Chenille Plant

This is the first year I have tried to grow the Chenille Plant. I am hoping it spreads fast and furious now that the warm weather is here. This is in a wall planter so there is plenty of room for it to flow down in beautiful red fuzzy tails.

Since we have had no rain for two weeks everything is looking dull and parched. The only thing I could find to take a picture of was my shadow.

Little did I know that DH was in the bathroom window watching me with my arms above my head dancing about with my camera held in the air.

He said he was about to call mental health because there was a crazy woman in his backyard. LOL.

Ya gotta have a little fun now and then.

Pictures Fool the Eye

Doesn't this dame's rocket make a perfect border for this picture?

I think it looks very nice.

In the picture, that is.........

In real life, it was way too tall and stood out like a sore thumb.

I pulled it right after taking this photo.

It's so much fun to play with a digital camera. I am learning more every day about how those garden magazines make those borders look so nice! There are so many tricks to fool the eye.

Moral of the story: Only believe half of what you see here. LOL

Stash Buster Quilt

Remember this quilt I finished piecing in spring '05?

I am finally getting around to quilting it.

I used a 100% cotton batting for the first time and I don't like it at all. The backing sticks to the batting and forms wrinkles and creases. With the poly I usually use, it's very easy to run your hand over, pull and get rid of the wrinkles--the backing fabric slides easily.

It's a Mountain Mist batting that I bought years ago and never used. Maybe it's defective or something.


I've decided not to waste much time on this one and am doing a combination of quilting and tying. Only the plain blocks are getting quilted with interlocking circles. I think there are 16 of these blocks. The remainder will be tied.

I've found the dining room table works great for tying.

Today Is Flag Day

It has led every battle fought by America.

It waves proudly on the moon.

Many have lost their lives defending it.

Fly it proudly.

Off to Work

Every morning I take a giant whiff of the peonies before heading out the door.

(Ever try to take your own pic with your nose stuffed in a peony?....not an easy task)

Have a great day everyone!

Allium Molly

This allium is very different from the big round purple balls I had blooming a few weeks ago.

Molly is short (12" max) with small yellow flowers. She's not fully in bloom here. The little star flowers will form more of a small ball as soon as the lower ones emerge.

Molly's not too picky, freely putting out her blooms whether full sun or mild shade.

She's a great front-of-the-border plant if you want a splash of sunny color.

One of the More Beautiful

Weeds

It's called Hawkweed.
It is also known as Devil's Paintbrush and probably many other names.
Isn't it beautiful in macro mode?

Dianne asked what I did with these beauties after I photographed them.
I yanked them out by the roots as fast as I could and tossed those babies far over the rockwall. Beautiful as they are, they are still weeds and I surely don't want them setting and dropping seeds all over my garden!

Whiskey Barrel Planter

Here is this year's combo:

I have Tropicana cannas in the back which should grow 3+ feet tall and have wide richly-colored striped leaves. If you click to make the pic larger, you can see the cannas beginning. They will have bright orange flowers. The canna is the focal point of the barrel -- or will (hopefully) be at some point. The pot of orangey marigolds is just temporary. It will be removed when the cannas begin to fulfill their duties.

I have used Spilanthes (also called eyeball, peek a boo, or toothache plant) in front of the tall yellow daisies. Off to the left side is the bright yellow cascading 'biden' flowers. In the front I have the 'parrot's beak' which will also have orange flowers and a blackish ipomea. I hope to have what the garden designer's are currently calling a "sophisticated" color scheme.


I call it "using what you have (the big cannas) to frugally fill a whiskey barrel".

Valerian

Valerian is a 4 - 5ft. tall perennial herb with delicate fern-like leaves. The flowers are a pinkish white with a sweet scent that is quite irresistible to butterflies.

The name is derived from the Latin word "Valere", which means well-being.

The plant's root has been ground and used for centuries to reduce stress and help people to sleep.

I did find one fact about Valerian that I did not know.

It was once grown for its strong smelling carrot-shaped root.
Evidently this root smell attracts animals, especially rats, and according to legend was the secret ingredient carried by the Pied Piper of Hamlin.

