Monthly Archives: June 2014

Crepe Myrtle Flower Color Variation, June 28, 2014

Flowers, Garden, ,

Lavender crepe myrtle DSC03042 The crepe myrtle was lavender a few days ago.

Nearly white crepe myrtle DSC03204 Yesterday, it was quite white.  I thought it was because I had put all those cypress branches under, or the recent rain changed the pH, or diluted the minerals.    But the other cypress without any cypress branches also had whitish flowers.  An evening walk around showed that most of these Basham Party Pink crepe myrtles also had whitish flowers.   It was a sunny late afternoon.

DSC03220 Today the flower clusters had a decidedly more lavender color.

DSC03223 Closer examination showed that the flowers now had two colors in the same cluster, nearly white, and distinctly lavender.  Maybe the sun helped newly opening buds create a stronger color.

Online somebody said that they had a crepe myrtle which was one color on one side, and another color on the other side.

I have never seen this before.  Most likely it only happens when lavender producing conditions are marginal.

Organic Weed Killer Trial

Garden, Weeds, ,

DSC03213 The recipe for this safe weed killer is:

  • One gallon vinegar
  • two cups Epsom salts
  • 1/4 cup hand dish detergent

I mixed 3/4 of these up in a vinegar bottle with one quart missing, and placed some into my gardening spray bottle.  I relabeled the vinegar bottle WEED KILLER, and added the date.

DSC03217 I sprayed the weeds on part of the  sidewalk.  You can see where it is foamy, and reflective down to the end of the iris.  We’ll see how this goes.  I was threatening to rain, so I only treated a small part of the sidewalk.

 

Some New Yarn

Crochet

DSC03049 Here is the new yarn I got today.  It is 70% wool, 30% rayon, and it creates a stretchy product.

DSC03203 This design by Ellen Anderson Eaves is from a book Crochet in Bits and Pieces (2005) edited by Carol Alexander.

The white motif on the right is my first attempt with this new yarn.  The second one on top of the left page is my improved second effort.

It is always fun to try something new!