A Summer Day of Gardening

I spent a good part of my day digging all the plants out of this area.

Nothing wants to grow here. I am guessing it's lack of sun, since the soil is probably the best in any area of these gardens.

I am going to turn it into a hosta garden by removing pieces of the dozens of hosta I already own. That's the great thing about having a well-established garden. When you get the urge to redesign, you can just go around digging out things you already have. It's very cost effective.

I have to hook two hoses together to water this area. I am willing to do that now and then if I can get something to grow and look decent.

I also cut down spent lily stems & shasta daisies, and dug out a bunch of pink mallow. Just a lot of general tidying up. I think I had about 3 wheelbarrow loads.

I removed stray Black-eyed Susans like these that seeded themselves too close to other plants.

I have a lot of white phlox blooming right now. I moved a few clumps of that, too.



All in all, I had a busy day outside.

Now I am going to shower, put on my "Green Acres" gown with my Crocs and break open that case of Relax. Then I'm going to grab my camera and go out to the deck to stalk the hummingbirds.

3 Views of the Same Area

It all depends on where you point the camera.
This is all the same area (it's the spot where I cut down the mallow yesterday).
The pics were all taken on Friday.

Drumstick Allium is in full color


Standing on the steps to the deck


Looking Through the Chair Planter




I think it's fun to see how many different views you can take of the same spot without moving more than 3-4 feet in any direction.

Just try it and see how much fun it is! (Of course, post it for all of us to admire)

Speaking of chair planters, yesterday at the craft fair I saw one that looked almost like mine (this one) for $35. That's no plant. Just the chair with a hole in it and it was painted the same green color as mine (I used less than a can of $1.99 paint).
I didn't see any buyers.
But, the thought did occur to me that if the chair was nicely planted, I bet people would pay $50 & up (depending on how creatively it was planted and how lush it was).

Look at this Pink Frilly Border

Here is the very same border on June 5.


Isn't the difference amazing?

I see it every year, and still I am amazed at the change 6 weeks can make.


Update: 9:00 a.m.

This border was a bit battered after the one hour of rain we got last night.


So this morning I cut most of the mallow down.
This border is just CRAMMED with plants growing on top of each other. It's survival of the fittest in this border. I do very little to interfere (i.e. I do almost NO work - just let it fend for itself)

Even after cutting down the mallow you can see that it is still full.

Since I was tidying things up this morning

I decided I might as well cut down all of the mallow before it goes to seed. Some of it was drooping a little from the rain because it's so tall. I cut it back to about 2 feet high.


If I cut it back now, I will get another nice bloom in mid August when I will enjoy the pink color without any clashing orange blooms.

I discovered last year that the secret to a nice second bloom is to cut it back when it still looks good -- BEFORE it has gone to seed. Plants live to set seed for the next generation. If you destroy all of the blooms before they have a chance to do so, they put forth amazing effort to rebloom in an attempt to accomplish their goal before frost.

Backyard Full of Pink Mallow

Orange Asiatic Lilies

(I see I missed a couple of pink mallow in there)

Poor pink mallow. I've been chopping it off almost everywhere in my gardens.
I know many people consider it a weed and won't allow it anyplace in their garden.
Personally I like it and find that removing the zillions of babies each year is preferable to eliminating it altogether.

I think even those who raise their haughty eyebrows to the lowly mallow would agree that she looks quite splendid here.

Wonderful Relaxing 4th of July

I had a very nice 4th of July.

I didn't do anything in celebration of the holiday today. (Remember we had a party on Sunday.)

After a short time at work, I came home and rearranged containers on the deck. All of my planters have filled out enough so that I can now play with different arrangements.

After I had everything the way I wanted it, I brought out a book and read for awhile. Then I pulled out the wheelbarrow and went around cutting down the dead poppy foliage, cut back some fall asters, and cut back a few more of the pink mallow.



Then I came back and rearranged a few more planters that I thought I liked, but after looking at them a bit, decided to try something different. (for the next two months rearranging the deck will give me great pleasure!)
The glider is my favorite spot to sit.
I decided to move the birdhouse with the chickadee family so I could view it more easily from my favorite seat.

I was a litle worried that Mom and Dad Chickadee would not be able to find their home when I saw them fly in, land on the railing and look all around three times. I was almost ready to put it back when one of them zoomed in from above and landed right at home.

I just realized today that both Mom and Dad feed their young. I don't know how to tell them apart yet. I saw them both together, but they looked the same to me. Now that I have the perfect seat to watch them maybe I will figure it out.



DH hung one of my new feeders at the opposite end of the deck. So far no bird has found the feeder.


When I got home from work I did dig out the scaveola from the hibiscus tree planter below and I put it in the sled.

I think it will work nicely after a few weeks of filling out.



We also went to Walmart and Home Depot this afternoon. I found some plants marked down and couldn't resist a King Coleus for $2, another coleus and impatiens combo for $4 and two 'Dragon Wing' red begonias for $4 each.

Blogger won't let me add them to this post, so I will add another below.

Every year I look forward to these Asiatic lilies peeking through the arbor.

