Canna buds & Garden Comparisons - 1 Year Apart

I don't really have any new bloomers for Jean's Blooming Tuesday, but I do have a two gorgeous canna buds to show you. They are both on the same plant and will open into big yellow/orange flowers.

Yesterday I bought a new Elephant Ears. I put it behind the pot I already had by the arbor. It looks like it's all one big arrangement.
This one has black stems.

In the gardens, all of my flowers bloomed a week to two weeks early this year. Here is a pic from last year in early August. The lilies that finished last week were still in bloom last year in early August.

2009 - 1st week of August: I had just bought, stained and installed this arbor. The lavender was in its prime...this year it is finished already.

I had a lot less Asiatic lilies in '09. I must have moved a ton of them to this area last fall.

The front of this border had about 15 feet of creeping phlox. It was beautiful for 2 weeks in the spring, but then just looked blah for the remainder of the year.


This year I was getting really tired of weeding out the grass in the heavy mat of creeping phlox. I did not get to it until late this spring, which killed off some areas and made the display less than it usually is. The blooms went all around this garden to the same spot on the other side.
I decided that this was prime real estate in my garden and it needed to do more than look pretty for two weeks. So my big project this year was to remove almost all of it.

I finished the removal on Sunday, July 25, 2010. This year all of the Asiatic lilies are finished, but I still have quite a bit of color since I added those big canna leaves and moved a lot of daylilies to this area.

In this pic, I have also removed all of the creeping phlox around the border, but not yet planted it all.

Sunday, July 25, 2010 -- I finished replanting this area with a number of different perennials.
Here is more of the border that was once all creeping phlox.


I am sure I will miss all of that creeping phlox next spring, but I really think this planting will serve me better throughout the gardening season.

The more I look at this area, the more I think I need a red daylily right behind that lavender.....maybe I am not done moving plants.

Don't forget to visit Jean to see what everyone has blooming. I will be doing that after work today.