VW Garden

'Royal Raindrops' Crabapple Photos

2012-01-18T18:01:00.000-08:00

These photos of my three 'Royal Raindrops' crabapple trees are from May of last year. Maturing at 20 feet high and 15 feet wide, these trees will be a great size for my suburban backyard.

More information on this tree can be found here, on J. Frank Schmidt's website.

Lately I've been looking at a number of Schmidt's tree introductions. I wish I could collect bunches of them the way I do roses or perennials, but that's harder to do with trees!

Their list includes a number of smaller trees that are perfect for urban/suburban sites like my yard. I'm considering putting a couple of their 'Wireless Zelkova' trees in my front yard, even though the power lines in our neighborhood are buried, so we don't have to worry about the trees growing into the lines. But I love the spreading shape.

These crabapples put on a ton of new growth last year, since they are planted in great soil (imported, of course). In fact there are some longitudinal cracks in their bark from the fast growth rate, and I'm hoping they'll heal over all right.

Here you can see the fall color starting to show up. The leaves lighten and turn orangey. Our falls are too short to get the full fall color, though.

These are the bright little crabapples, which still cover the trees.

This is another sight that I'm looking forward to in May, which is a great month in the garden.

Red & Violet Flowers for January

2012-01-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

January is a good month for vivid colored arrangements, even in a year with little snow (knock on wood). These red roses and violet statice make yummy eye candy.

I put this arrangement together for my grandmother. Every amateur floral arranger should have an appreciative grandmother to ooh and ahh over each creation, regardless of how well it turns out.

The roses came from Safeway and the greenery from a little floral shop in town. The shop only charged me 35 cents per stem of plumosa fern (Asparagus setaceus). What a great deal!

Even though these roses aren't as pretty as old-fashioned or English roses, I'm happy to see anything blooming in the dead of winter. Maybe I wouldn't appreciate crimson 'William Shakespeare 2000' English roses as much if they bloomed year-round?

Have you heard that David Austin is getting into the cut flower trade? Check this link out. Their flowers are gorgeous but rather expensive.

Good thing my grandma doesn't mind plain old hybrid teas for her kitchen table.

Plant Orders for Spring 2012

2012-01-07T16:57:00.000-08:00

The garden is all brown and grey right now, but these 'Queen Charlotte' violets will be among the first flowers to bloom in a month or two. After rummaging through all the catalogs that keep coming in the mail, I've made several plant orders for the spring.

From David Austin Roses I ordered three pink 'Harlow Carr' English roses. Can't ever have too many pink English roses! From Bluestone Perennials, I selected Anemone tomentosa 'Robustissima', Echinacea purpurea 'Pink Poodle', Aquilegia vulgaris 'Lime Sorbet' and Scabiosa caucasica 'Fama'. Heronswood will be sending Anemone nemorosa 'Vestal' (a pretty double form) and Helleborus x hybridus 'Kingston Cardinal' (to replace the one I killed last year by transplanting too much). And I requested Campanula porcharskyana 'Blue Gown', Hemerocallis 'Woodside Romance' and Epimedium 'Alabaster' (another double white flower - for dry shade) from White Flower Farm. What have you other gardeners been ordering? Anything that I really need but don't know it yet?

Top Ten Favorite Photos From 2011

2011-12-29T14:48:00.000-08:00

It's hard to pick just ten favorites from the 372 garden photos that I posted last year, but here are a few of the best, anyway. Purple crocus are commonplace, but I love the sunlight and vivid color in the shot above. Both are in short supply right now during winter.

Again, I love the light here with these daffodils growing in my dad's Moses Lake garden.

My new 'Keiko' intersectional peony had lovely blooms.

The West Bed was full of color at times this year, including when this shot was taken in June.

Delphiniums like these 'Pagan Purples' are just gorgeous. Even if I forget to stake them and they fall over in windstorms.

Here's some more good evening light backlighting 'Eglantyne' english roses. I don't get up early enough to catch good morning light in June, when the sun rises at 4 am.

Love these true blue siberian irises. This cultivar is 'June to Remember'.

'Frances Joiner' was new to the garden this year and delighted me with her ruffly, warm apricot blooms.

The 'Cranberry Double Click' cosmos showed great, rich crimson color.

Another shot with crocus and beautiful light - this time in the fall. Would you believe that there are still some scraggly autumn crocus blooming in my yard today (December 29)? I'm not sure if they're just frozen in place or if new flowers keep popping up every time the ground thaws a bit.
And that's it for this last post of the year. With a 4-month old baby, I'm way too in love with sleep to stay up until midnight just to celebrate, so have a good time for me on New Year's Eve!

Big Bumblebees in the 'Spring Snow'

2011-12-12T14:33:00.000-08:00

I wasn't thinking about bumblees and little birds when I planned my garden. I was thinking about flowers, mostly. But the bees and birds started coming to visit and added so much fun to the backyard.

The giant bumblebees are my favorite, especially when they're having their way with the crabapple blossoms in the spring. It's entertaining to watch them manhandling the petals to get at the pollen.

These guys were definitely 'busy as bees', so they were even worse than my kids (!) at holding still while I made the shots. I took so many blurry photos last May to get these few that were in focus. Thank heaven for the delete button on the digital camera.

I was really tempted to try to pet their fuzzy backsides, but contented myself with taking pictures instead.

The seven 'Spring Snow' crabapples that attract all these bumbles are growing nicely. This photo shows how big the crown was on one tree last year - at least double what it was when we planted it 3 1/2 years before.

Have I ever mentioned that I can see parts of 63 other houses from different areas of my backyard? Yeah, I can't wait for these trees to fill in the perimeter so we can enjoy the garden without feeling like we have an audience.

My kids sing a song about popcorn popping on the apricot tree. It could certainly be changed to popcorn on the crabapple tree, eh? Only five more months until the flowers show up again.

'Green Jewel' Coneflower (Echinacea)

2011-12-07T15:08:00.000-08:00

Green flowers are so cool. Here are a few pictures of 'Green Jewel' coneflower from my summer garden. This plant would be larger if it was growing in full sun, but it's doing OK in partial shade. Despite the less than perfect conditions, it hasn't needed staking to keep it upright.