Hmmmm, that should stop everyone from growing it!

I swear, I have NEVER seen a rat near my Valerian.

Paeonia Festiva Maxima (I think)

I waited over 15 years for this peony to bloom.

That's no typo.

Last year the plant had two blooms - the first since I planted them 15+ years prior.

This year the plant had all of these flowers. I cut every one off and brought them inside so I can thoroughly enjoy the pleasures of my patience.

I have two other peonies I planted back then that still have not bloomed. I have moved them two or three times in those years thinking that was the problem. They are not planted too deeply. I was very careful about that. I planted white and pink and so far no pink.
Each year I get a little bit of foliage, but no blooms...............yet......one of them did have a bud this year, but it dried up. I know now there is still hope.

Patience is a virtue.

Combo I Really Like

Unfortunately by the time my snow-in-summer blooms, the poppies are nearly done.

This is the only clump I have left.

I just got a call from my son. He is on his way home (he lives 250 miles away). He called to tell me they stopped at a nursery to buy plants.
Like mother, like son.
LOL

"Off with their Heads!" I say, "Off!"

Unlike many, I don't find the dying allium heads swaying in the wind to be beautiful. At least not in the front area where these were.

They may find their way into an indoor arrangement. I need a different big arrangement to put on top of the dining room china cabinet.

We shall see....

The Weed Saga Continues

I think I found another of the same weed like the one with the big fat horseradish-looking root.
Thank you all for helping me to identify it. I am going to let this one flower so I can find out for sure what it is.

Annie in Austin and Sandy thought it might be comfrey. I goggled it and it does not seem to be that one. Sandy also suggested centaura, which I have in another area and went out and compared the foilage. Quite similar but not the same.

I am inclined to think that Kathy might have something with her suggestion that it is a relative of evening primrose . . . Oenothera genus. If little yellow flowers appear, we might have it identified.

I know you will all be waiting with bated breath to see the bloom.


The specimen on the left is the new one in my garden. On the right is a primrose I nabbed off google images.

My Son and My Only Grandchild

Her name is Allie.

Isn't she adorable?

She's spoiled rotten.

If Kristopher goes inside the house, she lays right down and cries until he comes back out.

(I am a terrible Grandmother. I don't let her in the house.)

DH just came and told me we have frost warnings again tonight. We had them last night but I did not know until I was ready for bed and I just left all the plants out. Luckily it did not frost.

I don't think I can luck out twice, so I am off to lug plants to the garage.

Someone remind me what it is that I like about container gardening..............

Cruel, Cruel Mother Nature

Frost Warning Tonight from 2:00am until 8:00 am
The plants that were easy to carry went into the garage
Everything else was covered in old sheets, blankets, drop cloths.
I really should not have to do this on June 10th

Take a Vacation While You're in Blogland

"How?" you ask.

Go visit Pea's blog.

She has posted the most wonderful slideshow of Niagra Falls.

I've never been there, but I feel like I have now that I've seen her slideshow.

Thanks so much, Pea, for sharing that with all of us.

Ugly Period

My garden is pretty ugly right now. I've found that there's no way to avoid these awkward transition times.

The beautiful purple spring blooming ground covers have faded and the summer bloomers have not yet begun. We have not had rain in over a week and the grass is turning brown.

It's always such a let down to see it go.









I do have one new bloomer -- Snow-In-Summer (Cerastium tomentosum).

This was one of my very early seed successes.
If I can grow it from seed, you know it's easy to do.

Snow-in-Summer is so named because of the very white flowers that completely cover the fuzzy silver/grey foliage on this 6-inch high ground cover. It truly looks like a low mound of newfallen snow.

The only care this plant gets is a good weeding in early spring. Weeding is no easy chore, because just like creeping phlox, this plant forms a dense mat.
It can take a good beating, though, and digging underneath to release the grass/weeds does not seem to bother it at all.

It's very drought tolerant. I never water it and it's been coming back each spring for the past 15 years.

I would not normally be walking through my garden in flip flops because I am way too concerned about a snake or other insect touching my flesh. I had just given myself a pedicure and was waiting for the polish to dry so I ventured out (around the edges of the bed only).


