A Clematis for Fall

 

 

 

 

Clematis terniflora

 

 

The sweet autumn clematis has begun to flower. This is a very vigorous vine which I originally purchased for  covering an arbor. I wasn't pleased with the result and removed it. Although I liked the fragrance and the small white flowers it was simply too large for the space.  The following spring I was surprised to find a few seedlings. I pulled most of them and move a couple to a fence that was surrounding a work area close to the house.

 

 

 

It has completely covered the fence from the gate all the way back to the tool shed. The whole length of this fence will be a solid mass of white blooms over the next several weeks. It is certainly a nicer view of that area in front of the tool shed. Another plus for this plant is that it is deer resistant.  However this plant is considered invasive in states that are to the south so I will still exercise caution watching for seedlings. So far I have not had any seedlings to come up in other areas.

 



A Few Blooms for Late July

A couple of years ago while visiting a garden fair we purchased a few lilium bulbs. They were being sold by the local daffodil society. I was assured that all I had to do was dig a hole and plant them and they would bloom.

 

I am not sure what the variety name or type is since I did not label them when I planted them. Guess you can say I was a little skeptical of his claim that they were so easy to grow. One of the bags was supposed to be 'Mother's Choice'. Doing a search on the internet I found this variety offered for sale with the description saying it would grow 3-4 feet tall. This one is easily a little over 6 feet tall.

 

 

Another of the bags was labeled Mona Lisa. Perhaps that is this one?

Whatever their name or type

I just enjoy the blooms.

 

 







We can see these blooms from our kitchen window. As we stood there this morning admiring the blooms, my husband wished we had more of them. It doesn't take much of a nudge for me to be ready to buy more plants, so I have ordered a few more.

 

Hope you are enjoying whatever is blooming in your late July garden.

 

Sue Ellen

 

Just A Little Too Much

 After two days of rain we had a thunderstorm last evening that sat over us for almost an hour and a half.

 

 

The garden beds in the lowest part of the back garden were flooded. During a lull in the storm, my DH ventured out and saw water overflowing the waterways he had created to divert the rainfall that he had hoped would prevent this from happening. If this much rain had fallen over a longer period of time I think it would have.

 

 

 

Our land drains fairly rapidly because it is mostly limestone with many underground caverns. But with this much rain it will take a while for all of it to drain away.Then the cleanup can begin. 

Eary Morning Stroll

 

 

Each summer we look forward to the time that the daylilies begin to reach peak bloom. I don't think we are quite there but we are very very close. The beds are loaded with blooms. It is wonderful to just walk through the beds early each day to see what is blooming.

 

 

 

It is always a joy to see the first blooms of a new addition to the garden. Often we purchase based on photos we have seen, sometimes it is after seeing the plant in another garden. But you are never sure if it will be exactly the same in the conditions that exist in your garden. Below are the first blooms on No Boys Allowed and I could not be more pleased with this one.

 

H. No Boys Allowed

 

 

 

 

H. Intelligent Design

 

'Intelligent Design is in its second bloom season here and the blooms are better than they were last year. With the ample moisture and cooler temperatures there are so many more buds than last year.

 

H. Bark At Me

 

I always enjoy seeing the unusual forms bloom. I love the long petals that twist and curl. 'Bark At Me' is an older daylily with a 7.5" bloom.

 

H. White Chocolate

 

Another fairly new addition to the garden, 'White Choclate' was also catching my attention this morning. It's a 7" white flower with a green throat also classified as an unusual form. It is loaded with buds so I will get to enjoy it for quite a while.

 

 

 

I finish my stroll with a look at a newer bed of daylilies. This bed was created in the fall of  2011 as I divided older clumps of daylilies from another part of the garden. As I find companion plants that do well planted with daylilies I will be adding them to the beds. We added a phlox, a few lily bulbs and verbena to this bed. The verbena reseeds and I let a lot of it bloom where it wants.

 

Hope you have time to stroll through the garden and enjoy the blooms.

