Floribunda + Annuals

Here are a few recent pictures. The floribunda was a rose my Mom got for me in New Haven that I thought had died. The gardens there are actually doing really well, thanks to my gardener tenant Dominic, who takes care of what I planted and has added a few of his own flowers and vegetables.




Onion chives with siberian iris:


Million bells is happy in its new full sun location. I planted a basket of verbena and lobelia next to it. My hope for annuals this year is that I can keep them alive. So far I have quite a few and not one plant has died. I'm watering a ton.


I couldn't get a good shot of the purple dianthus in almost full bloom:


Geranium x sanguineum with lots of blooms:


Coral Bells (heuchera):


First bloom on Rhododendron Nova Zembla, probably my most anticipated bloom of the season:


Globe Allium:




Siberian Iris - the first time I've seen it bloom since moving here. It was buried under the evergreen shrubs we removed.

Purples

A few photos from dusk tonight.

Drumstick allium with grape hyacinth in the pool bed:


Backyard purples: hyacinth, allium, lilac and rhodies. There's also purple and white lamium in bloom in there:


My first attempt at transplanting a lilac sucker/runner. It seems to like its new home near the iris so far:


Vegetables! Tonight I transplanted 4 tomato plants (beefsteak and roma), 2 marconi pepper plants, 3 jalapeno and 3 ancho. I also unearthed 2 sugar snap pie vines that I didn't realize had germinated. All this is planted out on the back deck, and everything (except for the peas, which I sowed outside directly), was started indoors this winter. Most of the pepper plants have fruit or are in flower now.

A Few Pictures

And I also want to try out my new settings to see if my 2 "followers" get notified about this post.

Geraniums are just beginning to bloom (I'm try to get these ID'd on one of the gardening forums):
Geranium sanguineum (from Bob)


Geranium x cantabrigiense (from Terry)


Now identified as a perennial - Geum coccineum (Scarlet Avens, from Bob)


Irises have also just begun blooming and smell HEAVENLY:




Different variety:


I think this is Million Bells - it's too dense to get at the tag right now :)

Digging and More Perennials

I just wanted to make a quick entry to log some of the perennials I put in today and have coming tomorrow. Willie & Terry came over this morning and we loaded up the 3 evergreen trees John had pulled out with the Jeep into their truck. Two went to Bob's house, where I'll plant them tomorrow, and 1 went to their house where I helped them plant it. Terry gave me a clump of lemon balm (that stuff smells heavenly), which I planted next to my bee balm in the back bed. She also gave me a nice clump of calendula and a smaller plant which should make orchid-like flowers. Those were planted out front. I also moved some shasta daisies from the pool bed to the front a few days ago, and they seem to be doing well.

Tomorrow I will take 2 orange geraniums (I think that's what they are) from Bob's house as well as a clump of a mint-looking plant she has that makes spiky purple flowers. The gardens are really filling in!

Annuals

I loaded up on annuals with Terry last week. We went to the Meadow View Farm in MA like we did last year and their prices just can't be beat. I am going to try to make a return trip there before they close for the season to grab a few more things though. I tried not to get too many perennials and showed a good amount of restraint. I picked up a Valerian Root plant and 2 calamint plants and that's pretty much it for perennials. I did get 2 "rock daisies" but these are considered "tender perennials/annuals" so I'm just treating them as annuals.

Here is the long list of annuals I've planted out in the last week: New guinea impatiens, gazania, snapdragons, lobelia, coleus (3 varieties), red Salvia, 2 kinds of Osteospermum African Daisy, Allysum and 2 types of Celosia, which is really neat looking. Also some petunias and deep red verbena for my window box out back, and a huge hanging basket of million bells.

I also transplanted my first runner/sucker from my lilac tree out back. There are a bunch of them that need to get pulled out of the lawn and I'd rather just transplant them than toss them. I don't have any pictures yet, once they've been in the ground a while I'll take some pics.

Here is my lilac in full bloom. It looks like it has less blooms than last year! But it's still looking pretty healthy. Maybe if I prune better and get rid of the suckers I'll get better blooms? I'm posting pics from the last few years for comparison.

Fall 2007:


Fall 2008:


May 2009:


Now:


Window box on the pool shed. It has petunias and verbena. The other annuals still need some time to get established before they look decent.

Azaleas and Japanese Maple Transplant

The azaleas are finally in bloom and look great! I couldn't have asked for a better color from Bob's transplant. John pulled out the 3 dwarf evergreens from the island bed yesterday and the plan is to transplant them at Bob's house. He also pulled out the Japanese maple and we got a nice sized root ball. It's now planted on the bank near the pool and I think it looks happy there. We had some cool weather so it was a good time to transplant it.

The island is cleared out now and I have a good view of the perennials and shrubs that will remain. Now I can start to sketch out and plan where I'm going to move and re-arrange things.

The dwarf azalea on the far side of the garage. This will be moved to the island in the fall hopefully, and the creeping juniper will get ripped out. The little sand cherry in the back yard will get moved here:


Bob's azalea:


The back yard azalea:


Little sand cherry. This actually produced a few flowers for the first time since we moved here. I think it will do better in the sunny spot in the front where the dwarf azalea is:


Flowering barberry:


Blue princess holly covered in flowers:


Japanese maple in its new home:


"Blue" tulips at their peak:


A couple of shots of the front beds:




Lamium in the pool bed starting to flower purple, pink and white:

Tulips

I came home from a weekend trip to New Jersey to find my tulips and gardenia daffodils blooming. It looks like I got the gardenias after all! Three azaleas are also about to burst into bloom. All the azaleas were blooming in NJ as well as clematis and iris in some yards. Amazing what 1 zone difference can make.

Double -flowering Tulip Crispion Sweet:


Blue Diamond Tulip (this is a magenta color, but since there are so few true blues in the garden I think this is actually what I ordered. And I like the color anyway):


Gardenia Daffodils:


Front corner near the driveway:


Color in front of the house: