Interesting Flowers At the Garden Center

 

I had several "must do" things to accomplish. A phone call, a visit to the Social Security office, and picking out plants for a big planter that includes a sign at Wes and Rachel's work.

I am happy to report that the phone call quick, as was the time at the SS office, which I had been dreading. I breathed a happy sigh when Kyle and I left to head to Ken's Gardens.

I always love to check out the plants at Ken's Gardens. These Zorro Hydrangea were new to me. The individual flowers were enormous!

I did buy myself a new hydrangea, but not this kind. I'll show you when we get it planted in my cottage garden. I may end up with this kind when I begin the make over along the creek.

My job yesterday was to buy perennials and a few annuals for a big planter for the business Wes and Rachel are a part of running. They wanted things that will be hardy, and will bloom in succession through the seasons. 

Since it is mid June, I began with summer perennials and a few late summer/early autumn bloomers. In the fall, we will plant some spring bulbs and perhaps some ever green plants.

I'll get some photos when it gets planted.

These are not flowers I bought for the planter but they caught my eye. I'd never seen them before, but they are very pretty. Ranging in color from a light purple to deeper pink. 

The plants purchased for the planter are Knock Out Roses, Heliopsis "Tuscan Gold," Angel's Wing Begonia, a new kind of Aster, and some petunias.

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There are a few more plants I am thinking of getting for the planter. This is my first time being asked to plan out a planter bed (other than my own garden beds) and purchase flowers for them.

It's fun and keeps me occupied with things I love!

Here are a few photos of the florals I helped with last week.

It was a beautiful wedding and I can't wait to see the professional photos.

Have you seen any interesting flowers lately?

Cottage Garden: Seeds

I'm getting excited to begin growing.  Our weather has been really mild, and the ladies who work in the garden shop that Lindsay is working at say that we could probably put our gardens in now.  

So this week I'm going to getting my seed starter soil and get some of these seed started.

Perennials are difficult to grow from seed and many garden centers buy their perennials from growers!  But I'm going to give it a shot because some of these varieties cannot be found in my area! 

What are your garden plans?

The Garden In Early Spring

We're almost a week into spring and thankfully, though we've had a few rainy days, we've had sunshine and blue sky!  I decided to get out on Sunday afternoon with rare 60 degree weather in March, and do a cutting back of my spirea, and get the leaves out of the garden.

This photo was taken last week but it shows how the garden had a lot of leaves in it and the spirea by my lamppost needed a good cutting back.  Its branches were all twisted together and there were insect 'pods' on some of the branches.  We think they were some kind of moth, and I didn't want them hatching out in my garden in the warm spring sunshine.  

 This photo from Sunday shows you the spirea cut back and the leaves all gone!  A friend brought over his leaf blower and really got the garden clear of leaves in a way that never happens just with a rake!

We brought my table and chairs out to the garden and I sat in the sunshine reading.

Kamryn was at our house and was skating on the driveway.  She picked one of the crocus growing in the garden and brought it to me.

 They have such pretty color patterns on them!

What do I spy in my garden, that's not supposed to be there?

This is Eleanor Dashwood, one of our Speckled Sussex hens.  Her sister Marianne, was elsewhere.

I took some video for my friend Jane, and I'm sharing that here.

The hydrangea in my cottage garden is a mophead variety.  It produces blooms on old wood.  Some years the weather is bad and the old wood stalks die.  Then I get lovely green leaves and no blooms.  This year the stalks are still green (I scraped a few to check) and I should have a bush full of blooms!  This makes me very happy.

The roses need a little pruning today, and I can see my Bleeding Heart coming up, and also lots of Feverfew pushing through the soil.  I'm continuing to plan for some plants to be thinned out of this garden and to bring a few other varieties in.  I need Salvia, and some Hollyhocks, Cosmos.  I must get some Zinneas, too.

I know some of you still have snow melting where you are, and if so I hope this post encourages you that spring really is here and that before too long, you also will be see your plants popping up in the garden!  

Some of you in the southern states and England will likely have many spring flowers in bloom already!  I love seeing your photos of your gardens!  

Tell us in the comments just what is blooming in your garden, or is getting ready to bloom!

Garden: Late Summer

The cottage garden is looking pretty bedraggled at the beginning of September.  The high heat, and many days of rain, have stressed these plants.  Most of my roses have only bloomed through one cycle, but the David Austin's keep blooming.

Here are a few of the Princess Alexandra of Kent roses I cut last evening!

The rest of the garden is pretty well spent, and I weeded in the early evening last night, and have a lot more to do.  I'm ready to put this garden to bed for the year.