 

Sue Ellen



June Blooms for GBBD

H.  'Texas Beautiful Bouquet'

Mid June brings the beginning of our daylily blooms.  We are growing close to  600 cultivars with bloom dates that range from mid June until the end of July.  The daylily pictured above is one of my favorites of the early blooming ones.

H. 'Richard William Haynes'

Blooming in a bed nearby is another early favorite. This one is classified by the American Hemerocallis Society as an unusual form.  I love the long curling petals and sepals. I first became interested in growing daylilies after seeing the round ruffled ones but I find myself drawn more and more into the unusual forms.

Echinacea 'Daydream'

There are several of the cone flowers that are beginning to bloom. E. 'Daydream' was added late last year so these are the first blooms on this plant. I am very pleased with it so far. It is planted in one of the daylily gardens.

Echinacea 'PowWow Wild Berry'

 

Last year I purchased several of the variety E. 'PowWow Wild Berry' but several of them developed the aster yellow disease. I destroyed all the plants that displayed any symptoms and so far this year have not seen any evidence of the disease. I have not purchased any new cone flowers this year. I love these colorful plants and will really miss their presence if the disease appears again this year.

 

Achillea x 'Moonshine'

 

 

Coreopsis 'Sienna Sunset'

 

The yarrow's and the coreopsis are plants that can take a lot of neglect and keep right on blooming. The coreopsis have been divided several times and moved to other areas of the garden because I can count on them to bloom.

 

Hydrangea however are not always so dependable in my garden. I keep searching for the perfect spot and I may have found a good one for the one in this first picture. It may just have been the mild winter but I am hoping that its the location. Only time will tell.

 

Hydrangea macrophylla

 

 

Hydrangea quercifolia

 

This is the first bloom ever for my oakleaf hydrangea. The deer munch on this plant every fall and winter and I was sure I would never see a bloom. I had to move the Euphorbia 'Ascot Rainbow' in order to get a good picture. But at least I have proof that it bloomed once.

 

Hydrangea macrophylla 'Lady in Red'

 

The 'Lady in Red' hydragea does bloom most years. There are lots of buds this year so I will get to enjoy it longer.

 

 

The final picture is of a Blue Star Creeper. It is new this spring and I am please that  it is blooming and spreading. This area is a small slope at the end of our rock wall garden. I am hoping that it will be vigorous enough to cover much of the slope and grow between the stones that are on the slope.

 

Isotoma fluviatillis Blue Star Creeper

 

Hope your garden is full of blooms for you to enjoy.

 

 

Sue Ellen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garden in Early June

 

Just a few glimpses of the garden in early June. We have had such wonderful weather the last couple of weeks but I have been fighting a summer cold and allergies from all the pasture grasses that are blooming all around us. I am really behind with getting some new plants in the ground and hope to make some progress this weekend.

 

 

The Kousa dogwoods are full of blooms this year. There are four blooming in our yard but this is the largest. In the foreground there are boxwood 'Wintergreen' and a couple of 'Blue Star' junipers. Behind this short hedge of boxwood are boxwood edged squares with tree form double pink knockout roses growing in containers. We just recently cut the boxwood hedges back to make them shorter to better display the roses. They still need a few weeks for the new growth to turn them back to their beautiful green.

 

The double red knockout roses are also putting on a show this week. They are blooming in front of a clematis 'General Sikorski'. In the background the Forest Pansy red bud is showing off its purple leaves. It was become one of my favorite small trees.

 



 

The Asiatic lilies have started to bloom. This is one of the very first that I bought just to try to see if they would grow in my garden so I don't have it's name. It is always one of the first to bloom. Below those blooms are the buds of one of the many daylilies that grow in my garden. 

 

 

Along the edge of a small pond we have planted elephant ears and canna. Last year we did not dig them up but instead cut them down and heavily mulched them with straw. I realize that they may not always survive our zone 6 winters but I wanted to experiment one year to see. This year with its mild winter they came through fine. Also planted here is a red twig dogwood.

