeping and are Leaping Big Time Everywhere!😂. Some it took a decade, but Oh Boy! I think I’ve got some monsters to deal with—Love my catalpa tree and it decided it loves it here as they are everywhere 😂😂. Coneflower, pinks, brown eyed Susan’s, butterfly weed, blanket flower, Columbine, foxglove and now forget me nots. I’m loving the Mullien you showed—mine is Katie’s Candles— as it has a huge clump going and I think many seedlings around it And the best part is it doesn’t rust like hollyhocks🎉🎉. It may be my new replacement. The verdict is still out on the hibiscus 😬 I’m thinking they are plotting a take over as I see Lots of seeds. At first I thought those catalpa seedlings were beans or hibiscus but the leaves have grown Much Bigger! We never had that problem with the tree from my youth, but we mowed the lawn around it and I have open flower and veg area nearby. Seriously, there are a group of mixed flowers including marigolds, borage and petunias that took over a veg bed 😂😂. And those purple and pink morning glories are wearing me out as I never let them seed out in over 10 years and they still keep coming 🤦‍♀️.

Fails…new vine flowers—black eyed Susan’s and Cup & Saucer. Not so much failed as they were Slooow. The BES’s kept having to be placed on the trellis as every time they were sprawling on the ground and come September they finally figured it out and did reach 6’ and flowering but soon a frost will arrive. The Cup Saucer climbed and climbed and then the flower was so inconspicuous I had to really look to see them as the colors were purple or variegated.

Super Winner—🎉🎉Vegas Lights Gomphrena 🎉🎉. Hoping they have seeds. They are a huge cloud of light pink, white and the most neon purple I’ve ever seen!!🎉🎉. They Love full sun, heat and dry—We have plenty of that. I have them in several locations and the added color is such a joy along with the marigolds. My neighbor pointed at the marigolds and asked why I planted so many—I didn’t, they planted themselves 😂😂. The Amish Cockscombs and of course—roses🤩—were also great!

I always said if something can grow in this crap soil I would let it go—Hmm, may have to rethink that😂. I will be very thankful if some favs reseed so I don’t need to start inside. The poppies are going to the meadow—too much for flower garden.

Love seeing how things do in your garden as it reacts similar to my Z5a. I like seeing what else I could try here also, like verbena and rose campion.

I’m watching how the birds are attacking the (volunteer 😂) sunflowers and wondering if winter will return this year. They have been leaving the blackberries alone so far. I’ve been lazy with this fall weather. We are in a drought even after the only rain this month of 6” last weekend and at least the air is drier. I have a couple of big projects—recover and expand the greenhouse with heat sink and build a hot bin compost. Hoping to start all seeds next spring outside and use leachate from compost to cover fertilizer cost—Big win.

Thanks for update!

Oh and I’m growing more impatiens next year as they look much better than petunias all summer to fall. And Wow! Those are tall trees to take down!