I Bet Everyone is Sick of Seeing Black-Eyed Susans

For most you they have probably come and gone by now. But for me they are just beginning their best bloom. So please bear with me as I toss out a picture or two.

This burst of golden yellow is all that is left from last year's major removal of the overgrown masses of Black-eyed Susans next to the main arbor. Do you see that the big Sedum Autumn Joy behind it is turning pink? It's a sure sign of fall.
You can see here that even though I removed wheelbarrow loads of BE Susan's last year, I still have plenty left. Can you see the bit of Obedient plant that is still left in the front of this border? I thought I had it all out last fall. You are right, Betty, it's not a very obedient plant!
When I got home from work I found this big plant had fallen over. It's in an old plastic pot with a bottom that is smaller than the top. . . not good for large plants.

Luckily I had that new container I just bought. I just put the old container inside the new one. It will work until the season ends. I will then replant everything and toss the old plastic pot.

After work today I ran to the library to return a bunch of books from last week. I was drawn to the cookbook section and grabbed a few to skim through this weekend.

I always get in the mood to cook when September rolls around.

I had about 20 minutes to kill before my nail appointment, so I went to the boat harbor and sat in my car and skimmed one of the Ina books. I like her books because they have narrative as well as good recipes.

Maybe I will find some new recipes to cook this weekend.

Obedient Plant

About seven years ago I went on a garden tour and saw a big mass of a very delicate blooming plant. I asked the gardener what the plant was.

Obedient plant.

I had never heard of it, but went right to the nursery after the tour and bought two one-gallon containers of it in two shades of purple. This is the lighter purple. It somehow escaped my vigorous disposal efforts from the past two years. At first I was happy that it was spreading so nicely. I kept digging up sections and planting them in many of my other gardens. Before I knew it, the stuff took over!

I've been pretty successful in getting rid of it in most of the areas. Now I think I am glad I missed this area. It's a nice big swath, which I like, and it's growing in an area that is almost pure rock 3 inches down so my plant choices are limited. I think I will leave it here.

Here is the distant view so you can see it in relation to the rest of that garden. It's on the front right--just look at the flamingo head. You may need to click the picture if it's cut off on your monitor. You can see the blooms are quite small. Any idea what this bloom is? This is a macro shot of just a tiny element of the full bloom.




If you guessed globe thistle, you're correct.

Every year we garden bloggers have to get the requisite pic of a bee on the thistle.

Time for me to get ready for work. Yesterday was a rather pleasant 10-hr day getting caught up from the four days I missed last week. The Big Kahuna did a fine job taking care of a lot of my work. After today I will be all caught up.

I hope you all have a great work day today -- whether at home or elsewhere.

DH Had a Great Idea to Raise the Big Blue Planter

He used the top of his old grill turned upside down with a stone paver under it and above it.........Pure genius!

Now it's much higher. Is it too high?

I think it might be, but I am not changing it now.

I can't tell you how much I am loving the crocosmia. It's so bright and it looks so good next to that double gold lily whose name escapes me. It is in last year's archives, but I don't feel like looking for it now. If anyone really needs to know the name, check August 2008 or 2007. It's probably in both.

I really have a lot of tall purple phlox blooming right now. I am enjoying it all around the white arbor. I also have a lot white, but it blooms a few weeks later than the purple, so I still have the white to look forward to. There aren't too many plants left to bloom.




I can't believe how fast the summer season goes by!

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!

Oh, the Treasures I Found!

I have had the most amazing day. It's nearly 4:00 p.m. and I never did get that flower bouquet done.

I was at the Farmer's Market at 7:30 a.m. Thank goodness I got there early because I found a ton of treasures!! They had everything from junk to this guy in the front who made wonderful objects from cedar wood.

Before I left I stuck $25 in my pocket. I didn't carry a purse. Instead I brought along a tote bag to hold any treasures I might find.

I had my tote filled on the second booth I stopped at! Just look at all these treasures I got for only $11.75! Vases, magazines, a book, a flamingo, a magnificent candle holder (I think it's a chicken with accented with gemstones), a pair of Dutch shoe planters...

I have seen these cast iron corn muffin pans many times. They are usually about $10. When I saw this one for $2, I grabbed it. It's incredibly heavy. I can't wait to use it.

See that flamingo? I am really into flamingos lately. Yesterday I finished a flamingo quilt block and today I bought this little cutie. What is it for? you ask.

Well, here it is in my garden.

How adorable! I am just loving this $1 purchase. I even had to change the watering can arrangement to pink flowers to match the flamingo.


Remember that first picture with the cedar arbor and the potting bench? Well, they are now in my yard! The man gave me a great deal since I bought both. DH had to go home and get the truck to transport them.

I spent 3 hours staining the arbor white. When I got done DH did the top. When it gets dry we will put it in the garden and I will show you a picture of it.
The potting bench is sitting on the deck. I need to decide what color to paint it. I am pretty sure it will be aqua with an orange bird house.

Did you notice the Dutch shoes? I planted them with hens and chicks.

I finally had to come inside because it was starting to rain. I need a break anyway.

It's a been a great day.
Since it was a Farmer's Market, I did come home with one veggie--

Aren't these red onions gorgeous? I think they look like artwork.

I hope your day has been equally as wonderful!

Lavender

Ah, the lavender is blooming and it's so pretty right now.

Because I like to see more than close ups of what's blooming, I will assume you do, too. Here's a bigger view of this area. The lavender sits right at the front of this garden. There is a second patch of it further back on the left.

I will have to remember to use some lavender in a flower bouquet this weekend.

