Globe Thistle

My globe thistle is a bit disappointing this year. The plants are smaller than normal and there are not as many blooms as I expected.

I think I should paint that orb green--the same green that I painted the deck chairs.

This photo shows all the globe thistles in this area.  Some are much shorter than others--don't ask me why--it's not by my hand.

The bottom foliage of Globe Thistle can get pretty ratty looking. This year the foliage stayed decent. It must be because I watered this area quite often.  I really love these little blue orbs. I have tried to get a few plants established in other areas, but so far no luck with that.

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!

Blooming Tuesday

'Kentucky' Tango lily burst into full bloom this weekend. I showed you the first bloom, but I think 'Kentucky' deserves its full-bloom glamour shot, just like the other 4 Tango lilies had.

I want to order more of these. Three is just not enough. Here is the view across the grass path to the other arbor garden:

A little further back my purple phlox has begun. I have a few different shades of purple/pink phlox. Some of them are twenty years old and I have long forgotten their names.

Phlox is such a staple of my late July/early August garden.

This red striped/blotched Rembrandt dahlia just opened yesterday.

I'd be totally ga-ga over it, if it had a few more petals with the bold red stripes. Maybe some of the other buds will have more red. You never know what you will get with the Rembrandts. That's part of the fun about growing them. It's exciting to run out each day to see what the new flower looks like.

Update: 4:30 p.m. July 20, 2010 I just went out to see how the dahlia looked today. The next layer of petals opened and I see a lot more red stripes! I am almost

ga-ga! If I had this dahlia at Christmas time, it would be the centerpiece of my holiday dinner table--it reminds me so much of candy canes!

This Rembrandt is not lacking in red color!

I love the purple center petals. I have had this one for a few years and it never ceases to fill me with pure Rembrandt love!

Here is another of my original Rembrandt dahlias. They are purple and my least favorite.
So wouldn't you know that the purple are what I have the most of! I ordered another Rembrandt collection last fall. So far none of them have bloomed. I am hoping that I do NOT have more purple in my new collection!

I just went out and cut down the orange and red spent lily stems around the globe thistle.

Now all of those lovely orbs show up nicely. It won't be long before they turn blue. I am hoping that you won't be seeing that pile of top soil much longer. I have been asking DH to knock in down for the past two years. I have been waiting at least 104 weekends....maybe next weekend will be the one! It's getting small enough that I can probably do it myself. It ruins all of my pics!

I got down close to the ground for this shot. I wanted to get the red-striped Tropicanna leaves in. This canna is planted right in the ground and is not growing as fast as the cannas I have in containers.
Last year the one I planted in this same spot did not bloom. I am hoping for a better outcome this year.

Right now I have a lot of red daylilies blooming -- many of them are called 'Red Fan Fare'. They are a fairly short daylily - -about 12 inches tall--I like the yellow centers -- they look like they are on fire!

So that's what's new in my garden. Now head over to Jean's Blooming

Tuesday to see what everyone else has. Jean has a lot of different coneflowers--all colors. I am going to see the others right now.

Six Wheelbarrow Loads = 1 Big Blister & A Dollar Store Trip Yields some Christmas Decorations

On Sunday we finally had a dry afternoon. I made use of about two hours to cut down all the tall debris from some of my gardens. I started here and went all the way down to the the end of the two longest gardens.
There was a lot to cut down in this one. All those tall asters in the back, tons of Sedum Autumn Joy and phlox,


and the globe thistle.

All of it is now gone.

In the front yard, I cut down dozens more Sedumn A. Joy.



I did a lot of work, but I still have plenty more to cut down. If I had about one more hour, I could have removed all of this Sedum.

Unfortunately I got a big blister that burst just as I was getting to this side.

So it will all have to wait. If I don't get another opportunity, it will stay until spring. That is usually what happens.
I feel good, though, because I have already got a lot more done than I did last year.

On Saturday morning I stopped at the dollar store to pick up some Halloween candy and look what I found:

They were putting out Christmas decorations and I grabbed these limey green items. I think I will mix them with pink this year on my smaller trees. I plan to do another aqua/lime green main tree so pink/lime will blend in well.

As August Ends, A Few Plants Shine

The globe thistle is at it's peak.

Just beginning are the double yellow daisies of 'Annette's Flower', so named because my SIL, Annette, gave it to me. All across my gardens the Sedum Autumn Joy is just beginning to blush. Of all its color stages, I like the light pink best.