 

 

 



Garden Blogger's Bloom Day for May

'Nelly Moser'

 

The last couple of weeks has brought a lot of change to the garden. There is enough blooming now to want to walk the garden each evening after work to see what might have opened during the day.

The clematis 'Nelly Moser' is as full of blooms as it has ever been. The temperatures have been mild here in Central Kentucky and there has been lots of moisture.

 

I don't have much luck with azaleas. I have tried to grow them in many different places over the 40 years that I have gardened here with mostly failures. This one has been in this location several years and this is the most bloom I have ever seen.  Is it the temperature and lots of moisture? I'm not sure, but I certainly am enjoying the show.

 

 

 

There are several iris that are blooming for the first time. These were planted two years ago but the late freeze last year damaged the buds, so what few actually tried to bloom were ugly and distorted.

 

 

These were planted at the same time and they also are all full of blooms.

 

 

I have several more iris already ordered to arrive later this summer. Seeing the blooms on these is making me glad that I will have lots of new faces to admire next year too.

 

 

The peonies are just beginning to bloom here. I love their big  blooms and just hope that we can avoid any heavy downpours for a few more days.I don't know the variety, they were plants that came from my mother in law's garden many years ago. 

I planted a few allium bulbs last fall. I ordered only a few so I could see if I would like them. Seeing them bloom the same time as the peonies has me making mental notes to add them to my list of bulbs to order this fall.

Wisteria frutescens 'Amethyst Falls'

 

Finally a wisteria that will bloom for me! This American wisteria, 'Amethyst Falls' is a far better plant for me than the Chinese or Japanese varieties. I had one of the Asian varieties for many years and fought its rampant growth and was repeatedly dismayed that the late spring frosts seemed to always get the blooms. They are beautiful but I just could not handle the maintenance required.  I have been so pleased with this variety that I purchased another one this past weekend.

 

Hope that you are enjoying the blooms that May has given us so far. There is still much to look forward too. For me the roses are just beginning to show color and daylily foliage is growing rapidly. It won't be long before I start looking for scapes to appear.

 

 

 

 



 

Iris in Bloom

Iris 'Joyful Skies'

 

 

Yesterday morning brought the first iris bloom for this year. Last year the late freeze we had caught this one full of buds. It was its first year to bloom and although it  bloomed but it was really a sad sight. So I was so pleased to see these blooms with their delicate light blue.

 

 

Iris 'Champagne Elegance'

 

 

Also blooming was an older variety that I moved to a new location last summer. It may be blooming a little earlier than usual since it is located in front of the rock wall.

 

There are still lots of iris to bloom many for the first time so I will be checking daily for the new ones to bloom. I bought some last year at an iris sale conducted by a club located in the town where my daughter lives. I took the members recommendations for ones to grow so there will be lots to enjoy this year.

 

 

Iris x hollandica

 

The dutch iris also stated to bloom this week. These are a favorite of my husband.  Because the foliage appears several weeks before they flower the tips of a lot of the leaves were nipped by the cold weather we had a couple of weeks ago which caused the brown tips on the foliage, but the buds were not in sight so their blooms will be lovely this year.

 



Spring Update

The last few weeks have been busy ones as I have tried to get the garden in shape. I always think I can get the garden cleanup done and get ahead of the weeds, but mother nature usually wins the round and I just consider myself fortunate for every bed that I can get through. There are still a couple that need some major work but at least there has been some progress.

 

Just a couple of pictures to highlight plants that I have really enjoyed so far this spring.

 

 

A new tulip was added to the garden for this spring, Tulip 'Spring Green'. I first heard of this tulip in a post by fairegarden last November. Because of her comment that they had been perennial for her since planting them in 2010, I decided to give them a try. Their first year has been beautiful. Now if they will just return for me. I love the simplicity of the green and white bloom.

