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We’re supposed to get to 86 today! It’s already hot out there - earlier this morning, I tied up my sugar snap peas to help get them on a trellis. The heat moderates a little bit - lower 80’s as the week goes on. Hopefully, the plants are acclimated to the sun - no signs of sunburn yet, but today will tell the tale. We had 1/4 inch of rain between 5 & 7 pm last night and after 3 inches a week or so ago (plus I watered a bit Saturday evening), the plants should be well-hydrated.

As soon as the hummingbird garden is back in the shade (late afternoon), I’m going to tackle cleaning out the beds ... there are 3. One has quite a few ‘volunteer’ sunflowers coming up - I’ve decided to leave them rather than plant zinnias in that bed which was the original plan. Once the squirrels tear up the flowers for the seeds, I’ll take them out & plant a late zinnia crop.

Of the two beds left, one was zinnias last year & mulched pretty well - just pull up the old stalks & a very few weeds are all that need doing. This will be my hollyhock bed - I ordered seeds from Pinetree. The seeds take 15-25 days to germinate .... that’s going to be a long, impatient wait for me!

The 3rd bed had my tithonia & on the end, I planted a packet of “Texas Wildflower Seeds” my cousin gave me. The tithonia was a volunteer last year & did well - I have not been able to get any seeds to germinate this year and I’ve pretty much given up on having a tithonia. The wildflower section is a mess - full of weeds & a few flowers blooming now - they’ll all get pulled up. This bed will likely be in zinnias shortly.

I did spot a hummer on the front feeder this morning early. The maple tree the feeder is under needs some major trim work - the branches, when the leaves are wet, hang low over the sidewalk & also block the view of the feeder from the porch. No hummers spotted on the feeder at the hummer garden, but then I don’t have all day to stand at the window and look for them!