Dwarf Golden Threadbranch Cypress and Ajuga Make a Nice Combo as does PINK briefcase & Grey Jacket

I am very happy with the two Dwarf Golden Threadbranch Cypress that I planted in 2011 in front  the two Ninebark Diabolo shrubs that flank my front porch.  I am trying to fill in all of the soil  between the two Golden cypress with  Ajuga. Here is one side on June 1st.

I like it.  I think by next spring the entire area will be filled in. 

I could not find a Ninebark shrub yesterday.  I hope the local places get more shrubs soon.

 Between the rain, DH cleaned up the drooping pine branches on the huge back yard trees.

I don't know what I would do without my garden helper. I've said this a million times, but I can never say it enough---he's a keeper!  I did buy those six yellow privet shrubs you see in the front of the two trees.

I needed some yellow on this end of the rockwall garden to coordinate with all the yellow I have on the opposite end.

It's been raining here for days.  I am not complaining because I like the rain

and it will knock the pollen from these pine trees, so we can sit on the deck without being covered in yellow dust.


I was recently gifted with this gorgeous pink leather ladies' briefcase:

  The color is a bit off in the above picture.

It is really a pink/purple color.  I think it will go nicely with a grey jacket like this one:

 I cannot even wait to carry it to work!  Thanks Aunt Mary!!

Pussywillow Shrub 'Salix discolor'

Every spring I bemoan the fact I can't find any pussy willow branches for an indoor display.  So when DH saw this tag, he called me over to the shrubbery section of Home Depot. Since the shrubs had already put on their spring show, they were marked 50% off.  I was thrilled that DH took an interest and alerted me to this bargain.

 I grabbed two without hesitation, thinking I would plant them in my front border.

Luckily I googled a bit before planting.  This innocent-looking little shrub can get 25 feet tall and 15 feet wide! WHOA--that certainly changes my mind about where to plant them. I put them in the rockwall garden where they can spread as much as they would like. 

Two hours ago we pulled about twenty pots of cannas and dahlias out from winter storage.  I just watched the weather forecast and it said FROST tonight -- down to 28 degrees.  Good Grief!  Now I have to go out and cover everything. I am just glad we only brought about half of the tropical plants out.

I spent another full day out in the gardens and am making some real progress. Today I painted a bunch of milk cans and wooden crates in a robin's egg blue.  I will use them all in some part of the gardens.

I was thrilled to find that a mourning dove has chosen my unadorned heart wreath for her baby's nursery.

I have not had a nest in this wreath for the past few years.  The robins usually use it when I have it decorated.  If it's bare, they don't like it.  This is the first year I have had a m. dove nest.

This afternoon I thought I would lie down in the family room and watch a TV show. Then it hit me that I had nothing to lay on! I still have not gone out looking for a sofa and love seat.  I really need to do this soon...maybe tomorrow.  I just have way too much to do in 4 short days off work!

I am Not Fond of Mulch

Mainly because I am always digging and moving plants and mulch just gets in the way.  I prefer a living mulch, like this reptans 'Atropurpurea' Bronze Ajuga.  It's the darker blue/purple flower behind the red primrose.  I bought a couple pots of it over 15 years ago and it has multiplied 1000 fold.

 Here is a more close up picture. 

Both of these pictures were taken in 2006.  Remember that first image because at the end of this post I will show you this area today.  Grab a Kleenex before you scroll down.

Back to the topic of this post............I have been wandering around the gardens digging up pieces of ajuga to put around the new front steps garden.

I think a nice thick mat of this live combination of green and  purpley-bronze ground cover will work much better in this area

 than any other mulch.  The purple ajuga leaves will go nicely with the purple Ninebark leaves.

Just imagine all this exposed soil covered with those blue/purple blooms in early June.  It should be beautiful!  That one pail of ajuga barely made a dent in coverage, so this week I plan to go out and dig up a bunch more. It will spread quickly.

O.K. back to the rockwall garden which I say, with all the modesty I can muster, looked gorgeous in that first picture.  Remember that was 5 years ago.  If gardens do anything, they change.  That picture had a lot of creeping phlox blooming around the ajuga. Unfortunately the creeping phlox became infested with grass and I just could not keep up with it.  Last year I made the sad decision to kill it all off.  I have been working on its death since June.

Here is a recent picture--grab that Kleenex and give it to me as I shed a few tears.......

I know it looks pretty sad.  A few years ago I decided to turn this garden into mostly shrubs to prepare for my old age when I can't be spending 2 hours a day bending down to dig out grass from the phlox.  So it had to go.  I must say the creeping phlox is putting up quite the fight!  I have used multiple applications of Round Up and there are still many areas clinging to life.  I think by next spring it should be ready to redo.  I do have 3 Alberta Spruce here which are all doing well, two cherry trees (so far the birds have eaten every single cherry) and a few burning bushes for vivid fall color.  This year I planted three grasses

 and I plan to add many more.  I have a vision of a shrub/ornamental grass garden that will look fabulous in the fall.  We shall see..................

The Smokebush gets a New Home

About 6 p.m. last night, I turned on the weather channel and saw that the forecast is for rain, rain, and more rain all weekend.

Ah, the perfect time to accomplish one of my weekend goals. I grabbed a shovel and headed out to the rockwall garden.

I want to move this smokebush. I think the lovely purple leaves will look nice behind a bluish/pink hydrangea.

So I ran out amid the sprinkling sky, grabbed a shovel and moved it.

I finished the move just in time for the heavens to release a 3-hour downpour which did all the watering in that was needed. :) I hope it survives. The root system seemed quite small.

The seasonally-challenged poppy now has 4 buds!

July 1, 2009 The Green, Green Grass of Home

Green! Green! Green!
We have had a lot of rain which has prevented the dreaded brown grass that is usually beginning by July 1. I went out between the rain showers and took a lot of pictures.

I can't fit the entire side gardens in one picture. This shows a bit more than half the space.

There is a lone red lily in bloom along this path. By the weekend there will be about a dozen more.
Back in the rockwall garden below the tulip foliage is almost ready to be cut down.

Once the colorful spring bloom of tulips and purple phlox, and orange poppies is over, this garden remains mostly green. I have been removing all the flowers and planting different hostas and shrubs for the past two years. My goal is easy maintenance in shades of lemon green to dark green with a few purple accents like this smoke bush.
I planted two of these smoke bushes three years ago. So far they have not taken up the smoking habit...maybe this year if that big flower bud stem does not shrivel up.
This area has a lot of big boulders. A few are full of this gorgeous moss, which I love.
Three years ago I also planted two cherry trees. So far I have not gotten any of the cherries.
I don't necessarily care about eating them. I planted the tree mostly to cover an ugly view. I think I would have to cover the trees with netting to keep the birds from eating all the cherries and that defeats my purpose of having a prettier view.

The side garden has huge peonies this year.

Unfortunately the rain is beating them down.

A bit further out, I have some Artemesia (also known as wormwood). I love the silver foliage and it's great for flower bouquets. It gets a bunch of small yellowish flowers (ugly) later in the season. I try to cut it down before then.



So that's pretty much where my garden is at on the first day of July in 2009.

Thank goodness it's going to Rain Soon

I've been outside for the past 4 hours...I painted a few more things (a table, a bench and a desk), trimmed all of the shrubs (with hand pruners). It's a good thing the rain is forcing me inside. because the whole house is desperate for a good cleaning.

Remember when I told you that I had TONS of creeping phlox?

Well, I wasn't kidding.

I took all of these pics today to show you most of the spots where it's blooming.

Look closely in the back of the next pic and you will see where I put the white table/chairs I just painted.

Yesterday I also hauled out my 5 old milk cans, one of which you see here in front of the wheel. If the pic is enlarged you will see three others way in the back.


I'll just show you the other three. Oh, look through the spokes, there is another little patch of phlox.

This area is very shady and nothing grows well. I decided to plant all the milk cans with hostas that I dug from another area in the front yard. I think the hostas will fan out nicely on top of the milk cans. There is such a small area to plant in a milk can that it is difficult to get something that looks good. I have about 45 hostas planted in the crabapple tree garden, but they don't thrive in that area, so I am digging them out and using them in many of my containers this year. You will see them later in the season in many of my large deck planters.