This coneflower grows about 2' by 2' with 4" green, fragrant flowers in summer. Hardy in zones 4-8, it's drought tolerant and prefers full sun and well-drained soil.

I've been neglecting this blog lately and will probably continue to do so until after the holidays are over. Then I'll get back to a post each week. One project that's keeping me busy is brainstorming ideas for the annual beds and pots at our church's nearby temple. In my own yard I've been too busy thinking about and buying trees, shrubs and perennials to spend much time or money on annuals, so it's fun to get to work with them for the temple.

Autumn Crocus

2011-11-17T16:55:00.000-08:00

It snowed last week, not enough to stick, but we've had a bit more snow several times since then. Welcome to another long winter in Spokane! These photos show the last flowers left blooming in my garden - Crocus speciosus, also known as Autumn crocus.

Last year I planted a bunch of Crocus speciosus, and this year added C. speciosus 'Oxonian', which is a deeper lavender than the species. Both types fade over time.

The first two photos showed 'Oxonian', and the one above is plain C. speciosus. I love the light in these photos, taken late in the day.

The light in spring and fall is especially nice for photos in my garden.

Speaking of good spring light, I'll finish with a shot of Maidenhair fern, Adiantum pedatum, taken as it was unfurling in the spring.

Garden Accessories in Classic Black

2011-11-10T18:29:00.000-08:00

Garden accessories are a nice addition to the landscape, but many times they start to look cluttered. Although some people can bring together various materials, colors and finishes and have them look good together, I'm not so confident in my ability to pull that off. So I'm sticking with basic black.

The fountain and birdbath are from the same collection and both sit in the backyard.

This combo on the back patio looked OK in the spring . . .

. . . and better in the summer with the addition of a chair and a backdrop of filled out plants.

The front porch sports a bench in the same style as the chairs in the backyard.

And the side yard includes black metal trellises that tie it in with the rest. Since each side of the yard has a different plant palette and color scheme, the similar styles of the accessories are helpful in unifying all the parts.

Fall Bulb Planting

2011-11-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Despite my decision to go easy on the bulb planting this fall, somehow I find myself in the middle of planting several hundred bulbs. Last spring the 'Gypsy Queen' hyacinths, above and below, were so pretty that I had to add a few more for next year.

You can see how their color gets pinker as the flowers age. The true blue 'Spring Beauty' Scilla siberica make a nice contrast. I should mention that the scilla produced VAST amounts of seed this year. I assume they take a few years to progress from seed to flower-producing sized bulbs, but they are terrific naturalizers.

In this photo the 'Salmon Impression' tulips are exactly the same shade as the 'Gypsy Queen' hyacinths. Tulips are hard to plant because they have to go so deep - 8 to 10 inches if you want them to have a chance of coming back more than one year. Thankfully, I only have 60 tulips to plant this fall.

Although they were pretty, I didn't order any more of the 'Salmon Impression' tulips. The Impression series tulips are good perennials for up to five years, so last year's crop should show up again next spring.

Instead, I added a bunch of 'Jap Groot' yellow tulips. This photo was taken at my church's nearby temple. The soft yellow color plus a 'strong perennial tendency' (quoting the catalog) convinced me that they'd be a nice addition to my spring garden.

These next photos show 'Pink Fondant' hyacinths that are several years old. The flower clusters weren't as large as they were the first year, but they still smelled wonderful last spring.

The other bulbs I've been planting include: 'Oxonion' fall crocus (Crocus speciosus), 'Blue Spectacle' tulips, 'Blue Shades' windflowers (Anemone blanda), 'Pink Giant' glory of the snow (Chionodoxa), Allium 'White Giant', and more 'Golden Bunch' crocus, 'Tete-a-Tete mini daffodils and Chionodoxa luciliae.

I love this photo from last spring so much that I had to repost it. Above are violet 'Grande Maitre' crocus, blue 'Spring Beauty' scilla, and yellow 'Tete-a-Tete' daffodils. I just have to wait for four months until the bulbs start their show again.

Blue Pumpkins for Halloween

2011-10-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

This year we grew blue pumpkins for Halloween. They're not bright blue - more like a ghostly greyish-greenish-blue, but that's a perfect color for the holiday, is it not?

After seeing blue Jarrahdale pumpkins last year on our trip to the pumpkin farm in Greenbluff, I found seeds online and ordered a pack. We planted a few in the mound of good soil left over from our front yard landscaping.

Due to a cold spring, the seeds sprouted and then sat with just a couple of small leaves until the end of June. Once it warmed up, they grew like gangbusters. Every day we'd look outside and the vines would be bigger. Honestly, they almost seemed to grow a few inches every time you glanced away! Above you can see how they tried to climb up and take over the trees. We had to cut those parts off, as well as the parts that grew onto the lawn.

After the yellow flowers were pollinated, little pumpkins started forming. My kids thought it was great fun to go out and count how many pumpkins were growing.

First they grew into large, mottled green pumpkins with cool ribs running up and down.

Then, instead of turning orange, the pumpkins turned blue! Eventually we had sixteen full-sized pumpkins to harvest.

We sent a couple with the kids to school to show their classes. We gave most of the rest away, which was great fun. But we kept a few to admire. If you want to grow some yourself, you can find seeds to buy when you do an internet search for 'Jarrahdale pumpkin seeds'.

Fiery Peony Foliage and Cut Flower Storage

2011-10-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

The trees and shrubs are flaunting fiery fall foliage around here, and so are my peonies. Since they bloom for just a few weeks in June, it's nice to have a second season of color from them.

All of these photos were taken of herbaceous peonies in my yard. The Intersectional peony leaves are still completely green, but you can see there's a big range of color from the herbaceous types. By the way, I've got my two new 'Capitol Red' tree peonies planted. They look like a couple of twigs right now but will be pretty in a few years.

Although it's a strange time of year to talk about peony cut flowers, I just found this link from the Martha Stewart Show and Peony's Envy farm. It talks about how to store cut peony flowers in the refrigerator for up to six months!

The video is 15 minutes long and covers peony flower shapes and how to plant them as well as cut flower storage. The cut flower portion is in the last few minutes of the video.

