The insanely hot and long heat wave that we have been suffering through is supposed to fade away by the middle of this week. I cannot wait for cooler weather to arrive any longer! Every morning has been a challenge making sure every plant and garden bed had sufficient water to make it through the blistering afternoon heat. Watering containers on my deck twice, sometimes three times a day has been getting old and I am ready for a break!

While out dousing my container grown plants one morning I spotted some garden visitors that had originally showed themselves last year.

Some readers may remember my puzzlement as to why so many Pacific tree frogs had taken up residence in my backyard garden. I never really figured that one out and pretty much chalked it up to the very wet spring we had that year.

Last week was the first time I have seen these little guys this year. I was actually pretty excited to spot them and gathered all my kids to show them off. We huddled on the deck staring at them before I ran and got the camera. They didn’t seem to like being photographed and hopped into the massive comfrey to hide.

They obviously like my choice of using old coffee cans as pots for some of the mints I grow because that is where I would find them hiding out every morning last week. I would water a coffee can of mint and up would hop a little tree frog and perch on the edge of the can. They would sit there and stare at me for a little while as though saying, “Excuse me, but do you mind not flooding us?!”

Seeing those cute little frogs every morning made going out to water over, and over, and over not quite so bad.

Sorry if I have disappeared from the blog world this past week. I did not count on the heat zapping my energy and desire to do anything. As Karen from Greenwalks put it, it was far too hot to blog last week. I hope to get back up with everyone’s blog (as well as my own!) sometime this week. Now, come on cooler weather! We’re waiting on you!

For whatever, reason I really like to propagate plants. Maybe it has something to do with my previous days spent working in a nursery where I did the bulk of their propagation. Or maybe I just like the fact that I can increase my garden tenfold simply by clipping a plant and causing that clipping to take root. Whatever the reason may be, I do enjoy it- almost too much sometimes! Some years I go a little overboard and do not know what to do with all the cuttings that I root. Those years find me practically begging people to take some home with them.

This year I have been very busy so my propagating frenzy has been small. That does not mean that I do not have any rooting right now though! In fact, last week I took several cuttings of Lemon Verbena, Lavender, Rosa Rugosa, and Buddleia.

The above picture shows how I like to go about rooting my cuttings. I just use a mix of perlite and potting soil and plunge the little cuttings into this. The pots are recycled nursery pots. Everyday I check to see if they need water (they usually do) as it is important for them to say damp but not soaked or they will rot. It usually takes my cuttings about 3 weeks to root so I have about another 2 more weeks to wait before I pot these up into their own individual pots.

In the top left of the picture you can see my Rugosa cuttings. I am trying something different with them. I have placed an empty 2 liter bottle on top of the pot to act as a makeshift greenhouse. (The pot is actually an empty yogurt container- I reuse everything.) So far it seems to be working great as the rose cuttings have not once wilted.

The other day I went out to check on my cuttings to see if they needed any water. When I began to water the Lemon Verbena something started jumping around in the little rose cutting greenhouse. I thought it was a grasshopper as they are EVERYWHERE out here right now (gross!). When I got a closer look this is what I found:

I guess this little guy climbed in through the opening of the bottle. Notice how he matches the color of the rose leaves just perfectly. I am really baffled by the tree frogs this year. I keep finding them all over the garden. In fact, when getting my pictures for yesterday’s post on worm tea I came upon one on top of my worm bin. I am really stumped as to why they are all over my garden as I have never seen one before this year.

After getting his picture taken I tipped the bottle onto its side so the little tree frog could hop out which he did. I guess he approved of my rose cuttings!