This Week's Garden Happenings

I made a couple of important discoveries about my landscape situation this week. The first is the pesky row of hydrangeas growing on the north side of my house, against the foundation. There are 10 of them, all planted on top of each other, leafed out with diseased looking yellowish foliage, and reaching about 5-feet tall. I hacked back six of them this morning and found an old tag identifying them as Nikko Blues. They produced no blooms this year (but I didn't prune them at all since we bought the house in November 2007, only fed them). Last year they produced 2 sorry looking blooms. Apparently, Nikko Blue isn't hardy in our zone, so that explains it. I don't have the time or energy to cover them in the winter, so whatever I can't give away is getting dug up and tossed. For now, the north side of the house will be barren except for the wild poppies that have taken up residence there.

The other discovery I made is that 2 hearty but barely flowering perennials in my overgrown island garden appear to be Cinquefoil. I bought a very nice gardening book this week and figured it out right away. I have a yellow and a white flowering variety which will get transplanted in the fall.

I did a bit of damage in preparing for fall planting of the new front beds. Ordered a bunch of bulbs and plants from van Bourgondien including poppies, phlox, lilies, muscari and crocuses. Also ordered some peaches n' cream hollyhock seeds which I'm going to plant in the fall and see if they'll come back.

A few pics of this week's garden happenings are below.

I believe this is Yellow Cinquefoil, in complete shade right now beneath a huge viburnum. It will get moved.



White Cinquefoil, again, I'm guessing.



Black-eyed susans doing well:



One of my 2 pink gladiolas:



The long-awaited first flower on my clematis. I think it's a common Jackmanii clematis. I count 16 buds now, can't wait until it fills up!



I'm really pleased with the echinacea this year: