New Arrangement #2

I just moved the blue salvia here because I thought it looked nice with the yellow lantana.

Since I had to move many containers to sweep the deck, I did a bit of rearranging. In the front of the picture around the hibiscus, I clustered some foliage plants.

Close Up of the new arrangement.

This is what I have been coming home to every night this week. You would think this impatiens had not been watered for days, when, in fact, it was watered yesterday afternoon. Today it is in the 90's with a heat index of close to 100. . . WAY TOO HOT for us Michiganders!

This is the same begonia as the one below. It is from last season.

Tuberous Begonia

This tuberous begonia is just beginning to look nice. It is one I saved from last year, so it is very exciting to get a second year of bloom. Last year this was just loaded with bright red blooms, so I am expecting the same in a few weeks time.

Looking through the arbor toward the road.

There is not much happening in the gardens right now. The black-eyed Susans have started to open, but are not yet in full bloom. As with the majority of my flowers this year, they are smaller than normal. Here are two arbor views that I took at 7:45 pm tonight.

Purple Fountain Grass Develops its Seed Heads

This is the first year I have tried purple fountain grass, ('Rubrum' Pennisetum setaceum). I bought two of them and after getting them home, I really did not know where to plant them. I first put them in with the hibiscus, then decided they would get too tall and moved them to the rockwall garden. After a week in the rockwall garden, I decided it was too far away to appreciate them, so I dug them up again and just put them in a pot, so I could move them around. Lord knows, I live to move things around! One of them currently resides in a purple grouping on the deck. I think I like this grass. I am glad I put it on the deck where I can walk by often and run my fingers over its "purple nodding seed plumes" which are very soft. It is a perennial in warmer climates, so I am going to try to overwinter it.

I had Good Intentions (I really did)

I had good intentions early this morning of working in the gardens. I went out as soon as it was light (a bit after 6 a.m.), grabbed a wheelbarrow and begun pulling out all of the spent blooms on the sedum. Remember all of that lovely white stuff in my rockwall garden? Well, now it is brown and ugly. I just grab handfuls of it and yank it out. I had an entire wheelbarrow full in just one area. I probably would have hand 3 wheelbarrows full if I had not reached down, grabbed a handful and as I was lifting my hand up, there was a snake all curled up sleeping right where I had just removed the sedum. YIIIKKKKEEESSSS......I hate slithering reptiles--I jumped back and then bent over to take another peek just to make sure that it was indeed a snake. It did not move for a full 30 seconds or so before it uncurled and slithered forward. I must have been within a 1/4 inch of actually grabbing it!

After such a close call, there was no way I was going to reach into any more of the sedum. My desire to garden was completely gone. That is when I went inside and decided to work on the light fixture (see post below). So I did virtually no gardening today, which was fine, as I had done some the past few evenings and most of desperate-to-be-done stuff is done. I did just finish watering the containers. Earlier in the day I stuck a few scarecrows in a few of the deck plants just so I had something different to look at.

I spent about 2 hours this morning cleaning up this solid brass and copper outdoor light fixture. Last year our hotel was renovated and these are the original fixtures we had outside 27 years ago. Yes, I had to clean 27 years of tarnish and grime off this baby, but just look how beautiful it turned out! There are glass inserts for each side, which are not in the picture and another piece that goes on the top that I have not yet cleaned. It will replace a smaller nondescript fixture on the deck. I can sit and admire my handiwork every summer morning while I drink my coffee. Can you tell I REALLY like this light?

Hosta Blooms - Love 'em or Hate 'em?

I don’t particularly like most hosta blooms.

In the front glider garden, I cut them all off as soon as the stalks shoot up. To me, they just look like a big mess in that area. In the rockwall garden, I am not as picky and I leave most of them for at least a while.

I have seen some hosta blooms that actually look good. The ones we have at work are very nice. They are on shorter, more sturdy stems and the flowers themselves are bigger.

So what does everyone else think about hosta blooms?

All of the orange flowers are now gone. Everything will be pink, purple & gold when the asters, black-eyed Susan and the sedum burst into bloom.

Still no sign of bloom on the canna.

These borders have been cleaned up and are awaiting their last big flush of color.

Bee balm, coneflowers and black-eyed Susans (almost open).

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 was a wonderfully cool day today. It rained early in the day and the temperature stayed in the 70 degree range, which was quite nice for a change of pace. I did not even have to water tonight (the second day this week that I did not have to). I noticed tonight that my arbor baskets are finally filling out so that they are almost completely covered. If you have been reading my blog for long, you know that one of my pet peeves is baskets or containers that show. I want full, full, full bunches of flowers so that you cannot see what they are contained in. This basket is not quite there, but much better than it has been.