My mophead hydrangea is huge like every year, but due to the last several winters, I've had less than a dozen blooms on it.  I'm debating taking it out.  I hate to get rid of any plant that I love, and for many years it gave me dozens of blooms.  But now its too big for the space, and not blooming much.  I'm still thinking about it.

The limelight hydrangea are the only thing really blooming right now.  I'm thankful for that!

Once the heat breaks this weekend, I'll see about getting some mums for this space.  It will be nice to have cooler weather and a chance to sit out and enjoy the garden.

How are your gardens growing?

How Would You Update These Houses?

I used to like to watch a show on HGTV called "Curb Appeal."  It can happen to any one who lives in a house for many years.  You stop 'seeing' what everyone else sees and your home can become dated, and the plantings can be over grown.  Simple changes can breathe new life into the curb appeal of a home.

The other day I was driving through a friends neighborhood, and I noticed that there are some really nice homes, but they need some 'updating.'  I thought it would be fun to talk about them on the blog.

First up - This house sits on a rise, so the photo from my car is this angle.  I like this house.  Its not a cookie cutter of every other house and I like that they have the white trim which really pops against that beigy siding.

Overall its fine but that tree is not doing it any favors.  They may like the privacy of it, but its blocking the porch, which is a really great feature on this house.  And I don't like that small ornamental tree in its spot either.  

This house could use some flowering shrubs like hydrangea, or butterfly bush.  They need some color in the plantings.

This house is nice over all, too.  But again, the dwarf albert spruce need to be tamed or taken out.  You cannot see the cuteness of this house, nor the porch! The shrubs on the left side of the house need trimming.

This house...sigh.  I know there is a purplish tone in this stone, but the color of the shutters and front door are the bright purple you see on the left side of the house.  Its bright, really bright.  The house has a grandeur to it - the multiple peaks, the stone facade.  First off I'm not a fan of this stone.  The purple grey with that rusty color is just...no.  But since its what they chose, I'd go black with the shutters and door and try to tone down the purple undertone, or I'd do the grey of their door surround.  Give the shrubs on the left a bit of a trim and you'd have a grown up house!

This house is probably the age of ours, about 30 years, its in an older section of the neighborhood.  If the budget would handle it, I'd reside the house, build out those porch posts to something heftier, change out the plantings.  

Farmhouse style is classic, and so I'd go with a white siding, adding some medium grey around the dormer windows and door, and I'd paint the brick to match. I'd do charcoal grey shutters or black, and the porch posts would be built out to be bigger square posts.  You could even add rails between the posts.  For the plantings I'd do shrubs that flower like spirea, hydrangea, butterfly bush. And I'd change out the shutters with either charcoal shingles or a black standing seam metal roof!

Again, the only thing wrong with this house is that it looks dated.  The shutters could be repainted for very little cost and they could add some interest with the plantings.  A trellis against the garage for a clematis, and perhaps a flower bed on this side of the front walk with perennials or herbs would add interest.  The shingles need to be replaced, too.

My own home is in need of updating and I have all the ideas, I just have to get my husband onboard with them, and wait until he's got a bit of time to work on it.  

I want to do white siding, keep my black shutters, change out our shingles to either charcoal color or black standing seam roofing.  Repaint the doors, change out the fencing in the front garden.  I had a lot of money, I'd build up the garden bed on the end of the house, and put a retaining/privacy wall at that end and put in a patio outside the basement door. 


What would you do with these houses?  

I want to be clear that I'm just having fun with how I would make changes and update these houses and am not being critical of the homeowners in anyway.  

Garden: A Rain Storm's Affect

Two hard rains this week have taken their toll on my roses and peonies.

 So sad.  The roses will get another blooming in or maybe two before summer is over, but the peonies, at least these dark pinks are done.  I'm glad I cut a few more the other day!



This garden in the front of the house faces northwest, and is in shadow this morning still.

My spirea is blooming

And so is Larkspur

The hollyhocks are doing very well

 So are my Feverfew

The Annabelle hydrangea are looking great

And this hollyhock is looking good too!

I'm glad all is not lost in this garden!  I also got some salvia at a deep discount this past week.  We were at Lowes and they were marking their small pots down to .50!  I bought five for this front garden, and I bought four sweet potato vine's for the same price.  The sweet potatoes are going into pots for the deck with white geraniums!

I haven't checked the gardens behind the house to see how those are doing, yet, so I need to get out to do that soon.  I need to transplant my two zucchini plants today - I'm going to keep them in pots this year as they are the only veg I'm growing this year, other than any volunteer tomatoes that might come up.