Remember the ipomea pots I saved from last year? Those lovely large pots that were hanging on each side of my arbor?
Well, it's been a good 4-5 weeks since I brought them out and they have just begun to emerge.

At this rate they won't be large enough to put out for another month.
So are they worth saving ?

Without a greenhouse, not really.
I have had to lug them in out of the garage during the entire month of May.
Way too much work for something that will not even be presentable until my garden season is at least half over.

If you have an area to hide them for the first two months, then I guess they would make a free change of scenery later in the season.

Osteospermum 'Orange Symphony'

I love this orange daisy with the violet-blue eye. It's a prolific producer of blooms and is a Proven Winner. However, it has one annoying little habit that is really beginning to bug me.

It closes up whenever there is an overcast day or the sun moves direction.

Interestingly that was never mentioned in any of the glowing Proven Winner information.


For those new to gardening who are unaware of Proven Winners, I went to their site and gathered a bit of info for you:

The goals of Proven Winners are to introduce the best, most unique, high performing plants, to produce them under the highest quality standards, and to market the plants innovatively. Proven Winners plants are unsurpassed in terms of flowering, growth habit, disease resistance, and garden performance.

No other plant line goes through the same rigorous plant selection process, which takes 2-3 years and occurs at facilities in the U.S. and Canada, as well as at trial stations in Europe, South Africa, and Japan. Every Proven Winners variety is protected by U.S. and Canadian patents. What also separates Proven Winners is its viral control process, which is second to none.

Besides producing better flowering plants, Proven Winners is also credited with creating the "container gardening" craze, and making new plant genera known. Most consumers had never heard of Bacopa, Nemesia, Verbena, etc. until Proven Winners introduced these varieties.

Make the Type Bigger

To make the type bigger when reading blogs (or anything else for that matter) hold down the "Ctl" key and put your finger on the wheel in the center of your your mouse. You can make the print bigger or smaller depending on which direction you push the wheel.

Of course, you must have a mouse with the wheel in the center to do this.

Blue Iris is Purple

So what's new? Boy, I just hate it when they sell me "blue" and it's as purple as can be! Does this look blue to you?

It's partially my own fault.

I've been gardening long enough to know that there are very few true blue flowers, yet I still fall for their less-than-honest selling tactics.

I planted this iris two years ago and this is the first bloom. It almost always takes two years for a new iris to bloom in my garden. Yet some of you get beautiful flowers the next year (I'm thinking of Dianne's beauties she just planted last fall).

What's your secret?

Wild Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis)

As a kids, we called this flower "honeysuckle".

It seems to me we used to bite the tips off and suck out some sort of sweet liquid. . . or maybe we just thought there was a sweet nectar because of the name.

I wouldn't suck on them today as I believe I read they are poisonous.

I found a couple growing in my garden yesterday. I usually pull them out when I see them because to me wild flowers should be in the wild, not in my garden.

But I must admit, they have a quiet beauty. The one growing with the dame's rocket/phlox is very tall (I've never seen one so tall), while the one below is quite short and just peeking out of the daylilly foliage. I think I will let these two live on.

Last Poppy Post, I promise!

But I came home today and the good poppies were in full bloom. These are the ones I think are the 'oriental' poppies.

At this point, though, I just don't know what I have!
Below is a picture of the center of both the good and the bad.
Does this help anyone to identify them?








Good


Bad

Star of Persia (Allium christophii)

Just beginning to open.















and 5 days later...almost all opened


Christophii is quite short, blooming at about 1 to 2 feet high. I like that.

I have had these bulbs 3 years. The first year the blooms were HUGE - like a foot across. Each year they seem to get smaller, which I think looks better than the gigantic balls they had in year one.

I am not really in love with christophii; I like Persian blue's tight head of darker purple much better.

Though not my favorite, Christophii's airy spidery head is an interesting additon to my little blooming onion family.

Here is the Christophii with the Persian blue and another taller variety (I can't remember which at the moment).


I really need to underplant them with something that will hide their foliage. Alliums are well known for presenting scruffy foliage at bloom time.

