Trebbiano Dahlia from Breck's

A few days ago my first Trebbiano dahlia from Breck's bloomed. I was so excited that it was indeed black as it was advertised to be (well, at least as "black" as a flower can be).  I think it's gorgeous and it goes just as I had planned with the urns flanking my garage.

 In early June I spent considerable time choosing plants to fill these two new urns.

 I am thrilled that my combination of dark plants  with an unexpected "punch" of late summer color is performing as I expected--at least in one of the urns.

I planted them exactly the same with purple fountain grass, Tropicannas, Trebbiano dahlias, purple heart, asparagus fern and a coleus.  You can see them freshly planted in late May and get my planting "recipe"  by clicking here.   Every two weeks or so, I switched their positions so they would get exactly the same amount of sun.

Here are both urns on Saturday, August 6, 2011:

 They both look pretty good, BUT urn #2 has no Trebbiano dahlia as this close up will prove.

Yes, another Breck's Dud--only one of the two dahlias I purchased came up.  50% success seems to be par for the course.

Here is Trebbiano's description in Breck's own words: "Blooms start out a deep pitch black. As they grow, pointed outer petals change colour to ruby red while centre remains black"

That seems to be true. The  outer petals are indeed changing to ruby red. How exciting!

I also love that my planting choices  go so nicely with the Ninebark shrubs I planted last month.

All in all, I love Trebbiano! I don't love that only one of the two I purchased came up. Now I have a very lopsided planting. 

Here is a bit of trivia for you: Trebbiano is the name of an Italian  wine grape. Juding from my Trebbiano's color, I would have to guess it's a red wine.

These urns are just beginning to show their stuff. The Tropicanna lilies will be blooming soon--big tall ORANGE flowers (that's the unexpected "punch of color" I mentioned in the beginning of this post) .  I noticed a bud on one of them today.

 I can't wait to show you the urns in their full glory.  I think the planting is quite successful, despite the Trebbiano failure in urn #2.

Stay tuned for the Tropicanna bloom update.

I am linking to Jean's Blooming Tuesday today. Please pop over there and see what everyone else has blooming. Jean's linky party is a very friendly one. Almost everybody visits each other's post and comments.  It's not like some of the others with hundreds of people joining, but nobody bothers to visit anyone.  If you have something you would like to share, I am sure Jean would love to have you link up.

Lots of Purple Phlox and a Couple New Blooms

I have a lot of purple phlox blooming right now.  The aqua blue milkcan is right next to this arbor. It is surrounded by purple phlox as well as the pink dahlias.  You can see just a touch of its blue color at the bottom of this photo:

 Note the brown grass. It is really tough to have a decent-looking garden when the grass goes dormant from lack of rain. We did some rain yesterday, so that should help.

The planters on the arbors have not done nearly as good as I expected them to. By now they should be hanging down at least 3 feet.  You can still see the planters and it's nearly mid-August.

The phlox in the front of the pic below is called 'Little Laura'. As the name implies, it's a short phlox. LL is perfect for the front of borders or along paths as mine is planted here. The color is very bright, a bit harsh, so that may discourage some people from planting it.

This purple phlox is in front of the new path. So now I know the mildewy phlox I removed was white.

On the deck another dahlia is blooming. This one is a plain Jane compared to Myrtle.

 The first canna has bloomed. It's called Tropicanna Black. TP is my tallest canna - over six feet.

Farmer's Market Treasures

Today was our once-a-year farmer's market flea market.  DH and I were there at 7:30 a.m. They don't officially open until 8:00 a.m., but if you arrive early, they always let you buy. 

I got some garden treasures (well, to me anyway).  What do you think?

I got all of this for $16!  Do any of you know what the rusty thing on the left is?  I think it may be some sort of kerosene heater???? The moment I saw it, I thought it would be a great garden "art" accessory.  I got it for $4.

For the time being, I put it in this little garden:

DH really likes it.  I am happy when he takes an interest in the garden.

I think I will use the watering can for it's original purpose--watering plants.I put in on the
potting bench:

I think for the time being I will also use the big metal wash tub as a wash tub.  I like to use them as planters, but I don't want to poke holes in the bottom. Sometimes I need a big wash tub.

The blue granite coffee pot will be a vase for fresh flowers. I have a skinny one, but I like this big fat one.

