Dog Pee: Nature's Herbicide

This spring I realized that my dog had been peeing all winter in one spot in my rock garden.  

I knew dog pee wasn't good for plants, but I had no idea it could be so devastating.  Now I've blocked off the area with potted annuals and herbs, and the sedums are starting to spread into the devastated area.  It actually looks ok, and it's handy to have the herbs so close to the back door and the kitchen.  I can't wait to see how the garden looks next spring, after a whole year of protection.

Here's the culprit, looking completely innocent:

 

I thought about trying to train him to pee somewhere else, but he's kind of elderly, and it seemed kinder just to prevent him from peeing on plants I care about.  It's worked fairly well, though I can't understand at all why it's more satisfying, from his point of view, to pee on expensive plants instead of the mulch or the vinca and weeds that I have in an unobtrusive back corner of the yard.  He still tries to circumvent my blockade every once in a while, to get back to his most favorite place to whiz.

Idiosyncratic Light Requirements

I love this hardy hibiscus plant, even though it's a bit leggy.

I have a feeling that a lot of my sun-loving plants out front in the bed near the road are struggling with too much shade, leading to leggy behavior.  Interestingly, though, I've got phlox further back in the front yard that gets even spottier sun and seems to be doing well.

It doesn't even have powdery mildew this year!  This morning I was drooling over a Bluestone Perennial catalog and noticed that they list phlox as requiring absolutely full sun; I have quite a few phlox plants doing reasonably well in what I would call part sun to part shade. 

Self-seeding Impatiens

Who knew that impatiens would seed themselves?  Ok, possibly a lot of people, but I didn't.  I planted some impatiens here two years ago, and they've come back ever since.  Of course, it's a horrible spot for impatiens, since it's dead in the middle of a large bed and they are low-growing plants that belong at the edges, but whatever. 

World's Most Evil Tree

Last winter, on this spot, we had a hackberry cut down to create more sun for my garden and because it is horribly invasive--I spend all summer weeding baby hackberries.  Now I've got a hackberry shrub growing from the stump.  It's the tree that would not die.  I think I'm going to have to investigate chemical stump killing options.  What kind of respectable tree survives being cut down?

Sour Grape Tomatoes

For some reason, my grape tomatoes are not as sweet as they should be.  Thanks to my super consistent automatic watering system, they aren't splitting, but they also don't taste very good--yesterday I made a simple pasta salad with good olive oil, salt, pepper, pecorino, and some grape tomatoes just picked from the garden, and it was good, but the tomatoes were awfully tart.  I can't imagine what I've done wrong.

Travel Vs. Tomatoes: An Emotional Dilemma

Before we left, I was really worried that we would miss all the tomatoes, but in fact, we came home to the same monstrous plants full of green tomatoes.  The tomatoes are just ripening now.  Can't wait to make my first caprese salad.

Is There Such a Thing as a Garden Sitter?

After two and a half weeks away, the weeds have taken over.

On the other hand, I'm happy with my new purple sneakers, and with how much my elephant ears have grown.  Before we left they had barely produced three leaves and I was sure that Home Despot had sold me some dud bulbs.  Now just look at them!