Outside My Computer Room Window

From my computer chair, I have been looking at all of these little apples for the past few weeks. This seems to be a bumper crop year (much to my chagrin).
I will be picking wheelbarrow loads up from the ground in a few weeks. I would cut this tree down, but besides annoying me with all these inedible apples, it provides a nice shady spot to sit in the hot summer. Although I must confess that I have not found the time to sit there once yet this year.

I stuck the camera out the computer room window last night to get these shots. This is a view of the main gardens that you hardly ever see.

It's the backside of the areas I have been showing you.

I took this picture to show you that it is still raining.

update: As of 8:15 PM we have not had any rain yet today. I think we get a couple day's break and then another 3 days of rain. I liked the rain a lot better than I like today's muggy hot (in the 80's) temps.

Sunday Between the Rain Showers

Everything is so fresh and green after the last few days of rain.

I have hundreds of orange lilies blooming. Most of them are in the wooded area because I have been removing them from the main gardens where they were taking over.

I did not take them all out because I do like that pop of orange in different sections.

I have them mixed with daisies in many areas because I have also been removing a lot of the daisies from the main gardens.

Speaking of the main gardens, here are two shots standing at the biggest Tango lily. This shot is looking toward the arbor (the rockwall garden is way in the background). The big daylily next to the Tango lily will be blooming soon. It's red.

This shot is looking directly across the swath of grass toward a second walking path which leads back into the wooded area. It makes a turn to the right and ends where the bistro table is.

The path with the round pavers is the first path we put in. I could not find round pavers for the second or third paths, so I had to change to squares.

Nestled between two day lilies is one of last year's new 'Forever' hydrangeas. I planted three of them. The other two are in the rockwall garden.

Here is one from the rockwall garden. It has huge flowers and is doing very well.
The third one is not blooming.

Remember a while back I told you I moved a new poppy and I thought I had killed it because it immediately turned brown and shriveled up? Well Jen left a comment that maybe it just went dormant. I was hoping Jen was correct. And it looks like she was!

Here is some new growth in that exact spot. Yippee! Maybe it will be a purple one for next year. Neither of my purple ones bloomed this year.


I decided to join Artie over at Color Outside the Lines for his Share a Sunday Garden. If you love gardens, go visit Artie. He is sharing a beautiful one today.

Crocosmia 'Chopsticks' is going to Bloom!

While watering after work today, I spotted this flower embryo inside the strap-like leaves of this crocosmia (kro-KOS-mee-uh) that Wandering Chopsticks sent me last September.

This is the post I made when I received them.
I went around to the other areas where I planted them to see if there were any more signs of bloom.

Jackpot!

This one is even closer to being an orange flower.

I am so excited that these corms that came to me all the way from California are going to bloom in my Michigan garden this year!

I have also been keeping a close eye on some hollyhocks that Jean sent me last year. She sent me some seeds and I had three plants that came up last fall.
Hollyhocks are bienniel, meaning that they come up one year and bloom the second year. I was hoping that I planted them early enough last year that they would bloom this year, but I am not seeing any signs of a flower. I think I will have to wait until next year.

I am sure they will be worth the wait because I have seen Jean's and they are gorgeous!

8 Hours of Moving Plants and A loosestrife that does not run rampant

Nothing is safe when I start digging up plants. I have dug up at least 30 of them in the past two days.

I can just see the poor dears shaking in fear wondering if the mad woman stomping the shovel into the ground will be chopping into them next!

I planted Lysimachia punctata 'Alexander' (Yellow Loosestrife ) in the rockwall garden in 2005. It has been perfectly well behaved staying quite short and flowering in golden spikes atop that lovely sage green and cream variegated foliage. I really liked where it was planted.

It makes no difference to me if it looks good where it's at. When the mood to move strikes, nothing stops me from yanking it out and moving it to an unproven area where it may not do nearly as well. At that moment all that mattered was that I needed a plant to fill a bare spot and I thought the loosestrife would work. So I moved it.

Here it is in its new home.

I like it.
This year I am paying a lot of attention to watering this area, so hopefully it will learn to love its new home as much as I love having it here.

Here's a little loosestrife trivia for you:

Legend has it that this herb soothes anger, or loosens strife. Hence, it's name - -loosestrife. So if you know someone who is always angry, maybe you should send them a bouquet with loosestrife in it.

To the left of the loosestrife is another bare area where I have been killing off invasive plants. I decided to put a big wave of lychnis coronaria in this area because it's easy to grow and the bare area is not in a prime location. This area gets little sun and it's difficult to grow anything here.

So I went around all the different gardens and dug up lychnis plants that were not where I wanted them. I had a couple wheelbarrow loads of lychnis coronaria.

I did my usual - dug holes, filled the holes with water, let the water get absorbed, then plopped the plant in and watered again.
I love lychnis coronaria with blue spiderwort, so I moved a bunch of spiderwort in the same area. Right now it looks a bit messy, but it should improve (at least for next year).

We finally brought out my garden bistro table today. We put it in its usual spot out in the woodland grassy area.
Now the new path we put in a few weeks ago leads right to it. I just can't tell you how much I have been enjoying that new path. It has totally transformed this area (well with a ton of work from me moving plants).
I cut some daisies and put them in a watering can for a centerpiece.


I also moved some yellow daylilies next to the bird bath.

I removed the daylily plants from this driveway garden and then filled the whole area full of Sedum Autumn Joy that I removed from my yew hedge garden. The yews have grown so big there is not enough space left for the Sedum.

I think they will look nice in late August when they form a mass of pink flowers around the Alberta Spruce. After looking at this pic, I realized I needed one more Sedum Autumn Joy in that bare spot, so I went right back out and dug up another one and stuck it in. Can you imagine how much it would have cost me if I had to buy all those sedumn? I think they are around $9 to $12 a plant in my area and I used about 10 in this garden. It's great to be able to completely change this little garden at no cost to me (other than my labor)!