Siberian Iris and Chives

I grow a lot of chives.

Occasionally I use them for garnish or on cottage cheese.

What I really grow them for is the cute little purple ball flowers.

Are you getting the impression that I really like round flowers? LOL

The Old Ricketty Chair

Is Back!



I had planned to toss it last year, but after DH sturdied it up a bit, I decided to give it another whirl.

It's not all that lovely at the moment, but let us not judge until mid July after it has time to fill out a bit.

Don't you just hate having to wait so long for container plants to fill in? If you ever watch the TV gardeners plant containers, they look lush and full right from the start because they don't start with 6-pack annuals. They use 4" containers and larger. It's nice to be able to do that, but VERY, VERY costly.









I did 4 containers at work this year.
Two like this



As you can see, I am not nearly as frugal with the company funds. LOL.

These big planters look pretty nice already and I just did them 2 weeks ago.






I used 4 nice sized Tropicanna Gold callas and was very surprised to see one blooming already.
















The other two planters are not as full. I am going for foliage here and very little flowers. Only the calla and the Scaevola( hanging in the front) will have flowers. I have 'Ruffles' coleus and 'Purple knight' alternanthera which should fill out nicely. At least that's the plan...

The Pleasure of Reading

This weekend I read the entire novel, The Runaway Quilt, by Jennifer Chiaverini.

I read in the car, in the hotel room, sprawled on the family room sofa, gently rocking in the glider on the deck--just about anyplace I could find to sit and hold the book.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, my first thought was to grab the book and finish the last two chapters. I had to find out what happened to the babies (and I was happy that I had guessed correctly).

It's been a long time since I was so engrossed in a book.
It was pure pleasure.

I hated for it to end. (that's how I measure the success of novel...if I feel remorse that I've finished, it was a good read)

So I started reading another in the same series, The Sugar Camp Quilt. I am half done with that one.

I think there are 9 books so far in the Elmcreek quilt series. I have read only three. I should print myself a list and try to read them in their chronilogical sequence. In the book I am currently reading, I already know things about the characters that I should not know.

If you are looking for some easy summer reading, you might enjoy a book or two in this series. Chiaverini gives you enough information that you can enjoy any one of them even if you have not read its predecesor. You do not have to be a quilter to enjoy these, but if you are, the read will be greatly enhanced by the starring roles quilts play in each novel.

I had such a wonderful relaxing weekend.
And to top it all off,while crossing the Mackinac Bridge late Friday afternoon on my trip north, we saw this lovely rainbow over Mackinac Island.

I got home Saturday Afternoon

and my iris's had begun to open

Can't Wait to Get Back to Work Tomorrow

so I can rest!

Oh, my, what an exhausting day I've had. I worked outside for hours (I can't be wasting a "vacation" day relaxing) and got tons accomplished.

One of the things I did was finish removing the obedient plant from this area.

Remember I hit it with RoundUP a couple of weeks ago? Well, I missed a lot of it, so I ended up digging the rest out. Then I threw in Zinnia seeds - all red and yellow.

I am sure the Obedient plant will be making an appearance for years to come as I did not get every little piece of the root (it's nearly impossible to do). At least most of it is gone.

Who among my loyal readers is a weed expert?

I admit to knowing very little about weeds. I know which of my plants are weeds, but I rarely know which weed -- I spend too much time pulling them and have no time left to investigate what they are! LOL

Here is a big weed I pull every year


















And here is the root of the weed

Does anyone know what it is?




















How about this ligularia (the rocket) - Does anyone know what might be eating it? Slugs, perhaps?

I Planted My Vegetable Garden at 5:30 a.m.

Yes, that's it.
Just one pot of 'Big Boy' tomatoes.
One of the chefs at work started them from seed and gave me two plants.

I took a vacation day today from work so I was able to indulge in my favorite gardening time - 5:30 a.m. until about 8:00 a.m.
It's so peaceful then.
In addition to planting the tomatoes, I spent about an hour edging and weeding.

Now I have to shower to get to the dentist by 9:00 a.m. to have a crown put on.

Then I will be back home to work outside some more.

It should be a wonderful day.