All About Pocket Knives

In response to the above Hydrangea posts, I took these shots in our pool area last night. It was pushing 90° yesterday, and an after work dip was refreshing.

1967redrider wrote: ↑Fri Jun 06, 2025 12:43 pm In response to the above Hydrangea posts, I took these shots in our pool area last night. It was pushing 90° yesterday, and an after work dip was refreshing.

Beautiful flowers, and it looks like you have a really nice pool there with plenty of greenery around.

Beautiful hydrangeas! They really put on a stunning show.

Those are sometimes called “mophead” hydrangeas, which can be either blue or pink depending on whether they are planted in acid or alkaline soil content. In fact the color of a given plant can be manipulated by soil additives. They’re a different species of hydrangea than the Oakleaf hydrangea, which is easy to tell by difference in the plant’s leaves. Also the oakleaf hydrangea flower color is not affected by the soil they’re growing in.

Ken

Thanks, Ike and Ken. It's my weekend escape when we're not at the farm.

A few pics from a recent hike in Wisconsin, on a bluff along Lake Michigan on one side, and Birch, Hemlock, and wildflowers on the other side in beautiful sunny 50 degree weather.

Cool landscape, Ike.

Quite the show Homer.

It's hard to know deer Tom, they walk onto our front concrete porch to see if anything suits their fancy and occasionally they take a few bites for testing purposes.
We planted oak leaf hydrangeas 6 or seven years ago and they ate them. Oak leaf hydrangeas are supposedly deer proof, as they are toxic to animals and humans.

Some species of hydrangeas are now supposed to be color fast regardless of soil acidity?

Just a few more planters attached to the back deck to get going refinishing has delayed.
My tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini , collards, and cucumbers suffered somewhat from the refining of the deck. Maybe some pictures of the plants if they recover. Tomatoes will be okay, only one has green tomatoes on it.

The Cockscomb flowers now have a proper home that the white tails will leave alone, let’s see if I can salvage this years crop. I took Ken’s advice and did 50% finished compost 32 cu ft),10% whole ground corn meal (6 cu ft) and the remaining 40% in local topsoil (26 cu ft). The little bits of vermiculite on the surface is from the potting soil used to start the flowers.

wlf wrote: ↑Sat Jun 07, 2025 4:54 pmIt's hard to know deer

I agree Lyle, I’ll report back with success or failure. Nice beds and gardens my friend, beautiful!