This fuschia was overwintered in my basement. It's just starting to bud now that it's outside.
perennial foxglove
blue torenia. Bees adore these.
Dragonwing begonia - it was blooming profusely, but was too leggy when I brought it home. I pinched it, and it's just beginning to bud again.
Heliotrope. One of my favorite annuals. The blooms are larger in full sun, but they still bloom in part sun too. The flowers are very long-lasting. This fragrant, old-fashioned annual is easy to start from cuttings. This one was overwintered in the basement.
double impatiens. I pinched these too, and the buds are just starting to open now (finally!)
impatiens spilling out of a broken pot. This pot broke perfectly for this. It's got a large v-shaped piece missing on the side. I picked it from the garbage at the nursery where I work.
Daylily Happy Returns
Rozanne Geranium, starts blooming in late May and blooms until October. It's 2008 Perennial of the Year. My favorite geranium, and one of my favorite blooming plants for part sun. I killed both of mine last year trying to divide them. I bought four more this year, and they're just starting to bloom now. Needless to say, I won't be dividing them.
Lamium. Love the foliage, blooms beautifully in the shade.
Lamium close up.
Down the primrose path. Um, well, down the impatiens path actually. These shots were all taken in the morning sun. Could have been better photos if I'd gotten out there earlier when it was still shady.
Columbine Cardinal. Columbines are one of my favorite flowers.
Cardinal again? Well, it was last year. This year it decided it wanted to be white. At least now the blooms look normal. The first couple of blooms were deformed, and then it righted itself, except that they're still white. That's ok. I like columbines in any color.
Not such a great shot of this pale, pale pink geranium. These were floating on this morning's lovely breeze, and the photos all came out blurry. This was a pass along from a client, and I haven't checked out what variety it is.
Irisene and a pink caladium. With foliage like this, who needs flowers, right? Thank you Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting Garden Blogger's Bloom Day!
Oh Linda, love that plant spilling out of the broken pot! My neighbor has an urn in her front garden with a plant spilling out. And I've always wondered just how to do it without it looking like you "posed it."
ReplyDeleteBrenda
Your gardens are lovely! The impatient path is really nice, and what a great idea for a shady area. Don't you just love 'Dragon Wing' begonias? Last year I couldn't find any, but this year I have a red and a pink. Thanks for sharing your blooms with us.
ReplyDeleteAren't helitrope the best? They smell nice, too. Love the pot and flow of flowers, as well as the two statues in the background of the lamium--looks so serene!
ReplyDelete~ Monica
It was fun to see all your photos and I looked with interest on the columbine as I planted them for the first time this year. Wish me luck!!!
ReplyDeleteI heard that lamium is rather invasive. Do you find that to be true?
Thank you Brenda! If you have a container that's not broken like mine is, just bury a small section of it and put some soil in it. That will anchor it in the ground so it doesn't roll around, and gives it that 'not posed' look. A friend of ours who saw my spilled flowers was concerned that one of my pots had been knocked over and spilled. He brought it to my attention, so I guess I achieved 'the look!'
ReplyDeleteThank you Beckie. Last year in those little pots on the path I planted $5.00 annuals like non-stop begonias and several others. This year, I did things 'on the cheap' and used lots of impatiens in my containers along with overwintered plants and cuttings. The impatiens are blooming better than most of the other stuff I had last year that I spent more $$$ on, so I'm happy.
Yep, I love dragon wings too. I have two pink ones. They overwinter well inside, and are larger and fuller the 2nd year, so I'll be keeping mine in the basement under the grow light this winter.
Monica, I just love heliotrope. Serene is what I aim for in my garden. Those statues are my sister's. She's in an apartment now due to a divorce, but I'll give them back to her when she's able to get a house again. I loved those statues when I first saw them at her house, and encouraged her not to leave them for the new owners. They're in safekeeping here for when she has her own garden once again.
Thank you Nancy!