I did buy some fresh garden veggies:

summer squash, zucchini, carrots and these strange beets (they remind me of a rodent). I guess they are supposed to be the creme de la creme of beets---elongated, not round.  I think I will roast them in the oven early tomorrow morning and have them with the Roast Beef Rouladen I am planning for tomorrow's dinner.

It has been a hot humid day today...too hot and humid to do any garden work.  In fact I was out trying to find a place of the new garden "art" piece and one of the neighbors drove by and yelled "it's too hot to  do that!"  I was the only person in the neighborhood who was outside working in this awful humid weather!

Making a Few More Changes

This is the time of year when I get a little bored looking at the same things in the same places in the garden.  I decided the aqua blue milk can would look good with the pink Park Princess dahlias, so I moved it  here (where the rusty milkcan used to be).

Now that I have so much pink in the area, I am wishing that I had not moved the red daylilies here last year.  Ah, well, that's the fun or gardening.........always changing things.

 I put the rusty milk can where the aqua can has been all summer.

  The rust color goes nicely with the red daylilies and the reddish canna leaves that predominate during August.

I also moved the Ligularia (tall yellow spikes above) to the deck. You may remember the Ligularia is planted in a container so it's easy to move.

Here it is on the deck where I can enjoy its last few days of bloom.

The Lamb's Ear flowers were getting too tall, shooting out in all directions, and beginning to droop.

I cut them down,  which really perked up the front of this border.

The lavender is now dying so this area is not looking as good as in this pic which is a few days old.

I am at the point where it is very, very difficult to make these gardens look good!

Some rain would help so that the brown grass surrounding the gardens would return to its dark green color. Nothing brings the garden down like dead grass.  We got a bit of rain three days ago, but not enough to do much good.

I have to water the containers every day after work. To do both the deck and garden containers, it takes a good hour of hose dragging. . . hate that!  But it must be done, so I am going out now to get it done.  Hope you all have a great weekend. I plan to get a lot of minor projects done this weekend.

Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosey

Monday I got home from work and decided to clean some raspberries that my MIL picked from her garden.  I took a big stainless steel bowl and filled it full of water, and swished the berries around a bit.  I dumped out the water and then refilled  and went through the same procedure one more time. The berries looked clean, so I dumped the second BIG bowl of water down the drain and left the berries to dry.

About an hour later I went back to the kitchen sink and I was stepping in water...what? I opened the doors under the sink and everything was soaking wet! Water was dripping down through the closed doors.

Bummer!

I grabbed three big beach towels and started sopping up water from the floor. Then I removed all the stuff from under the sink and sponged up all the water. Now what?  I'm no plumber....I reached up to touch the round plastic thing right under the sink and it was very loose.  Immediately the righty tighty, left loosey rhyme went through my mind. So I turn the thing right to tighten it up.

 Then I decide to turn the one on the opposite side just in case it's loose, too...

and water starts pouring out! How can it pour out when I am tightening it?  I quickly turned it back, wiped up the water and called DH at work.  He told me to put a bucket under it and leave it until he gets home.  Sounds good to me.

 I hate when life's little distractions happen in my life, especially when I am home alone.

Enough about plumbing...

What's this friend connect stuff with followers? Sometimes I get a new follower  and I click on the name to send a thank-you-for-the-follow message and I get something that says I need friend connect........I have no idea what that is, so I just click out and I can't send a message.

So if I have a new follower without a blog, I thank you for the follow! I just can't figure out how to send an email to you. I hate for you to think that I dissed you, because I would never knowingly do so!
Please know that I appreciate all of you who find my blog interesting enough to come back day after day!

Now for my garden pic of the day........and not a pretty one this time!

So sad!

Dahlia 'Myrtle's Folly'

Remember this bud-about-to-open from last week?

Day 1 - July 30, 2011 - 7:30 am.

The bud  opened  and  I looked up my Breck's invoice to see what I had ordered.

No wonder I don't remember ordering this. Myrtle looks nothing like the picture I ordered from--not even remotely the right color. But I do love the rich raspberry color & the raggedy edges, so I am not terribly disappointed.

 I even like the odd light pink petals in the back. So far the only slight negative is that the flower is on the small side.

 I soon discovered that Myrtle was not what she appeared to be.

Just twelve hours after opening she's changing colors.  Her open twisted petals are revealing yellows with gentle brush strokes of orange...