Here's the basic process - you cut 1 to 1.5 foot long peony stems when the flowers are showing color but still tightly closed. You put a bunch of them into a cellophane wrapper (you can get them from your grocery store or floral supply store), set them in a vase filled with a couple of inches of water, and put them in the fridge. Or you fold the dry stems with newspaper, secure with a rubber band, and lay them in the fridge.

I assume you'd have less luck storing the peonies if you have apples or other ethylene gas producing fruit nearby (ethylene gas makes flowers and fruits ripen and eventually rot).

I'm excited to try storing some peonies next year! This is great information if you're wanting to have peonies for a late-summer wedding.

This is yet another reason to love peonies. Meanwhile, I'll enjoy their fall foliage before winter sets in.

English Roses in the Fall

2011-10-12T12:17:00.000-07:00

My english roses are putting out their last flush before winter. Above is 'Abraham Darby'.

In the fall, english roses often send out really tall stems with roses at the ends. My 'Eglantyne' bushes, above, have a few of these super tall stems right now.

'Sister Elizabeth' had more flowers this fall than it did in its first flush in July.

Here's another shot of 'Sister Elizabeth'.

'Teasing Georgia' looks more peach than yellow in the fall.

This picture shows how 'Lady Emma Hamilton' fades as the flowers open.

'Princess Alexandra of Kent' had enough flowers to make a bouquet . . .

. . . so here's what I brought inside. I also included white 'Claire Austin'.

The 'Claire Austin' roses shatter quickly, but 'PA of K' holds up well in the vase. They both smell delicious. It's nice to have this cheery arrangement to enjoy while the weather outside is cold, grey and rainy.

Cosmos Double Click Cranberries

2011-10-04T10:53:00.000-07:00

This year I ordered seeds for a new color of cosmos in the Double Click series - cranberry. Even though our very cool spring slowed down germination and growth - and they were planted in part shade, which slowed them down even more - I finally saw some flowers starting last month.

The deep crimson color is almost exactly the same shade as my 'William Shakespeare 2000' roses. Very romantic.

While most of the flowers are large and very double, a few of the small plants in shady areas put out simple flowers like the one above.

A few years ago I grew Double Click Rose Bonbon cosmos, which were a lighter pink. They grew like crazy since they had plenty of sun and warmth that year.

All of the cosmos in the Double Click series get to be 4 ft tall by 2 ft wide and bloom from summer until frost. They do best in full sun with regular water, but can handle most any type of soil.

I'm hoping that a few of these flowers have time to form seeds for next year. This is a flower I'd like to keep around.

Fall Flowers 2011

2011-10-01T18:40:00.000-07:00

As much as I appreciate the long-blooming perennials that have been in flower all summer, it's fun to see some new blooms appearing just for fall. Above are a couple of Colchicum 'Waterlily' flowers coming up through bellflower (Campanula) foliage.

Here are some asters that came from my friend Kathy's garden.

They're blooming cheerfully despite being transplanted this spring and getting too little water from the sprinklers.

Diminutive flower spikes are popping up on 'Big Blue' lilyturf (Liriope) all over the front yard.

Here are some pink chrysanthemums, which also came from Kathy's garden.

I love this color of pink and hope to find more spots for this type of mum in the front yard.

This was the only flower on my tiny Japanese Anemone, which was also lacking in water this summer. I think this plant came as a start from Kathy's yard, too. I guess this post could have been titled "Thirsty Plants from Kathy".

These lavender flowers are from 'Farmington' double aster.

You can see a bit of mildew on the leaves, which tells me that these plants should have had more water this summer. Many types of asters get powdery mildew when they're water-stressed. Maybe next year I'll keep up on the watering better and get a better show.

Colchicum cilicicum: Photos of Flowers, Leaves and Bulbs

2011-09-22T10:13:00.000-07:00

Colchicums are fall-blooming bulbs that send out their leaves in the spring, then bloom with lavender-pink or white flowers while their bulbs are dormant (with no leaves or roots growing). I have 2 or 3 types of Colchicum growing in my yard. The information and photos in this post are about Colchicum cilicicum.

Catalogs usually show a picture of the flowers, but not the leaves. So when these tulip-like leaves started peeking up this spring, I could not figure out what they were.

Gradually I remembered planting Colchicums last year (obviously I didn't keep good records, oh well). Their leaves are often described as similar to hostas. I'd say they're like a mix of hosta and tulip leaves.

Here are the leaves in full growth. They stuck around through June, then started dying back.

Now - in September - the flowers are starting to appear. Although Colchicums are deer-resistant, the flowers I having growing outside appear to have been nibbled on by slugs. So these photos all show another batch that I ordered and didn't get planted yet. Since they bloom while dormant, these new ones are happily blooming on my windowsill, without needing water or soil.

The bulbs look like distorted tulip bulbs. Eventually they can grow to be very large, and some types put out up to 25 flowers per bulb.

These new bulbs are blooming with 5-7 flowers each. The flowers grow to about 6 inches high and have a faint scent. They should be planted somewhere special where you'll notice the floral surprise in the fall.

Colchicum cilicicum is hardy in zones 5-8 and prefers well-drained, fertile soil and shade from intense sun. These bulbs aren't inexpensive, unfortunately, but they do come back year after year if they don't rot in waterlogged soil. I ordered mine from Brent & Becky's Bulbs.

If you're looking for something a little unusual or just want some fresh flowers in the fall, check out the Colchicums. There are a number of different types - some double - and their flowers are all exquisite.

The Reason for My Unfinished Garden Projects

2011-09-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

The garden has been rather neglected this summer, but there was a good reason. I was growing something better! A sweet baby boy joined our family this week. His brother, two sisters, daddy and I are all thrilled.

I'll probably take a couple of weeks away from blogging to enjoy our new addition. His soft skin, fuzzy hair, squeaker-toy hiccups and funny faces are the most wonderful things in the world! And if my writing is a little confused sometimes in the next few months, you'll know why: sleep deprivation.

Time to Order Peonies

2011-08-24T11:32:00.001-07:00

Along with bulbs, autumn is the time to plant bare root peonies. I have a few on order already: the herbaceous 'Kansas' from White Flower Farm and two 'Capital Red' tree peonies from Cricket Hill Garden. Last year I planted several from Swenson Gardens. Above and below are pictures of the first bloom from 'Paula Fay', which I picked up in a pot at Home Depot this spring. Once the plant matures, the blooms should show more of the yellow anthers in the middle.

