Lots of Purple Phlox and a Couple New Blooms

I have a lot of purple phlox blooming right now.  The aqua blue milkcan is right next to this arbor. It is surrounded by purple phlox as well as the pink dahlias.  You can see just a touch of its blue color at the bottom of this photo:

 Note the brown grass. It is really tough to have a decent-looking garden when the grass goes dormant from lack of rain. We did some rain yesterday, so that should help.

The planters on the arbors have not done nearly as good as I expected them to. By now they should be hanging down at least 3 feet.  You can still see the planters and it's nearly mid-August.

The phlox in the front of the pic below is called 'Little Laura'. As the name implies, it's a short phlox. LL is perfect for the front of borders or along paths as mine is planted here. The color is very bright, a bit harsh, so that may discourage some people from planting it.

This purple phlox is in front of the new path. So now I know the mildewy phlox I removed was white.

On the deck another dahlia is blooming. This one is a plain Jane compared to Myrtle.

 The first canna has bloomed. It's called Tropicanna Black. TP is my tallest canna - over six feet.

Globe Thistle and Little Laura

The globe thistle has now turned blue.

Did you Ever Look Closely at a Globe Thistle?

They are amazing flowers. First they are nearly perfectly round--amazing in its own right.

Then all those little spiney things turn into teeny tiny little petals that open to form the whole flower.

Liatris is another one where many tiny flowers form the whole.

Saturday morning I moved half of the 'Little Laura' phlox to this area behind the lavender at the beginning of his garden.
Now the purple color is distributed throughout this garden.

Ah, here we have the black-eyed Susans. I've been removing them from most of the gardens for the past two summers. They do takeover everywhere! But I like them in certain areas, like here by the deck entrance:
This area next to the main arbor is one where I intend to remove them.
From this angle they look pretty nice. But overall I think they look weedy. This is a difficult area to grow anything, so I am taking my time before I remove all of them. I think I have removed about half of them from this area. I will probably leave the rest until next year.

It's Blooming Tuesday over a Jean's today. Be sure to stop over and see what everyone else has blooming this week!

National Lasagna Day - July 29

Earlier in the week, I read that today was National Lasagna Day. Since I had made lasagna a few weeks back and frozen some, I decided tonight would be the perfect time to have it again.

Then I went out to see what was happening in the gardens. What I saw was a whole lot of phlox!

This is 'Little Laura'. She stays nice and short (about 2 ft) and is a vibrant purple color with a white eye. I have had Laura for a couple of years (gift from my MIL). I may divide her this fall just because I want her in a few other places.

I have tons of this purple phlox. I want even more, so will probably divide some of it this fall.

You may notice that the phlox next to the arbor is a lot taller than the phlox in the center.
It's the same phlox, but I cut the center way back in early July--probably by half. I wanted it to bloom shorter in those areas.

I also have phlox in back of the phlox above.
It's also in a number of my other gardens,like this one on the opposite side of the yard.
I guess I just like phlox! It's almost essential to guarantee some color in August in my northern garden.


Because I am loving this new Rembrandt dahlia, here is another picture with more flowers blooming.
I am tempted to set a 'Christmas in July' table for two on that white table in the back...just so I can use these for a centerpiece. Since July is almost over, it may have to be a 'Christmas in August' table!

Bean There Done That

That title pretty much sums up my day--in more ways than one.

Early this morning I was out moving plants again.

A couple of weeks ago, I moved a gold double daylily to this section. Today I took it out.

I decided I wanted only red in this area, so I put a red daylily in its place.

I moved the gold 'Condilla' daylily in front of this milk can, where there used to be a big sedum 'Autumn Joy'. There is another 'C0ndilla' a feet up from this one. The gold/yellow is such a strong color that I thought they should be in the same area. I think it gives a much bigger impact than having two scattered about.

The Sedumn AJ ended up here . I needed one here to match the other big one on the opposite side (which you cannot see in this picture).

I spent considerable effort-- in nearly 100 percent humidity-- removing the rest of this creeping phlox (pic taken in early July) to make room for the SAJ and a hosta in front of the lavender.
All of that (and moving a half dozen tall purple phlox & a couple of hosta) took about three hours. Then it started to rain, which is exactly what I had hoped would happen.

I got to go inside, shower and do next to nothing for the remainder of the afternoon. I did a read a little bit. I started a new cozy mystery last night. Check out the title--hence, the title for my post today. :)The murder-solving sleuth owns a coffee shop, thus the "bean" in the title refers to coffee beans. This is my first read from this author. So far I am enjoying it. Anybody else read her books?

Oh, Dear, The White Phlox is Blooming

That means this flowering season is almost at it's end!

I have a lot of white phlox--just like I have a lot of everything that likes to bloom in my harsh conditions. After years of gardening, only the tough survive. When you have as much space to fill with flowers as I do, you go with those that flourish in the conditions you provide. Phlox seems to like it here, so I grow a lot of it. I like that my purple phlox just finishes as my white begins to flower. I would have shown more pics of the white phlox, but I walked outside to get some and as I brushed against the big Sedum Autumn Joy
a hornet flew up my Green Acres gown and stung me right in the knee! OUCH!! It hurt! It's been years since I have had a bee sting. That is the one downfall to Sedum Autumn Joy--the bees love it when it's in it's light pink stage. There are at least a dozen bees on each plant.


Other than a stroll or two through the gardens, I have not been outside much for the past week. Instead I have had the urge to change a few things in my living room. I've been wanting to do a flowers/plaids/stripes mix for some time now (like 18 years! It's about time I finally got it done).

Last spring I made a striped valance and last week I finally found fabric and made the lined plaid panels.