Day 2 - July 31, 8:00 a.m. -

Day 2 - 12 hours later (July 31, 7:30 pm) - her fuzzy-looking petals are now more purple than raspberry. 

It looks like a fire is burning in the center and she's getting bigger.

Day 4 - August 2 - 6:30 a.m.  I run out before leaving for work to see what she looks like. .. pretty much the same as yesterday. She is triple the size of Day 1.  I put my outstretched hand behind her and took a picture.

You cannot even see my hand! 
 I got a tape measure to see how big she was. The ad I purchased from said she would be 8 inches.

It's pretty difficult to hold the tape measure and take a picture. I think she's about 7 inches--close enough for me.

4:00 pm- 8/2/11 -  Side view

Notice the raindrops?  Whooo Hoooo it's raining!

She finally ended up as a big 7-inch  yellow/pink/purple powder puff--totally different than when she first opened!

I have had such fun with Myrtle's Folly's first bloom. It was a thrill for me to go out each day to see what colors appeared and how much bigger she was.  

I am 100% happy with this dahlia from Breck's!

Update 8/6/2011 2pm :  Day 8 and Myrtle is still looking good.

I try to be very honest with reviews of the flowers I get from this company.  If they do good, I tell you. If they do bad, I tell you.  I ordered 3 different dahlias last fall.  I was really excited about this one, called 'Santa Claus'.

When I planted 'Santa Claus', the tubers did not look good--pretty skimpy.

I planted both  in one container.  I almost cried when NOTHING came up!  Zero, Zilch, Nada. A total waste of my hard-earned money.

So far I have had one good/one very bad. I still have one more to show you. Only one of the two tubers came up in the next dahlia, which is just beginning to bloom. It's a black star-shaped dahlia which is supposed to turn to a red color as it ages.  Two flowers just opened and they are indeed black. I am excited to see what happens with them. I will show you what happens next week.

Picture Frames around deck containers

My deck containers do not begin to fill out until late July.    Once they do,I  have fun turning the space into my outdoor living room. Most of the plants are too heavy to lift easily, so I just drag them about until I am happy with the look.

On the weekends I like to bring out all sorts of items to make the deck more homey--.rugs, quilts, pillows, magazines-- even my old bathroom closet door ---really, it's behind this table.  I hated louvered doors in the bathroom, but I love them as deck accessories. Last year it was bright yellow, this year it's turquoisey blue. (I will have the paint color info at the end of this post)

 See the picture frame I showed you yesterday?  I decided my summer living room needed some artwork on the walls so I framed a plant.

Actually two plants were framed. I now think the frames are too blah and I should have painted them a bright red or orange.

I had originally planned to paint the white glider green, but decided against it when I realized how much work was involved. It was much easier to just touch it up with white solid stain when we did the lattice last month.

I love how an outdoor rug warms up a seating area.

The hanging basket plant, Silver Shield, is getting a purple flower. Bonus! I had no idea this
fuzzy-foliaged spiller bloomed. I hope it gets tons of blooms because the whole container is pretty boring. See how thickly the grouping of flowers along this area is arranged?  There is a reason. One, this side gets the afternoon sun.

But mainly, it's to cover stuff like this ugly trailer parked just feet from my deck:

The trailer comes and goes, but now I am prepared when it reappears.

Here is the eating/grilling end of the deck, which is quite sparsely planted compared to the living room end.

I wanted to show you the two whiskey barrels. See the liatris in the one on the left side? It's huge! I need to remove half of it this fall and plant it in the barrel on the other side. Remind me to do that, OK? I know I will forget.

Saturday Barb from Barb and Dell Designs asked me the color of green paint I used for the picture frames.

I have to thank Cindy from Custom Comforts for finding this fabulous shade of green. In early June I left her a comment about the color she painted some wicker furniture and she was nice enough to email back with this info: " It is a Home Depot Behr Paint called Marsh Fern (410D-4). The card number in the top right corner is 420D and I bought it in the paint plus primer version, so I wouldn't have to prime the furniture first." Knowing the number to look for in the top corner really helped me to find the color quickly.  I was touched that Cindy would take the time to give me such detailed info. It was the first time I had visited her blog and she did not know me at all. Thanks again, Cindy!

The blue paint is Sherwin Williams Rapture Blue. Here is the formula:

I am partying over at Jean's Blooming Tuesday  and Fishtail Cottage for Flora Thursday. Come on over and join the fun!