Beth, I just love columbines. There are so many different colors and several different forms, and they're all beautiful. This year I planted some seeds, and I also have a couple of pass alongs from clients. I have a new border I prepared that's waiting for the new babies to size up enough to go into the ground. (I have to wait for the roots to get big enough so the squirrels can't dig them up and cart them away so easily.)
Lamium can be invasive if you let it go, but it's also easy to control. It's roots form a mat over time, but they don't have runners and I haven't known them to self-seed much. There isn't much that's invasive in my garden because of competition from maple tree roots. I still avoid plants that spread by runners, but mat-forming plants like lamium, creeping phlox, and sweet woodruff are easy to pull back when necessary. So far in this garden, since everything grows sooooo slooowwww, no pulling back has been needed. I wish some things would spread a little faster! The only stuff that's invasive in my garden are maple, buckthorn, and mulberry seedlings. The maples are the worst since the garden is under three mature maples.
Thank you for the stroll through your garden--we share some common favorites. I've always liked heliotrope, too, though I am forgetful about giving it enough water sometimes, and I just love the double impatiens-I couldn't resist buying some this year.
ReplyDeleteI just planted a Rozanne this year; thanks for the tip about not dividing it.
I love the impatiens spilling out of the pot. I wish I had more shady areas. With all of this rain my young trees are growing like crazy this year, so hopefully one day there will be more shade here.
ReplyDeleteAh, the Columbine is beautiful!
ReplyDeleteYou've got that perennial Digitalis that I've been longing for. I just love that pale yellow. I'm surprised that your Rozanne died when you divided it. I divided mine last year into 3 & all of them are thriving & blooming. I like the impatiens pouring out of the pot. I did something like that last year, then forgot to bring the pot in before the frost. Oops.
ReplyDeleteOh! Beautiful photos from your garden! The flower in the broken pot is a great idea :)
ReplyDeleteYesterday I took an one evening class in taking photos. The teacher is a well known Nature photograph.
Hi Linda, your flowers are wonderful, and thanks for the do not divide for rozanne geranium. I am bad about doing that and have killed many a choice specimen with that greedy move. Glad to know the bloom period is so long for it also. The blue color is scarce is the summer garden here. Your broken pot story about the fellow telling you the pot fell over is priceless!
ReplyDeleteFrances at Faire Garden
Great show, Lintys. Love Foxgloves but they don't perform well for me.
ReplyDeleteWatch out for that Lamium, it's pretty but a very tenacious traveller.
Beautiful garden! I love the impatients spilling out of the clay pot :-}
ReplyDeleteRose, my pleasure! See MMD's comment below - she had no trouble dividing her Rozanne.
ReplyDeleteRobin, thank you! My husband and I were just talking about our love/hate relationship with our maple trees - love the shade, can't imagine being without it, but hate the helicopters and all the leaves to rake in the fall!
Skeeter, dontcha just love 'em! They're so beautiful and so different than almost anything else.
MMD, I got the digitalis from White Flower Farms. I haven't seen it around here, not even at the nursery where I work. I don't know what went wrong with Rozanne when I divided them. If I try it again I'll transplant into holding pots in a sheltered spot until they recover from being divided. That seems to work well for me for plants that are sensitive to being divided.
Marie, thank you! Your photos are so beautiful already, it's hard to imagine them getting better. Like gardening though, there's always more to learn about photography!
Frances, thank you! MMD had no trouble dividing hers, so I wouldn't discount the idea of dividing Rozanne. I wish I knew what went wrong. Mine were plenty big enough to divide, and it was cool and rainy when I did it. They went into shock though, and never recovered. I lost some anemones last year the same way. I wonder if the 17-year cicada's emergence had anything to do with it. They did seem to have a not-so-good effect on the garden as a whole.
Carolyn, thank you!
I've always had good luck with this pale yellow species variety. I've had these for 4 years, but since I divided them this spring, they're smaller than they had been.
I just pull back the lamium when necessary - it's easy to do. The roots sure do form a dense mat, but I haven't found them difficult to keep in bounds in previous gardens. With competition from the roots of three mature maples, they have been slow-growing so far, like everything else in my garden.