I've gone peony-crazy in the past year. For a while I held back on buying any because I thought they all flopped over while blooming. But then I spent some time on the Swenson Gardens website and picked out a bunch of herbaceous peonies that don't need staking to stand up straight. I also splurged on a couple of herbaceous-tree hybrids, known as Itoh or intersectional peonies, and these plants don't need staking either. Finally, I decided to attempt some tree peonies (no staking!) from Cricket Hill. I've enjoyed looking at the gorgeous peony pictures at Peony's Envy and might order a few tree peonies from them in a few years. The floppy peonies that friends have given me will grow in the cutting garden and be enjoyed in vases. Oh, and I brought home a couple of potted peonies from my local nursery this spring. Yeah, totally peony-crazy.

Besides the staking problem, the other drawback to peonies is that they only bloom for a few weeks in late spring/early summer (they are hardy in USDA zones 2-8). But I've realized that everblooming plants with large flowers require A LOT of deadheading. I don't have time to keep up with too much of that, so I'm going to plan my gardens to enjoy different flowers at different seasons. Long-blooming plants that don't need deadheading (like 'Rozanne' hardy geraniums) are certainly welcome, too. Above is a no-name red peony that came from my husband's grandmother's garden after she passed away.

Peonies make fabulous cut flowers, lasting a week or so in the vase. Above is a bloom from 'Petite Elegance', one of those non-staking herbaceous peonies from Swenson Gardens. Peony foliage is a nice addition to the garden even after the flowers fade. During the summer, peonies are somewhat drought tolerant (though they'll grow more leaves and flowers with regular water, especially during the first few years). Peonies live a long time without needing dividing, so they're a great addition to the garden of a lazy or overwhelmed (ahem) gardener! They do take a few years to fully settle in and bloom heavily, but after that you can neglect them a bit and still enjoy a show.

These last two photos show the first bloom from 'Casablanca', also from Swenson Gardens. You can see that the giant flower is very upright without a stake. Swenson Gardens recommends that you cut the buds off for the first year or two to allow the plant to establish itself better, but I was too impatient to see the flowers. Eventually this plant will be 40" tall by 48" wide and covered with fragrant, pure-white flowers in June. Then it will provide pretty green leaves as a background for my summer-blooming flowers. Divine!

Here is the slightly out-of-control list of peonies in my yard. Many were purchased within the last year, and some of those haven't bloomed yet. Several have come from friends or relatives. Even the older ones have been set back by transplanting (sorry plants). But in future years I should enjoy an abundance of peony flowers in May and June.

Herbaceous Peonies
Casablanca (white)
Cindy's Pink
Cindy's Red
Coral Supreme (coral)
Felix Supreme (magenta)
Grandma Margaret's Red
Grandma Margaret's White
Guidon (mid pink)
Kansas (magenta)
Kathy's Pale Pink
Kathy's Pink
Paul M. Wild (crimson/magenta)
Petite Elegance (pale pink)
Pink Parfait (mid pink)

Itoh/Intersectional Peonies
Keiko (mid pink)
Kopper Kettle (copper/peach/rose)

Tree Peonies
Capital Red/Luoyang Red (to be planted this fall)

Daylilies in Pink and Peach

2011-08-16T20:24:00.000-07:00

My favorite daylily this year is 'Frances Joiner', shown above and below. The rich peach color has looked especially good nearby lavender 'Rozanne' geraniums and vivid 'Pink Double Delight' coneflowers.

Here is Frances, glowing in the sunset. Really a pretty flower.

I continue to be impressed with 'Hush Little Baby', above, and am thinking of removing the 'Apricot Sparkles' daylilies in the west bed and dividing HLB to fill up that area instead. AS has put out a disappointing number of blooms - perhaps it really needs full sun to make much of a show. Yet HLB manages to bloom despite partial shade. And you can see its color is gorgeous.

Here is 'Millie Schlumpf', which is a prolific bloomer. As I write, the last few flowers from the first flush are finishing up, and new scapes are already appearing for a second flush of bloom. The pale color looks a little washed out in the summer sun, though.

This photo doesn't do a great job of capturing the rich colors of 'Autumn Wood', but it's going to have to do for this post. I really like the way this daylily fits into the front yard color scheme.

'Elizabeth Salter' is orange sherbet on a plant. Its color of peach is a bit softer than 'Frances Joiner' but still pretty.

Above and below are shots of 'Dublin Elaine' after a day of intense sun. The color fades somewhat through the day.

So far 'Dublin Elaine' has proven to be vigorous in its growth of both leaves and flowers. It is a recent All-American Daylily winner.

I'll finish with a picture of 'Jolyene Nichole' from morning, before the color fades at all. You can see lots of buds in the background - this pink daylily was a prolific bloomer this year. I hope to be able to say that about all of daylilies as the plants mature . . . but we'll have to wait until next summer to see.

Tropical Hues in the Midsummer West Garden

2011-08-09T12:18:00.000-07:00

The west flagstone garden has morphed into a new color scheme for summer. Lilies of several types and a 'Lady Emma Hamilton' rose have supplied tropical shades of rosy-orange that look cheerful against the lavender of catmint and bellflower. Above is an unnamed dwarf asiatic lily with 'Walker's Low' catmint (Nepeta), 'Blue Clips' bellflower (Campanula) and yellow 'Early Sunrise' tickseed (Coreopsis) to the sides.

Here is a wide view of this garden in July. For views of this area in June, click here. To see the garden in spring, click here.

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This shot shows spots of color from asiatic and longiflorum-asiatic lilies. Despite growing in half shade, the 'Walker's Low' catmints have been blooming for a couple of months now.

Here's another picture of that unnamed dwarf lily. The color seems to glow and reminds me of a tropical-flavored smoothie. I brought home several of these lilies last year from Home Depot and am pleased to see that all have baby shoots growing around the original. In a few years these will be nice clumps instead of a single stalk.

This is a 'Royal Sunset' longiflorum-asiatic (LA) lily. These lilies started blooming as the asiatics were finishing up, which was perfect for keeping the color going longer. I didn't order very many of these lilies from Brent & Becky's bulbs, but I planted them in groups of 2 and expect them to multiply into good clumps.