They are actually a very unimpressive bland color. I think being planted where they sort of poke in and out of the arbor helps give them more interest.







I don't remember planting these white lilies. That happens all the time...forgetting what I've planted. I like them with the white Shasta daisies, though I doubt that I planned that combination.


The pink mallow behind looks nice, too, in this picture.

But it does not look so nice with the hundreds of orange lilies I have blooming right now. Most years the orange/pink combo doesn't bother me, but today it did.


So I cut a bunch of them (mallow) down about an hour ago. I probably whacked off about a foot or two of the really tall ones. They will grow back fast and when the orange lilies finish they should be ready to bloom again.

What's Blooming Tonight

Here it is the end of the week already and I have not even looked at the gardens until tonight.

I see the orange ditch lillies and the pink mallow are bursting forth. It looks like a bumper crop of the lillies this year.

Here's a few shots of the new bloomers I found this week.






Lysimachia punctata 'Alexander'
Yellow Loosestrife

Fall Clean Up Has Begun

Saturday morning I cleaned out almost everything from the small rockwall garden area. It feels good to have one area completely done.

Today I attempted to dig out a number of the pink mallow plants that are growing in a very tiny strip between the sidewalk and the garage. They are just too big and unruly for that area, flopping over and brushing against people as they walk on the sidewalk. It is not easy to get rid of pink mallow. If the plant has any age to it, the tap root is very long and well-rooted and is nearly impossible to remove completely. I dug out about six plants as best I could. I will have to wait until next year to see if I did, in fact, get rid of them.

The Fall Side Garden

So many perennials are so fleeting. It is rare to find one that blooms more than three weeks. As gardeners we are always seeking the perfect combination of plants, choreographing bloom times so that we always have one plant coming into bloom as the prior plant fades into its state of hibernation. It is often frustrating -- usually we can get a small garden to look good (even great) for one season, but then we have only sporadic blooms the remainder of the gardening year.

I have shown you this area twice before - in the spring and in the summer. Now I am showing you the same area in the fall.

I think this is one area I have succeeded in getting right. I like that it is totally different each season - brilliant orange in spring, subdued pink/white in the summer, and bright yellows/purple in the fall.

It is a small area jam packed with flowers. I am amazed that they continue to bloom as well as they do, being planted almost on top of each other. This spot gets almost no additional water as my hose won't reach unless I put two together and the only time I will go to that trouble is in a severe drought. I weed it thoroughly in the spring and rarely thereafter. I do cut down the spent poppies, mallow and daisies as soon as they are finished to make room for whatever is coming next.

Right now it has black-eyed Susan, 'Annette's flower' (the yellow bush daisy), an aster or two, and, of course, Sedumn AJ.

I think this area looks pretty decent in all seasons with very little work on my part.

Here is a picture from the other direction so that you can see the full size of it.

Second Bloom of Pink Mallow

I cut this mallow plant back severely in mid-July before it went to seed. It is now re-blooming beautifully. In past years I have waited to cut it back until there were quite a few seed pods. This year I have discovered that cutting in back before it expends all of its energy making seeds leads to a much nicer second bloom. Every year I learn something new...now if only I can remember it next year!

Tonight I cut down all of my Shasta daisies, orange lilies, and most of the pink mallow. Few things look as bad as Shasta daisies when they finish blooming. I have a lot of them and it's a big job, so I cut down even those that still looked good, just to get it done. The globe thistle (spikey spheres below) are almost ready to turn blue.

It happens every year. Yet it still depresses my enthusiasm for gardening. Within a few days my garden goes from something I enjoy looking at to a big disheveled mess. The Shasta daisies die, the spiderwort flops, the white sedum and the feverfew turn brown, and the pink mallow starts its decline--all at the same time. I walk thru all the gardens and I can't find a thing that looks good.

Added to that is the mess I created when I dug out the orange lilies. I went out today to plant the cardinal flowers and as I was digging the hole, I uncovered more lily roots and obedient plant roots--tons of them. I dug for an hour and filled a wheelbarrow to overflowing. You just know I could not possibly have gotten them all, so I will probably have them popping up thru the new flowers I am planting. The two little plants I put in hardly make a dent in the big open space. So now I am stuck with a bare spot for the rest of the season. When will I learn to leave that shovel alone????

From past years, I know that this, too, shall pass. In about a week, there should be a flush of new blooms, and I will feel better about doing so much work in these crazy gardens.

Even the deck is not looking good. I moved things around again and I don't like it. The deck floor is cluttered with spent blooms from my deadheading spree. I don't feel like sweeping it all tonight, so I will just have to live with it for a few more days.

Here is a picture of the newly planted cardinal flower.

I like this combination of rose campion and pink mallow.

Front Entrance Area to Deck

This is where I planted the 'wave' petunias that I removed from the arbor. They should cover the entire area in a few weeks. The side of the garage has a lot of pink mallow and rose campion blooming now.

Boy, do I have the pink mallow! Big drifts of it everywhere. The Shasta daisies in the foreground are much smaller than they usually are. Must be from lack of rain this year.

Pink mallow looking toward the backyard.