July 2008 Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

After blooming several months this winter and spring, this cyclamen rested about 6 weeks. I didn't think it would bloom again so soon, so I threw a few impatiens into the pot so it wouldn't look so boring while outside for the summer. The impatiens were on sale a couple weeks ago, and were leggy so I pinched them. In the meantime the cyclamen decided it wasn't going to be upstaged by some dime-a-dozen ordinary blooms like impatiens.

Monarda 'Jacob Cline' is just starting to bloom.

Heliotrope's been blooming over a month. The flowers are sweetly-scented and very long lasting.

Double impatiens. Still blooming.

A miniature rose. They're short-lived, but pretty while they last. It blooms a couple of times a season in part sun. Smaller than it was last year, nevertheless this one's in its third year. It's almost finished with round one of blooms.

After a hard pinch, the dragonwings are blooming again.

The hellebore was in bloom when purchased in April. The colors are faded, but it's still holding onto its blooms.

Sambac jasmine. Just two or three of these little blooms will scent the entire patio when the sun's shining on it.

Variegated begonia in a hanging basket. It was overwintered in the basement, along with the jasmine, heliotrope, and many other container plants.

Yellow snapdragons. (A little too sunny when I took this shot.)

Torenia still going strong.
Diamond Frost euphorbia. Several of these were overwintered in the basement too.
Happy Returns is still blooming.
Geranium sanguineum var. striatum.
A pass along astilbe.
Geranium Rozanne has lots of blooms, and will keep up the show until the fall.
Bridal Veil Astilbe

A cell-pack dahlia. The cell packs were mixed colors. There are red, a couple of different pinks, and a yellow or two.

Browallia Blue - blooms nicely in the shade.

Thank you Carol at May Dreams Gardens for dreaming up and hosting Garden Blogger's Bloom Day!

A Garden Makeover

Today, I thought I'd give you a peek into the business side of Garden Girl. Here's a garden makeover done for my very first client earlier this spring. This is before:My very first gardening client is mom to a childhood friend of the nursery owners. She wanted help with her garden, and asked Mom, (of Mom & Pop who own the nursery,) if she could recommend someone. That someone ended up being me. She wanted a lush, colorful perennial garden to replace her tired, developer-installed shrubs.

Tucked between and in front of these shrubs were phlox, peonies, spiderwort, cotoneaster, lamium, May Night salvia, a geranium, and daylilies my garden-loving client had planted over the years. We found homes for them in the new garden.

We contracted the shrub removal with a fellow new gardener. That was a job for someone bigger and stronger than me. The root balls with their heavy, wet clay weighed about 50 lbs. each.

Before and after the shrubs were removed, she and I shared several conversations about her garden wish list.

I measured, sketched, and selected samples of a variety of sun and part sun plants chosen for size, texture, attractive foliage, color, and long bloom times. And then. . . we went shopping! You know, the fun kind of shopping - plant shopping!




She liked my selections, so all that was left was to pull the plants. After helping fill her car with annuals she later planted in her front landscape, I gathered the quantities needed of each plant selection for her new back garden and moved them to a holding area at the nursery for installation the following week.

It took a full day for this installation. Here's the garden immediately after planting:

And this is the garden about six weeks later. My client added her own personal finishing touches.

Here's the 'before' of the smaller border on the opposite side of the patio.
There are iris, a delphinium, and some asters over here. The homeowner added annuals every year. She wanted more perennials here. This is how it looked after planting:
The homeowner added hosta divisions and impatiens, and this is how it looked six weeks later.
This lovely lady, my first client, has recommended me to several neighbors. Since her garden redo, three of her neighbors have become clients. All of them are the nicest people I could ever have imagined having as first clients.

The garden is thriving. She takes wonderful, loving care of it, and it shows. On days when I'm back in the neighborhood, she's often out watering, preening, and enjoying her new garden. I recently installed new front and back gardens for a neighbor who lives behind her. It's fun to walk the path behind her garden, watching it grow from a distance while working on her neighbor's new garden.