Yesterday I finally cleaned the pavers in my main gardens. Here they are full of pine needles and not very attractive.
and after about 15 minutes of raking and sweeping.


I overwintered this lime green and yellow variegated artemisia, 'Oriental Limelight' and decided to plant it in the Arbor garden for a spot of bright foliage color.

Because it's very aggressive, I have decided to dig a hole and plant it right in it's container. I probably should have divided it to get another free plant. I guess If I find a spot where I simply must have another touch of lime green color, I will dig it back up and divide it.

Chasing Butterflies in my Bathrobe

What a surprise to find this cooperative butterfly when I went out to shoot the morning tulips.




He even landed on my hand!

I Don't Know How..........

Yesterday after a trip to Staples to see what cameras were locally available and spending over two hours online investigating the pros/cons of different cameras, I decided (just for kicks) to recharge my old battery again. I had just charged it and put it back in the camera when it stopped working. I thought it was strange that the charger was red (meaning it needed a charge again). I went about scrubbing floors, etc. for a couple of hours. When the light was green, I put the battery in the camera, turned it on and VOILA! It took a picture! I nearly fell off my chair.

I couldn't believe it. I grabbed the camera and ran outside before it decided to stop working again. I took 58 pictures. It is still working just fine.

Go figure.......

Remember the hail storm? Here is how it sliced up the canna leaves.
I have been busy digging out almost everything at this end of the rockwall garden. It was getting too overgrown. I still have more plants to remove. I have sprayed the silver snow-in-summer with roundup--twice so far--it is tough stuff to kill. It's growing mixed with creeping phlox so I decided to get rid of both and start over. Every now and then it's nice to have a clean slate.

I am so amazed at this container. EVERYTHING in it was overwintered. When I pulled the container out from under the house, it looked empty. I started watering it and all of this stuff came up like magic. LOL. I had no idea all those calendula seeds were in there. There is also Elephant's Ear and a canna - I think Picasso, which has neat speckled yellow/orange blooms.
This container was the same - the only thing I planted was the purple trailing fanflower in the front.
I felt like sewing a little yesterday morning and I made this block. I had made the 3-inch turkey center block a while back and I decided to feature him in the middle of a star block.
I have no idea what he will end in--maybe a table runner for Thanksgiving. I wonder if I have any rust-colored dishes...I know I have dusty blue that would match the background.

So it's great to able to take pictures again. I haven't spent much time on the net this weekend. I will get caught up reading blogs this week.

I am still Tiptoeing Thru Those Tulips!

Thanks everyone for the comments on the new header. I decided on a whim to experiment. So far I think I have changed it 4 times. I can see I will be playing around with the header now just as much as I do the profile picture!

Does the header expand across your whole screen? It does on my computer, but I saw on a different computer that it was 3 or 4 inches short of spanning the entire top.

I got a bit more weeding done in the rockwall garden yesterday. It's tedious work getting the grass out of all that creeping phlox. I have just one 12 foot section to finish today.

I am so enjoying my tulips this year!! Most of these tulips were planted in 2004 and this is the first time I've seen them bloom because the deer eat them EVERY year. I believe I planted something like 300 tulips that year. There are so many that I just love. I grabbed my binder with the saved packets, so I could tell you the names.

Like these 'Greenland' pink/green striped ones:

I've always thought the "Greenland' were beautiful and was very happy when I found them at Kmart in 2004. They are from the Martha Stewart collection. In fact all 3 of these that I have deemed favorites happen to be from Martha's collection. Interesting.... Here are the 'Greenland' in the landscape photo.


These violet/pink doubles are 'Blue Diamond'. They remind me of a peony.

Oh, and just look at the spectacular color of these 'Texas Flame' parrot tulips. These are the ones I showed in the last post that were not yet opened.

And last, but certainly not least, another primrose/blue hyacinth shot. The thick green foliage in the back is colchium (for all you searching for 'what does colchium foliage look like in the spring?')


Sylvana, you have a good eye, because those orange tulips in the back that I like so much are indeed, 'Princess Irene'.