Here is a cluster of 'Lady Emma Hamilton' english roses against a backdrop of golden 'Jethro Tull' tickseed (Coreopsis). LEH doesn't have as many petals as some of the english roses, and I wonder if that's why the bush is able to put out such a continuous stream of blooms despite getting only a half day of sun. Add a delicious fragrance to its attributes, and this rose is a winner.

'Golden Sunrise' tickseed and 'Blue Clips' campanula don't mind the intense heat of the summer sun bouncing off the west wall of my house. In the center is an out-of-focus 'flower' from 'Hair' allium. I took so many pictures of these strange flowers and all of them were out of focus. Maybe my camera didn't recognize them as flowers, ha! The 2-inch flower heads didn't make as much of a show as I'd hoped - they just looked kind of weedy. Maybe they'll multiply and look better in a few years.

Above are some 'Smoky Mountain Autumn' daylily (Hemerocallis) flowers. I have 6 small plants of this variety, and they have put out a respectable amount of flowers for their size and the part-sun conditions. I have been less impressed with 'Apricot Sparkles', which is supposed to be a blooming machine but seems to resent getting less than a full day of sun. It has been very stingy with its small peach flowers this year.

The 'Hush Little Baby' daylilies are such a gorgeous, vivid pink that I wish I had a good spot in full sun for them. But they're blooming all right here in the west bed. Their color stands up well to the blazing summer sun.
The rest of the season holds more of the same for this garden. Many of these plants should keep blooming until frost. The english roses (including 'Crown Princess Margareta' and 'Teasing Georgia' on the trellises) should have another heavy flush of bloom in September. So far this area has had good continuity of bloom, so we'll see if it continues until frost cuts it all back in a couple of months.

Classic Combos of Pink and Blue

2011-08-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I read a gardening magazine article where the author suggested in a patronizing tone that planting a border of pink and blue (actually blue-violet) was the most that could be expected from some gardeners. What a narrow-minded view, I thought. Other color combinations might be more exciting or trendy, but that's no reason to throw out the classic. Above are white 'June Bride' heuchera, light pink 'Sister Elizabeth' english roses and burgundy 'Munstead Wood' roses.

Although I enjoy creating different color combinations elsewhere in the yard, I plan to always have at least one part of the garden planted in classic pink and blue-violet and white. I love this classic color scheme just as I love classic Audrey Hepburn dress styles. Above are 'Pagan Purple' delphiniums.

So this post features some pictures from earlier in the season showing some of the classic color combos in my backyard garden. Above are 'Clemantine Blue' columbine and pink Armeria.

The spikes of double 'La Belle' Campanula (bellflower) flowers above have proven to be good cut flowers. White 'Esther Reed' daisies planted nearby are a nice companion in the garden or the vase.

The 'Blue Clips' campanula that I brought home from my grandma's house a few years ago has proven to be a sturdy plant that expands quickly enough to allow me to pass lots of starts on to others. I have found that it gets floppy with too much TLC, though, and has a better form in more challenging conditions. Above it's growing next to needle-like Asparagus fern foliage.

Perhaps my favorite campanula right now is 'Pearl Deep Blue', shown above. It's compact form is never floppy and the flower color is deeper than the other two bellflowers shown above. Here it grows nicely at the feet of a 'William Shakespeare 2000' rose (definitely a classic!).

Perhaps a little less classic are true blue flowers, like the 'Tanz Nochmal' siberian iris shown above. Siberian irises take a few years to get established in my garden, but this year I had a great show from 'TN'.

Here's a wider view showing some blue 'Tanz Nochmal' with 'Meidilland White' roses in front and 'Pagan Purple' delphiniums behind. This trio made a pretty show together for nearly a month.

This final shot shows true blue 'June to Remember' siberian iris blooms. The dogwood growing nearby has begun to shade this clump too much, so I didn't get as many flowers this year. Transplanting it to a sunnier location is on the To Do list for next spring.
If you find yourself enjoying classic color combinations despite raised eyebrows from garden design snobs, then I'm with you. There's plenty of room in the garden world for all types of color schemes and garden designs, and I hope to remember to enjoy them all.

Mid-Summer Wide Views of the Front Gardens

2011-07-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

Now that it's been just over a year since our front yard relandscaping project, here are some wide views of the recently pared-down gardens. For photos from summer 2010, see here. For photos of the new beds in spring 2010, see here.
The perennials are filling in well, but the shrubs and trees are still very small. I expected the English roses (which just finished up their first flush of blooms and are all leaves in these photos) would be 4-5 feet tall this year, but the harsh winter cut them back so much that they're in the 2 feet range.

I was hoping the backlighting would make pretty pictures, but many of the plants look washed out in these photos, sorry. In this view you can see a couple of the giant lavender 'Walker's Low' catmint (Nepeta). The flower spikes are starting to look rough and will soon need to be cut back, but they've given a couple of months of beautiful color so far. They'll start blooming again a few weeks after they're cut back and continue until frost.

The main color this month has come from the catmint, 'Pink Double Delight' coneflowers (Echinacea - in the background of this photo), 'Rozanne' hardy geraniums, and various daylilies. Above is peach 'Frances Joiner'. The daylilies didn't give many blooms last year after being divided up and transplanted. This year is better but still not overwhelming. Next year they should give a great show of both flowers and foliage.

This photo shows a short, flowerless rosebush in the center with 'Big Blue' lilyturf (Liriope) along the bottom right corner. At the center bottom is an 'Emerald Gaeity' Euonymus shrub. Lavender geraniums and catmint are in the background along with some pink coneflowers. To increase unity through repetition, the front gardens have 7 catmints, 6 geraniums, and 4 groupings of 3 catmints in each scattered around the area.

This view shows the bed next to the front patio and steps. In front of the rock is a 'Unicorn' corkscrew rush (Juncus), which visitors always notice and ask about. To the left of the rock is a sadly short rosebush, and to the right is a little 'Green Tower' boxwood (Buxus). Eventually the boxwood should get 7-9 feet tall and up to 2 feet wide, though I might keep it pruned narrower than that. I think of it as my welcome sentry as visitors pass by it on the way from the driveway to the front door.

