Good Bad Ugly

I hope you have had a wonderful mother's day weekend!  It's been a busy few weeks for me -- first, I had the most wonderful visit from my siblings which we combined with a little trip to Vegas (always fun!) and then it was back to work.  And I have to be honest, the last few days of work have left me totally wiped.  So today was the first day I had to really take a close look at what's going on in my garden.  Being the type that saves the best for last like the dutiful hard-working child I was raised to be, I'll go a bit out of order for this:

BAD:

Fuchsia -- Okay, from afar it looks alright, good even.  I am pleased with the bushiness of the plant (in contrast to an overly tall skinny plant last year).

But the aphid wars continue.  I have admittedly only used the insecticidal soap once, in part because that spot on the front stoop has become sunnier than it used to be and I don't want to risk burning the leaves by spraying at the wrong time of day. 

The result, as you can see, is that the aphids target the new growth (flower buds) which causes the blooms to deform at best...

And not even open at worst.  

Attempted solution:  continue insecticidal soap, rotate with Neem.

Begonia -- *sigh*  Mold.  Specifically Botrytis Blight, according to Google.  

A quick synopsis:  It is a fungal infection of the plant which characteristically looks like my picture above, causing mushy brown-grey dead parts.  Optimal conditions for growing this mold, if that is your goal, include high humidity and crowding plants creating poor air circulation (gulp... guilty).  Recommendations to avoid include removing dead plant parts and watering early in the day to ensure the plants are as dry as possible.  Here is a great summary.  

I think this issue began when I planted the begonias and the leaves were touching the dirt which I watered heavily in the beginning.  Those were the first leaves to go and since then, the problem has been slowly worsening.

Attempted solution:  remove all infected leaves even if only a few leaves remain to try to spare what's left of the plants

UGLY:

Sweet jessamine -- It seems that the life span of these climbing plants is only 2 years (recall what happened to my poor jasmine plant) before huge chunks of it die.

Is it possible that this is yet another case of root rot?  Is there a root ball in the bottom of this pot?  Are these climbing plants just not meant to be grown in pots?  (As a gardening guru once told me, "lots of growth on top means lots of growth in the ground" ...except my patio only has space-limited pots)

Either way, I have been keeping an eye on this for awhile and it seems to be a lost cause... this plant is D-E-A-D (well, pretty much).

GOOD!:

Many good things!  I'll keep this succinct and let the pictures do the talking.

Tomato -- It has already grown a lot

Which I found alarming, given what happened with my heirloom tomato last year (HUGE, no tomatoes), until I saw this:

Hooray!

Geraniums -- Glorious

Hydrangeas -- have not mentioned these in a long while!  Well, let's just say there's this:

Tiny flower buds...

More on this to come as we watch and see what happens.

Gardenia -- New addition to the garden!  Thank you Olivia for the birthday gift!  It smells wonderful!  Later this week, I will be buying a nice new pot to put it in.

Definitely more good than bad in the garden... I'm smiling.  Have a beautiful week!

An aside:  A must watch if you have not already seen it...  Kevin Durant's MVP speech