Did you notice that rooster that I bought at the Farmer's Market in early August?

I really find something pleasing about that candle-holder guy. He was sitting in the dining room and I grabbed him for a centerpiece. Over the weekend, I brought this table back up from the basement. It used to be a brass & glass table. I decided I no longer liked it and it's been in the basement for about a year. Saturday I took it outside and painted the brass black. Now I like it again.

Anyway, back to the curtains...........
After I had them all made, I did not think the valance and the panels worked together quite as nicely as I would have liked. I decided to use the same fabric from the panels to make Sparkle Jars-inspired rosettes to go around all of the buttons on the valance.

I had a couple of pieces left over and used them as sofa/loveseat backs. I think that worked to force a connection between everything. I now have these rosettes on five windows in my home. I just love them. Thanks again, Sparkle Jars!

The Mosquitoes are Out in Full Force Again

What's up with that? It's bad enough we have them early in the season and now they are back just as strong. Geez........I gave up a lot of blood in the few moments it took to take these pictures.

A couple of days ago I bought a big bright blue planter. I thought it would be fun to use as a focal point someplace. This afternoon I tried to find a place to put it. I think this area may be the spot, but it needs to sit a bit higher. I will play around more with it this weekend.

I like this gold, red and orange combination of plantings.
Do you see how that bright blue planter leads the eye way to the end of the path? I am thinking if the planter was a foot higher, the blue would show better and that would be great.

My miniaure phlox is starting to bloom. It's the purple one in the front with the white face. I forgot its name...."Little" something.......

That's about it for new blooms.

Phlox, Globe Thistle & Pink Mallow

I did a little plant moving after work yesterday.

I moved a bunch of blooming phlox. It was blooming in an area where I am trying to get rid of all flowers. We are thinking of putting a shed in that spot.
Here is some of that phlox, although not the plants I moved.

These are some of the phlox plants that I moved:

They are very tall - about 4 feet or so. I am quite amazed that they are still standing tall a day after I moved them.

I just noticed that there is a wagon wheel in this garden, too. It's on the opposite side of the garden in in the first picure.

This is the same spot where I moved the lychnis coronaria last week. It's still standing tall, too.

Some plants are so easy to move!

I also removed about a dozen pink mallow plants like this one:
see that little spot of pink way in the back? I am trying to remove all of this plant from my gardens. I thought I had, but suddenly I am seeing a bunch of little spots of pink.

I like the plant, but it's terribly invasive. I decided that I would let it grow in the wild areas, like behind the rockwall.

I noticed that this globe thistle is almost ready to turn it's eye-catching blue color.

I really enjoy this plant.

It does have ratty lower foliage so it needs to be planted where that is hidden.

Here is a close up:

In my walk around the gardens tonight, I noticed that my ruffled pink daylily was blooming. Recently my bloggy friend, Dianne, from Dianne Rambling On posted a ruffled lily. I had a vague memory that I also had a ruffled daylily, but could not really remember. Sure enough I do have one! It's the darker pink lily in this pic:

Here is a close up so you can see that the edges are indeed ruffled:
I guess this post is getting pretty long, so I will end it here. I had more to show you, but I will save it all for future posts.

TGIF! I hope we all have a great weekend!

Flowers to Brighten a Cold Rainy Day

It's been very cold the past few days. Today it's rained all day. I think the rain will continue the rest of the week. Today's high is 48 degrees.

It's OK with me. I rarely complain about rain because without it, I have to stand with a hose for hours every day to keep things growing.

I went out at 6:30 a.m. yesterday morning and nearly froze to death getting a couple shots of the creeping phlox. It's almost in full bloom in this picture.
I have to say that I am loving these yellow tulips that were supposed to be purple. The purplish stripe they started with is turning a wider red color. I have no idea what they are, but I know they are definitely not the Hot Pants that I ordered. I think I like these better. It's not very often that I am this happy when a company messes up my order.

I must have Halloween on my mind. Remember I bought a skeleton last weekend. This morning I had 15 minutes to kill before leaving for work. I decided on the spur of the moment to make this 4.5-inch witch block. It took precisely 12 minutes. I had all the fabric out from my last projects, so I just grabbed pieces and started sewing. I have no idea at the moment what I will end up making with it.

So Much to Do in the Garden This Week

This little garden area goes through at least four different periods of bloom. First tulips, then Asiatic lilies, now this purple phlox, and soon Sedum Autumn Joy.
I consider this tiny area a good planting scheme because of its successful blooming phases. There is something of interest from spring to fall. It's about the only area that looks nice right now.

The rest of the gardens are in need of a very thorough deadheading. Just two feet from the area above, I have these Shastas ready to deadhead.
Shastas are a big mess when they die and I have a ton of them that all die at the same time.

Here is another area with Shastas beyond their prime.
It's in the woodland garden so I am tempted to leave those pretty Queen Anne's Lace that popped out in the front. Queen Anne's Lace is another of those incredibly invasive wildflowers that I have spent years trying to get rid of from the main gardens. Although it's pretty it will take over quickly. I have dug hundred from the other gardens. I should probably reconsider letting these live.

Here is another villain dressed in a pretty gown.

She is tall, graceful, lovely and the second most invasive plant I have ever had the displeasure to tackle (next to sedum 'coral carpet'). After three years, I have been pretty successful eradicating these. I still get a dozen or so popping up in different areas, but that is nothing compared to the hundreds I had. I will be digging this one out this weekend.

The Big Kahuna is on vacation this week, so I have to go into work on both Sat. and Sunday for a couple of hours. I am on vacation next week, but I also have to work all day on Monday since the Big K is gone then, too. It kind of ruins your vacation when you have to work the first three days of it! Oh, well, such is life.