Bloomin squash!

A friend of my mom's gave her a container yellow squash about two months ago, not knowing at the time that it was in fact yellow squash. After doing a search of the web, I first thought it was some kind of melon or cantaloupe, based on the appearance and habit of the foliage and flowers. Upon closer inspection, as the weeks went by, it began growing small yellow tubes behind the flowers, and then I realized it was squash. It was our first venture in vegetables beyond our annual tomato plants. We moved the pot into more sun, and watered it every other day. Soon it started overflowing out of the pot, so we dug a hole and put the pot in the ground, mounding some dirt up around it. The plant exploded in size and was putting out buds and flowers like crazy, even without fertilizer! Then I noticed the squash buds starting to rot and shrink. So I got on the web and did some research, finding numerous theories and explanations that ranged from not enough calcium in the soil, to the flowers not getting pollinated by bees. In the meantime, I decided to try giving it more water, to keep the soil constantly moist. Sure enough, it did the trick and the squashes have been growing bigger, as evidenced in the pictures below.

Two new favorites

Over this past week, I've added some hydrangea and hibiscus to the garden. Both are becoming my favorites of all the plants I have back there. The blooms are breathtaking to say the least. The hydrangea is "Endless Summer" which supposedly will continue to bloom until fall. I might sprinkle a bit of lime around it and see if the blooms turn pink, just for fun. The hibiscus in the second picture I brought home from Kroger. Excessive water on the leaves from the overhead sprinkler had caused it to drop almost all of its foliage, but I figured I would try and turn it around. A month later, and it leafed out again and put out beautiful hot pink blooms. The last pic is a Rose of Sharon hibiscus. I've always had a thing for tall flowering shrubs like rose of sharon, camellia, hollyhock, etc.