A couple of weeks ago I planted some knockout roses in her front landscape. She loves them. I'll be back sometime after frost this fall (shhhh!!!!! let's don't think about that now, ok?) to put the garden to bed for the winter. In the meantime, thanks to my first gardening client's referrals to her neighbors, I'll be seeing her around!

From Where I Sit

A 'Walled' Garden

Stuart at Gardening Tips n' Ideas has a post this morning on vertical gardens. It reminded me of this orchid and sculpture wall I saw early this spring during a visit to Garfield Park Conservatory on Chicago's west side.

Don't you think this is cool? Be sure to check out Stuart's post today for lots of information and links on vertical gardening.

'Arte' y Pico' Award!

Many thanks to Violet at Lady Greenthumb's Garden, and Anna at Flowergardengirl's Blog for gifting me with this award. I've been reading and enjoying these two fine women's blogs for several months now, and congratulate them for having receiving the awards from readers of their blogs. By the way, Anna has started a new blog called Woody and Herbaceous. If you haven't already, you should check it out!

As I understand it, 'Arte y Pico' translates as something like 'peak of art.' The origin of the Arte y Pico Award: "This prize has arisen from the daily visits that I dedicate to many blogs which nourish me and enrich me with creativity. In them I see dedication, creativity, care, comradeship, but mainly, ART, much art. I want to share this prize with all those bloggers that entertain me day to day and to share this prize with those who enrich me every day. Doubtlessly, there are many and it will be hard to pick just a few. The people I will name today deserve this prize, as do the very long serious list of bloggers I also enjoy to read. But I will name the first 10 and leave the rest of the work to all the bloggers that visit other's blogs and are nourished by them."

The rules for accepting this award are:

1. You pick 5 blogs you consider deserving of this award through creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogger community, no matter of language.
2. Each award should have the name of the author with a link to their blog.
3. Award winners post the award with the name and link to the blog of the person who gave them the award.
4. Please include a link to the “Arte Y Pico” blog so everyone will know where the award came from.
5. Show these rules

It's been nearly impossible to narrow down my choices for the award. There's a long list of blogs I think are worthy. I bit the bullet though, and here are my picks, in no particular order:

Melanie at Old Country Gardens. I've been reading Melanie's blog since first discovering gardening blogs several months ago. Melanie is a talented, artistic, knowledgeable gardener, with extensive, varied, beautiful, and inspiring gardens in her acreage on Long Island. I learn something new nearly every time I visit her blog.

Meems at Hoe and Shovel. Meems gardens in beautiful, tropical Florida. Her gardens are so beautiful! I'm partial to tropical plants and overwinter several of them in my basement under a sodium light. Meems overwinters her tropical plants in her garden where they easily survive the usually-mild winters. I envy her falls, winters, and springs - her summers, not so much! This year she grew her first vegetable garden. Her posts on the veggie garden inspired me to find a spot in our side yard where I'm seriously considering a vegetable garden next spring.

Gail at Clay and Limestone. Gail gardens in Tennessee on her beautiful property. Her tough soil hasn't stopped her from creating lush landscapes with lots of natives and a great variety of cultivated plants. Her warmth, passion, and sense of humor shine through her posts and her comments on other blogs.

Monica at Garden Faerie Musings. Monica is a master gardener living in Michigan. If you haven't checked out her new blog Full Bloom on MLive, a Michigan website, I highly recommend you waste no time doing so! Monica's been gardening and writing about it both personally and professionally for a long time. She plans a trip to Chicago sometime in the next month, and we hope to meet for a visit to the Chicago Botanic Gardens while she's here!

Mr. McGregor's Daughter. A garden-blogging neighbor, MMD lives in the Chicago area too. I've learned a lot visiting her woodland garden and from her comments here and at other garden blogs. Her gardens combine natives and cultivated plants. Like the other garden bloggers listed here, she's a good writer and photographer, and a garden-blogging friend. She and the other bloggers I've picked here are all smart, socially-and-environmentally responsible women who do their best to make their corners of the world better places.