How are your gardens this year?

Linking up with Bernideen and Sandi for some fun!  Thank you ladies for hosting these weekly gatherings!  

And I'm joining a new to me gathering The Art of Homemaking.

Garden: Mid-August

I headed outside tonight around eight o'clock when Kyle said, "Mom!  Come look outside!  Everything is orange!"

 He was right.  The sun setting reflected on the clouds gave an orange glow to the evening.

I decided to take some photos of the garden here in mid to late August.

First, this metal sign I found for outside the kitchen door may have been prophetic.   We have recently discovered that we have not two roosters, but four!  Can you believe it?  They are starting to get a bit fussy with each other, so three of them need to go.  We may try to sell them.

 It also means less hens.  I was looking forward to having twelve laying hens but it looks as if we will only have ten.  They don't all lay everyday so we will only get about 8 eggs a day.  That seems like a lot until you realize that it's not enough to make scrambled eggs for 6 people or a quintuple batch of pancakes on a Sunday night. I may have to start buying eggs again from the Amish farm that is GMO free on the grains they feed to their chickens.

 This is Obedient Plant or as some call it, Disobedient Plant as it can be invasive.  During the day these flowers are covered with pollinators.  The color in the sky is casting a weird glow in my photos!

 Aren't they lovely close up?  They are an August blooming plant.  Down the driveway toward the front walkway, and the garden looks a bit peaked.  We have had wonderful weather and no drought conditions, it is just the time of year.  The Echinacea has been pollinated and they are now making seed.  I leave them, bedraggled though they are, because the finches love the seed heads!

 See how amazing my hydrangea is on the right?  That is all new growth, so next year the flowers should be amazing.  I have learned my lesson that if Winter is anything like last year, this plant will be wrapped well!

 Do you see that empty spot on the right here in the photo above?  Look at the photo below.

I came home the other day and saw a lot of dirt on my walkway.  I immediately thought the chickens had been in the garden again, but on further investigation it was Rachel's dog, Sadie.  Naughty dog!  She's been laying out here.

We've had a few tomatoes finally ripen, but we've had something eating the tomatoes.  Tim thought it was the chickens but I haven't seen them down there for a while.  Well, it's always something, and we learn something new every year.

How are your gardens growing this August?

Garden: At The End Of June

My cottage garden in the front of the house gets a bit wild every summer.  Right now somethings are in bloom, and some are just beginning to bloom.  Let's see what's happening in the garden.

Ah, my poppies!  They are spreading to different areas of the garden.  A friend gave me seeds and now these self seed every year.  Such a pretty color!  Did I ever tell you about Tim 'weeding' these out of the garden one year?  They had just begun to come up!  Oh my!  Luckily a few survived and now they are back and cheerful!

 This started to come up this year and I didn't recognize it.  (I think I may have 'weeded' this out last year, but this year there was quite a bit of it so I decided to see what it was.  Larkspur!  I don't think I have ever planted it, but maybe my girls has some seeds?  Anyway, this plant is a delight in the garden!  Because it is tall I can see it through the front window!

 The Bees like it as well!
Do you see this vine everywhere?   It looks like Morning Glory leaves, but it never flowers just grows and wraps around EVERYTHING!  We try to keep it at bay, but its a constant battle.

Feverfew coming up amongst the Echinacea.  

 I sowed many, many Hollyhock seeds, but this is the only plant coming up!  I love Hollyhock.  I hope that more come up!

 First Echinacea in bloom!  The finches love this plant!

 I cut my Gold Leaf Spirea back this year and it is doing very well!  Love the pink blooms against the gold leaves.

 My Hydrangea.  I thought it had died this year.  The old growth did, and that is where you get your blooms.  However the plant is alive and healthy and so I look forward to many blooms next year! I am sad though, as I relied on it to supply so many beautiful flowers for my home every year.

Black-Eyed Susan almost ready to bloom.  

We lost a rose bush and four butterfly bushes to the harsh winter.  I'm sad to not have these friends around the garden, but change in a garden can be fun.

This year may bring lots of change to the garden as some of the picket fencing needs to be replaced and spruced up.

We really could use new siding on the house - it's a pale yellow and 20+ years old, with lots of damage spots from becoming brittle over the years.  I'd love to do white siding - I'm already painting my shutters black this year, and I have red doors!  Wouldn't that look cute?  Oh, to be a big name blogger and have a siding company offer to re-side the house in exchange for blogging about it! {grin}

How does your garden grow?