Garden Love
I am thoroughly enjoying my garden this year. Everywhere I turn I see successes in the form of bright flowers. Not everything I’ve planted has done well, but so much has and I am finding that going even a few days without some time working in the garden is too long. (It helps when the weather is so completely perfect like it is now.)
Of course, there are spots of ugliness that I have plans to change, but I’ll give a little tour of the good stuff. My foxgloves (above) are off the hook this year. In fact, since this photo was taken, more tall spires have bloomed out and they’re bending down to the ground. I’ve got to stake them up with something.
These sunny fellows are called Sun Roses (Helianthemum nummularium, according to the Interwebz). It’s a low-growing ground cover with orange flowers that drift up above.
April is the month for Azaleas and mine are doing great. I’ve actually been feeding them this year. I’ve turned over a new leaf and vowed to support the plants I already have with loving attention and fertilizer.
This vine is new this spring. It’s a form of rudbekia called Black-eyed Susan vine. I’ve had it for about three weeks and it’s still blooming like this. My hope is that it will grow up onto my fence near my patio. My concern is that my soil isn’t all that great in that spot. It was such an arresting flower that I decided to take the chance. I think I paid $12 for this. It stands about 4 feet tall.
My nemesia from last year is blooming beautifully.
I think this rose is called “Peace” but I’m not sure. I think it’s heavenly.
My clematis vine survived the winter and bloomed like crazy all through April. Then it had a few quiet days before a new batch of flowers opened up. These are about six inches across. I bought a pretty trellis for them to climb and need to paint it and get it into its permanent spot soon for the vine to grow on.
Peppermint candy rose—it was called something like that, but I forget. This rose was new last year and it seems very happy.
I bought a Mandevilla vine at Costco. My mother says she has killed several of these over the years. I figured I’d give it a try. It’s flowers look like ballerinas.
And this baby is Ian’s favorite rose “Hot Cocoa.” We like it so much we have two of them.
Let’s see … the delphinium is looking good and getting ready to bloom. I have seven new irises that I recently bought at the nearby Horton Iris Farm. One called “Obi-Wan Kenobi” is blooming and another called “Tomorrow’s Child” will bloom soon. Today I planted a scarlet dianthus and three purple verbena ground cover plants. The rock roses I put in last year are blooming and I’m looking forward to them getting bigger; they should get at least three feet tall. My evening primrose has spread and is now sporting baby-pink poppy-like flowers. I’m hoping it will spread out more in the front yard too. All the purple iris rhizomes I bought from the Waldorf school farm are doing fine but aren’t yet ready to bloom. I think I’ll have to wait until next spring for them to be well enough established to flower.
Oh—and the mint is trying to take over the world.
My next project, apart from putting in tomatoes and peppers and pumpkins from seed, is to get some rooting hormone and try my hand at propagating from cuttings.