This photo shows a different view of the same area, with a couple of 'Big Smile' daylilies in bloom next to a 'Rozanne' geranium. Like everyone else, I can't say enough good about the long season of color from vigorous 'Rozanne' - and no deadheading required, hallelujah!

Here is another pairing of coneflowers and catmint, located on the far west corner of the front yard. On the left of the photo, if you look hard, you can see a little 'Coral Supreme' peony. I added two of these to the front yard last fall, but neither bloomed this spring. I guess that gives me something to look forward to for next June!

Here are more coneflowers and catmint on the far east side of the front yard. In the background you can see a good display of pink blooms from the 'Jolyene Nichole' daylilies. At the upper left is one of the 6 baby 'Blue Star' juniper shrubs. It's hard to wait for these slow growers to fill in their space. Eventually they can get up to 5 feet wide, but they're all around 1 foot wide right now. They provide year-round steel blue color for the garden.

I'll finish with a close shot of those elegant 'Jolyene Nichole' daylilies. Overall I'm pleased with the growth the front yard is making, but it has a ways to go before it looks like the picture in my head. Grow, shrubs and roses! Be patient, gardener!

My New Favorite Cut Flower: Astrantia

2011-07-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

This spring I've been enjoying the three types of Astrantia (Masterwort) that are growing in my garden: 'Abbey Road' (above), 'Moulin Rouge' and plain old white Astrantia majalis. No doubt floral artists have been well aware of this plant for ages, but I just realized how great it is for arrangements. It lasts a long time in the garden or vase, blends softly with many other flowers, and has long, slender yet sturdy stems that are easy to tuck into arrangements.

These first three photos show 'Abbey Road', which I bought from my local nursery in a Monrovia pot a couple of months ago. The flowers are rosy when they first open (above), then fade to a more silvery color (below). This hybrid is supposed to be especially vigorous and long blooming. Sometimes I regret my impulse plant purchases, but this one was definitely a good buy.

Did I mention how pretty the leaves are? They're glossy, elegant and great for arrangements as well. Astrantia likes full sun if it's growing in moist sun in a mild climate. It needs more shade in really hot climates and areas that don't stay as moist. I have it growing in morning sun and it seems happy.

Above is a photo of the darkest astrantia in my garden, 'Moulin Rouge'. This plant tops out at 18 inches instead of 28 inches like 'Abbey Road'. I ordered it from Heronswood last spring but didn't see any flowers until this year. Next year the floral show should be even better.

Here's a photo from a few weeks after the first picture. You can see how the flowers are a softer color, but still very pretty.

I cut a bunch of these stems and made a bouquet with 'William Shakespeare 2000' crimson English roses. I didn't get a picture of that arrangement, sorry, but the two flowers worked together beautifully.

These last couple of pictures show Astrantia majalis. It has worked well in several floral arrangments with peonies, delpinium, daisies, and salvia.

As I mentioned last week, I have been giving away some of my less favorite plants lately. But these astrantia will definitely stick around and be divided to make many more clumps in the next few years.

Paring Down the Front Yard Perennial Palette

2011-07-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

I knew this would happen eventually . . . if I crammed too many different plants into the front garden, some of them would have to go away after a while. But how to resist trying out one more plant here and another one there when they might be perfect for the final design? So try them out I did, and now I'm paring back.

The original plan for the front was a light pink and white color scheme, inspired by the Eglantyne roses shown in the first two pictures. The white lost out a while ago to lavender. Then peach and touches of soft yellow were added in the form of daylilies and 'Abraham Darby' roses, plus light blue iris. Dark violet joined in for a while, but now it's getting the boot to leave me with a purely pastel scheme.

So here's the tally of keepers and movers. Though the corkscrew rushes (Juncus spiralis) are staying, the 'Marcus' sages (Salvia) in the background were removed this week. A couple went to the backyard, and a few more went to our neighbors across the street.

This is a sturdy, pretty sage, but the dark violet color didn't work with the other front yard colors in my eyes. And as other plants keep growing, there won't be enough room for the sages soon anyway.

I also moved the dark violet 'Banbury Ruffles' dwarf iris to the backyard, though there is still plenty of lavender creeping phlox ('Emerald Cushion Blue' - in the background) left to bloom next May.

To fill the spots left by 'Banbury Ruffles, light blue 'Eramosa Skies' dwarf iris were divided and replanted to make five or six clumps around the front yard.

I transplanted the 'Fragrant Lavender' iris (above) to the backyard and instead planted three groupings of light blue full-sized iris. The new iris ('Rapture in Blue') are similar in color to the the 'Eramosa Skies' dwarf iris, but they bloom several weeks afterward to continue the light blue part of the scheme.

There's still plenty of lavender in the form of 'Walker's Low' catmint (Nepeta - above) and 'Rozanne' hardy geraniums. The catmints should have been divided this spring, but it didn't happen. So five of the eight plants are HUGE right now and spreading out all over their neighbors.

This year I was excited to see the first blooms on the 'Just Because' siberian iris. The flowers aren't quite pastel, but getting them started in my sandy flower bed soil has been such a chore that I'm not giving up on them now! Last year I lost several baby plants that didn't get enough water while their roots were still getting established.

As for the pink part of the scheme, I divided the delightful and early-blooming 'Pink Bubbles' iris to make three clumps around the front yard. They look especially nice next to the catmint.

I also found places to make three clumps of 'In Love Again' iris, which start blooming just as 'Pink Bubbles' finishes up. Having several groupings of the same kinds of iris should tie the whole front yard together better.

Sometime soon the 'Tiny Todd' dwarf asiatic lilies will be removed and given away. Their pale color looks washed out in the summer sun. They started blooming at the same time as the roses and pink iris and seem to clutter the picture. Focal points are part of good design, but they don't happen if you have too much going on at once.

Now the daylilies and 'Pink Double Delight' coneflowers (Echinacea) are starting to bloom. The dark rose-colored mums were removed and given away this week, so they won't be blooming in the fall. But there's plenty of color to come, as the coneflowers, catmint and 'Rozanne' geraniums (in background above with 'Otto Luyken' laurel in foreground) will keep flowering until frost, plus another heavy flush of roses in September, plus the colchicum and autumn crocus . . . and the lilyturf blooms, can't forget those. Anyway, plenty of color ahead, despite the reduced palette.