 

A large weeping cherry tree is under planted with candytuft (Iberis sempervirens) and forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica). Both are easy to grow ground covers for me and create a lovely blue and white scene in the spring garden. The forget-me-nots reseed themselves readily and there I times that I am fussing as I pull them up when they seem to taking over the garden, but they can also make me smile when I see them like this. The candytuft has also been especially lovely this spring.

 

 

Boxes arriving in the mail with new plants for this year. There are still a couple more to come so I will be busy planting over the next few days. I am lucky that I have a shade house where I can hold plants if they come during a rainy week. 

 

Spring is Here!! Well Maybe Not.

Spring has been here in bits and pieces so far this year. Last weekend we had temperatures in the mid to upper 50's. I checked the buds on most of the flowering trees and even saw a few buds opening on the Star Magnolia (magnolia stellata). Mid week we had a low of 19 degrees. Most of those buds are now a dirty brown. It has been a chilly rainy weekend so I spent my time looking at some older pictures and realized that this time last year we had lots of bloom.

 

Prunus subhirtella



The weeping cherry was in full bloom.

 

 

 

There were tulips blooming. They must be planted close to the house to keep the deer from eating them, so they are always special when I get to see them bloom.

 

 

These were the blooms I could see from my kitchen window last year. There are only a few green leaves up this year.

 

These photos were taken on March 22 of last year. Even though there is part of me wishing this is what I was seeing outside today I know that it is probably better to wait a while longer because I also remember the late freeze we had in April of last year that ruined most of the first rose flush and so many other plants that were rushing to bloom because of an extra early spring.

 

I will be content to wait for the weather to warm just a little more, and enjoy the pictures that I took last year to remind me of what lays in store. Spring just has to be around the corner now!

 

 



Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day March 2013

The Ice Follies daffodils are beginning to bloom and there are still lots of buds to open....

 

 



 

More of the older unknown daffodils are still blooming too.

 

Ivory Prince

 

 

The 'Ivory Prince' hellebore is beginning to bloom. I've read that the old leaf stalks should be cut down so that the blooms are more visible. I didn't have to do that....something did it for me. So far they haven't come back for the blooms. We know there are herds of deer on our property, but there are also lots of rabbits, and other wild critters. There are several other hellebores in the garden but the others did not fare as well from being eaten back.

 

 

 

I am probably too anxious for more blooms since it is still just the middle of March, but I am still searching for signs of buds on any warm day. Until there are more I do have a few moth orchids to enjoy inside.

 

 

Hoping your enjoying your gardens and thank you to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting the bloom day each month. There are so many beautiful gardens to see.

 

Sue Ellen

Still Blooming after all these years

 

 

When we moved into our home 40 years ago this past month, it wasn't long before these bright flowers greeted us. They are still the first of the daffodils to bloom here. It is so good to see them because for me they are the herald of spring.

 

It was warm enough yesterday and today to work outside for part of the afternoon. I have started to clean up a few of the perennial beds and I am delighted that there are small signs of plants waking up and letting me know that they have survived another winter.

 

The beds are not that great looking yet, still too much of last years stalks waiting on the gardener to get them cleared away. It doesn't take many warm hours for me to be anxious to spend as much time as possible in the garden. I am just thankful for another season to enjoy the beauty that nature has in store.

Waiting for Spring

I am anxious to get back in the garden, eager for there to be a few days in March that will be warm enough to venture out. There are signs that spring  will soon be here.

 

This photo was taken last year on Feb 27 but looking out my kitchen window this is pretty much what I see today. In a bed on the western side of the house there are the old time March lilies blooming. These are plants that were here when we moved in 40 years ago.

 

I have all the symptoms of a gardener itching to get back to playing in the dirt. I am spending my weekends pouring over plant catalogs and websites making lists of plants I would like to try, staring out the window and making mental notes of plants that I want to move and noting beds that need to be cleaned up before new growth appears.

 

Next weekend promises to be a pretty one. Hope Mother Nature hasn't fooled the forecasters. If possible I hope to be very busy and happily tired by this time next week.