On the deck, two dahlias star. 'Park Princess' is still shooting up it spiky pink petals.

This red dahlia came in a pack of 'Rembrandt' dahlias I ordered from Breck's. The other Rembrandts all have splotches of a second color. These don't so I wonder if they are in fact Rembrandts. Whatever they are, they are my favorite red dahlia thus far.

This fall I am going to repot a container mixed with these red and the pink 'Park Princess' above. Don't you think that will make a container to be noticed? I love red and pink flowers together.

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.

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!

Every Now and Then I Find it Interesting to See What People have Searched For and Found My Blog

I always wonder if they were disappointed when whatever they were looking for sent them to my lowly little spot in cyberspace.

Most of these searches are topics I do write about, except for "the crabapple bakery cupcake cookbook". I don't recall ever writing about that, so I guess they were disappointed.

These are my last 43 searches:
Num Perc. Search Term
4 9.30% easter tablescapes
2 4.65% making barrel planter
2 4.65% duggar floor plan
2 4.65% persian shield bloom
2 4.65% tablescapes
2 4.65% how to arrange calla lillies
1 2.33% red branches with prickers
1 2.33% windex use on bathroom countertops
1 2.33% the crabapple bakery cupcake cookbook
1 2.33% spare ribs gone bad
1 2.33% paeonia festiva maxima
1 2.33% side gardens
1 2.33% tablescapes for easter
1 2.33% arranging dishes in a china cabinet
1 2.33% calla lillies plants
1 2.33% country spare ribs
1 2.33% napkins folded to look like a bunny
1 2.33% best kolache recipe
1 2.33% paper peiced blocks
1 2.33% czech recipe kolache
1 2.33% persian shields
1 2.33% how big will phlox get
1 2.33% globe thistle not blooming
1 2.33% allium molly
1 2.33% do deer like cannas
1 2.33% what does sedum look like
1 2.33% simple floral arrangements using tulips
1 2.33% deer and rabbit repellent recipe
1 2.33% will creeping phlox work in a window box
1 2.33% tablescapes for easter and spring
1 2.33% spring cleanup perennial garden
1 2.33% fire king/peach lustre
1 2.33% easter table settings
1 2.33% tulip fat leaves only
1 2.33% duggar family
43 100.00%

9 out of the 43 were looking for an Easter or spring tablescape. I am amazed at how quickly the word "tablescape" is finding its way into the vocabulary of mainstream society. (I actually printed this out earlier today. (When I just rechecked the count was 15 out of 60--or 25% of my searches).

When I started this blog a little over two years ago, it was rare to find "tablescape" in the searches. This little observation is probably of no interest to anybody but me, so I shall move on.

It is still too cold to work outside. The local weather lady is predicting cold and snow for the rest of the week which is fine with me. I don't really feel like doing all that clean up work just yet.

Hope you 've all had a great Monday. I am off to read a few blogs... which brings up a recent sore spot with me.

Last week I took the time to comment on three new blogs (all quilting blogs) and not one of the authors even acknowledged my existence. I didn't expect a big drum roll, but a quick tapping of the keyboard could have produced at least "thanks for stopping by Zoey". The same thing happened on a couple of other quilt blogs (months ago). I guess I will just go back to lurking on the quilt blogs.

Do you all think I am being too sensitive?

Almost Bedtime for the Gardens

I haven't taken a garden walk for at least 5 days. So as energyless as I am tonight, I forced myself to grab the camera and go for a stroll.
Boy, what a difference since last week! Almost all of the black-eyed Susans are gone now.

There is little left to the coleus in the old milk can.

The globe thistle has turned completely brown.

As has the .....the......the......
I hate when this happens.....I can't remember the name....coarse foliage....rudbeckia........purple flower.............well, honestly, it's a common flower......

PURPLE CONEFLOWER.
Whew, it was tought gettting the old brain to pull that one out.

The deck looks even worse.

I'd say the wall planters are finished.

I have SO MUCH work ahead of me getting all this cleaned up and put away.
I hope I get some energy by this weekend.

Party Centerpiece

Yesterday at work one of my customers decorated her tables with these centerpieces. She used hydrangeas, globe thistle, a green apple in the middle and some shrubby spike with tiny white flowers. Then she twisted some wire and stuck it in.

She had three of these little votives around the main piece.



I thought they were quite cute.