Iris, Catmint and Sage in Gold and Violet - West Garden in June

2011-07-05T09:44:00.001-07:00

The west flagstone bed, which earned its own post in the spring here, put on a pretty show in June.

Golden yellow iris contrasted well with 'May Night' Salvia (sage) and 'Walker's Low' Nepeta (catmint) in shades of violet. In the photo above, you can see short spots of warm purple color where Aubrieta 'Axcent Purple' put out yet another flush of bloom after a haircut. This Aubrieta started blooming in March - what an impressively long bloom season!

Bees of many types have been happily buzzing around the sage and catmint. There are eight catmints and twelve sages along the path. The repetition and massing of the sages (the catmints are big enough on their own, but I planted the sage in four groups of three) look good to my eyes. Imagine that, those design principles actually work! My kids have been taught to stay out of the bees' way but not to be afraid of them. We all enjoy watching them work.

Unfortunately, some of the iris - like 'Tumalo Sunset' above - leaned away from the wall toward the sun when they started blooming.

I have decided to remove the leaners and keep the ones that can stay upright despite the lopsided light conditions. Above is upright 'Pure as Gold' (though I'm not entirely sure the label is correct, since there is a flush of purple at the base of the flower so it's not 'pure' gold). After the changes, there will be three clumps of this iris scattered along the path.

I'm also going to switch around the violet iris. These 'Royal Amethyst' iris will fit better with the backyard color scheme, so away they'll go.

Instead, I'm going to divide up these 'Evening Tidings' iris to make three clumps along the path. I usually prefer flowers that are all one color, but I like the way the two colors on these blooms tie together the shades of violet and lavender of the sage and catmint.

Of course, I don't know if 'Evening Tidings' will become a leaner when planted right next to the wall. If it flops over next year, I might have to do more adjusting. But that's OK, as I have no qualms about transplanting.

To add some pink to the color mix, I transplanted little divisions of Armeria maritima (thrift or sea pink) to the edges of the flagstones. Their small size prevents them from making a huge impact, but the added color is nice when you notice it.

By now the sage plants are done with their first flush, so yesterday I paid my son a quarter to cut them back. Soon the catmint will be read for haircuts, too. Because they only get afternoon sun, they won't bloom as heavily through the season as plants in full sun. But both sage and catmint should put out some color in the months ahead.

Next the asiatic lilies will start blooming in this bed - 'Royal Sunset', 'Fangio', and an unnamed rosy-orange dwarf lily. Newly planted 'Jethro Tull' coreopsis is already flowering since it had a head start at a greenhouse this spring, and 'Early Sunrise' coreopsis has buds ready to open. There are a few roses open on the climbing 'Crown Princess Margareta' roses, with buds on 'Teasing Georgia' and 'Lady Emma Hamilton'. Unfortunately the roses were cut back so far by the harsh winter that the small plants aren't making a huge impact this season. 'Stella d'Oro' daylilies are flowering, and later 'Apricot Sparkles', 'Smoky Mountain Autumn' and 'Hush Little Baby' daylilies will join in. I'll post another update in a month or two.

Itoh Peony 'Kopper Kettle'

2011-06-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

Like 'Keiko' (see post here), 'Kopper Kettle' is another intersectional or Itoh hybrid peony. These plants have large flowers held up on strong stems like their tree peony parents, but their foliage dies back to the ground each winter.

My plant was purchased last spring without any flowers, and it gave three blooms this spring. At first I thought there'd just be one, but two more buds were hiding under the foliage.

You can see the interesting color combination of peach, rose, copper and cream that gives this flower its name.

While visiting my local nursery a couple of weeks ago, I heard the owner mention that they would no longer be carrying 'Kopper Kettle', since it has proven to be less vigorous than hoped. He said Monrovia will be introducing a newer Itoh with similar coloring called 'Picasso' or 'Picassa'.

So here's another lesson on the virtue of patience - it's always wise to wait a few years to see how a new introduction does before buying it for your own garden. But us gardeners (ahem) sometimes have more enthusiasm than wisdom.

I'm certainly not ready to rip out this plant and replace it with another expensive Itoh hybrid. I'll just give it some bloom booster fertilizer and enjoy the flowers it puts out, even if there aren't as many of them as one would like. In the photo above you can see how the color has faded after several days in the sun.

This photo shows one of the blooms that showed up under the foliage. Its coloring is especially vivid since it didn't receive any direct sun.

I cut the flower and enjoyed it inside for several days. The color didn't fade, and the bloom put out a spicy fragrance. When 'Keiko' was blooming (it bloomed earlier since it had been in a greenhouse all winter), I cut a bunch of flowers and was impressed with how well they held up in a vase (see below). Their color holds up much better inside, so in future springs I'll probably cut most of the flowers from my Itohs for vases and show them off indoors.

Recently I have also been researching tree peonies and have decided to try a few in my yard. I placed an order from Cricket Hill Gardens for a couple of red-flowering tree peonies to arrive this fall. I was very impressed with the gorgeous photos of both tree and herbaceous peonies at the Peony's Envy website - check it out if you have time to enjoy some vibrant, luscious flower images.

Love You 'Melba Higgins'!

2011-06-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

When I listed the flowers blooming in the garden last week, I did not mention 'Melba Higgins' aquilegia (columbine), but this little plant is the biggest thing going on right now in the backyard.

A few years ago I planted three tiny plants from Bluestone Perennials, then saved the seeds that formed and sprinkled them through the garden. Last year these seedlings were too small to bloom, but this year they're blooming their heads off.

The Melba Higgins show is especially noticeable this year, since the cool spring has kept so many other things from blooming so far. Delphiniums, iris and peonies would usually be full of flowers by now, but many of them are still sitting in bud stage. 'June Bride' heuchera, shown above, is an exception.

There are a few other blooms in the backyard, like this red peony from my friend Cindy. Glowing, rich blue-violet Melba Higgins complements these other flowers nicely. MH blooms spring to summer for four weeks or more, once established.

This columbine grows 24-30" tall and 20" wide. It's happy in full sun to mostly shady areas in zones 3-8 and handles a range of soil types. The delicate, lacy foliage fits in well around other plants, and its wide tolerance of sun conditions makes it a nice plant to add continuity to both sunny and shady areas of the garden.