Deb, thank you. It was fun to do that. Not very original, but I like the look anyway!
ReplyDeleteI've finally made it over here to see all your blooms. So much to see, your garden must be quite a show place right now.
ReplyDeleteThanks for joining in for bloom day.
Carol, May Dreams Gardens
I LOVE the broken pot!
ReplyDeleteps to an older post- my son had a pet turtle at age 4. He is now 20 and has a collection of them in his room. His newest addition is a group of spotted turtles that were endangered around here until recently. He takes great care of them, intends to breed them and return them to the wetlands in our backyard.
liked the turtles in your garden and certain that the fairies do too.
Hi Linda,
ReplyDeleteYour bloom day looks great - all the impatiens on the brick path are a perfect summer view. I see we have Happy Returns in common - it was a favorite in Illinois so I bought it again for our second Texas garden.
Off to look up Irisene- never heard of that one before!
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Carol, I don't know how you manage to visit so many GBBD posts! Thanks for hosting bloom day. My how it's grown, even just in the short few months since I first joined in.
ReplyDeleteTera Rose, those early experiences sure can make a lasting impression, and lead to life-long passions, interests, and sometimes even careers. You must be very proud of your caring son.
Thank you Annie! I'm not a big daylily collector, especially since most of the garden here is shady. But those sunny happy returns sure do bloom their little heads off don't they? 'Happy returns' is mostly in front where it's sunny, with a couple of clumps in the sunniest part of the shade garden in back too.
I can understand why you'd want to have them in your Austin garden. Besides their long bloom period, they're such a pretty yellow.
I hope you're staying cool!
Okay, WHAT is your secret for the torenia? I've tried them so many times, and have only achieved sad, spindly looking plants. Yours look so beautiful... help! :)
ReplyDeleteI too like the use of that broken pot in your landscaping. My stack of pots broke too, but not in such a perfect way. I've been thinking about trying to figure out a way to make some of the pieces into a toad house.
ReplyDeleteBlackswamp girl, I never grew them until moving here. In fact I never grew annuals much at all. Here in my shady garden though, I've come to rely on annuals for punches of color, especially near the patio. I love torenia since they bloom so well in our shady garden. I'm not really sure what the secret is. The torenia are in mossed hanging baskets that I keep fairly moist. They get at best three, maybe 3-1/2 hours of sunlight, some direct and some dappled. The torenia in the basket that gets the least sun blooms as well as the ones in the baskets that get the most sun. I use an organic fertilizer and a professional potting mix. I pinch them back when I first plant them, and that helps them branch out more. I will even pinch the stems selectively during the growing season. Ah, maybe that's the secret - pinching them to encourage each plant to branch out and get fuller. I'm also big on preening and deadheading my plants. I think the deadheading helps alot in keeping the plants vigorous and blooming.
ReplyDeleteTorenia always seem to do well here, although this spring's chilly start has slowed the growth of pretty much all my potted plants. They're just now starting to take off (finally!)
Cinj, thanks!
I'm really impressed with your creativity as I've been following the progress of your new home and garden! I'm sure you'll find a use for them. A toad house sounds like a great idea. I'll be looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
You have a great variety of blooms right now - I especially like the columbines.
ReplyDeleteLinda, your flowers are so lovely... I just read your 'thank you comment' on Violet's blog and it made me really LOL" 'it writes itself' you wrote about your blog.
ReplyDeleteI also have a feeling it comes from I don't know where... like I am just 'used' to photograph and write... :
Greetings,
Ewa
Rosemarie, I just love columbines. I started some from seeds this spring. I'm looking forward to having a few more!
ReplyDeleteEwa, Thank you. I'm pleased with the way the pots came out this year. Almost all the plants were either overwintered, started from cuttings, or cheap cell pack annuals. I think they look better than they have other years when I've spent more money and time on them.
It does often seem like the blog writes itself. I must remember to keep my camera with me more often though. I miss some good wildlife shots and good stories that tell themselves when it's inside and I"m outside.