Perhaps the greatest aspect of my Melba Higgins show is that it came (mostly) from seed. Big output from a small input! Seedlings will come true if it's the only type of columbine in your garden, but if you have several types then they'll probably produce hybrid seeds.

Since MH has been blooming for several weeks already, the show will soon finish up and I'll deadhead the plants to encourage them to save energy for next year instead of making more seeds. I'm very grateful for MH's ability to fill a blank spot in the blooming calendar, though!

Brunnera, Aubrieta, Lilacs, Lewisia, Bleeding Heart, Carnations

2011-06-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

Here is a roundup of some of the blooms in my garden lately. These first three are flowers on Brunnera 'Jack Frost'.

They remind me of forget-me-nots and are very true blue.

No doubt there'd be more flowers if my plant wasn't growing in full shade. Some morning sun would do it good.

I picked up some Aubrieta 'Axcent Antique Rose' at the nursery last month. It's more lilac than rose.

My clearance-rack 'Katherine Havemeyer' lilacs put out more blooms than last year, but still not a ton.

It's interesting to watch how the warm lavender buds open into cool silvery lavender flowers.

Holy cow, the Lewisia put out a ton of flowers this year. I forgot to get a picture when they were in full bloom, but it was impressive.

My white bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis alba) is gigantic this year, sprawling over its neighbors.

It gets plenty of water and shade in its position, so the leaves hang around until fall instead of going dormant in summer as they would usually do.

I brought home a few carnations from Lowes last month. Above is 'Ruby Tuesday'. Light clove scent, pretty bright red flowers, very nice for cutting.

Here is 'Rosy Cheeks'. No doubt these would not be in bloom yet if they had spent the spring in the ground instead of at a greenhouse.

This plant has a delicious clove fragrance and vivid cool pink blooms. I'm amazed at how many flowers it's putting out . . . of course that means a lot of deadheading, oh well.

Despite our unusually cool weather, the iris and early peonies are blooming and Asiatic lilies are ready to pop open soon. 'May Night' salvia didn't bloom in May, but it's blooming its head off now. I'll have to grab some pictures of the enormous 'Walker's Low' catmints with the fluffy big bumblebees that cover them on warm days. And that brings us up to date on what's blooming in the garden.

'Bright Parrot' and 'Salmon Parrot' Tulips

2011-06-07T14:54:00.000-07:00

Parrot tulips are some of the showiest of bulbs. These first three photos show 'Bright Parrot' and were taken at my dad's garden in mid-April.

This fiery red and yellow flower is a bold way to celebrate spring.

'Bright Parrot' is a mid- to late-spring bloomer and its height is 12 to 24 inches. Unfortunately, parrot-type tulips do not return well year after year, so you have to plant fresh bulbs each fall to get a great show each spring.

These next photos show the bloom progression of 'Salmon Parrot' tulips in my front yard.

The blooms start out with plenty of cream and soft, warm salmon.

The colors intensify as the bloom ages.

This bulb blooms mid-season and tops out at about 20 inches tall.

The salmon, cream and green flames are so pretty together . . . and then the salmon changes to a true pink.

Here you can see the color starting to cool off.

Eventually the blooms are cream, green and pure, cool pink with not a hint of salmon left.

Quite a show, eh?

Itoh Peony 'Keiko' aka 'Pink Double Dandy'

2011-05-31T16:24:00.000-07:00

Intersectional peonies - crosses between tree peonies and herbaceous peonies - are becoming very popular of late. Here are some photos of 'Keiko' (otherwise known as 'Pink Double Dandy'), which I bought this spring from my local nursery in a 5 gallon Monrovia pot.

These intersectionals are ridiculously expensive. Most catalogs and websites seem to price them around $100, which is about what I paid. At least I brought home a seriously big plant (above) for that seriously big price! Although my peony was in the same size pot as several other Itoh hybrids, it was two or three times as large. Who knows whether my plant was just older than the others or if 'Keiko' is especially vigorous.

Here is a series of photos showing how the flowers progress from bud to full bloom. You can see above that the buds aren't perfectly round balls like herbaceous peony buds. One nice thing about these Itoh types is that their stems are strong enough to hold the flowers aloft without staking, even when in full bloom.

The color changes as the flower develops. Here it's a vivid cool pink, but it soon fades.

The flowers on my new plant are not as full as the ones pictured on the Monrovia website here. It will be nice to see how they fill out in coming years as the plant settles into its spot and develops plenty of roots.

The color of the flowers is sophisticated and not easy to describe. Maybe vivid rose fading to tapestry or vintage rose would be the best description. There seems to be just a hint of pale yellow underlying the pink, which becomes more apparent as the flower ages.

The stamens are bright golden yellow and are very prominent when the flower is fully open. The flowers on my plant seem to open and close through the day, depending on how sunny and warm it is.

I've read comments from other gardeners about how it is difficult to place pinkish Itohs into the garden because their color is different from the clear pinks of herbaceous peonies. I agree with that assessment.

It's a very pretty pink though, and would make sophisticated floral arrangements (if one can figure out what other flowers to put with it). I'll probably cut some to bring inside now that I've taken pictures for this post.

Soon I will post about my 'Kopper Kettle' Itoh peony, which has just one bud waiting to open. If you find yourself wanting more information about Itohs, check out Monrovia's collection here or the Intersectional page from Swenson Gardens here.

Spokane Temple Tulips and Daffodils

2011-05-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of the spring bulb plantings at my church's nearby temple, taken in mid-May. The yellow tulips above are 'Jap Groot'.

It's been nearly two years since I was asked to work with the temple landscaping committee as a volunteer, and it's always nice to see our work paying off with beautiful displays.

Our church currently has 134 temples scattered all over the world, and all of them are expected to have beautiful grounds surrounding the elegant buildings.

New temples are open to the public during open houses, but after dedication only church members in good standing are allowed inside. The grounds remain open to anyone who wants to enjoy a peaceful setting.

Large temples - like the ones in Salt Lake City, Washington, D.C., or Los Angeles - have crews of paid workers to take care of the grounds. Little temples like the one in Spokane are cared for by volunteers.

It's a lot of work taking care of the temple grounds! Each year volunteers donate hundreds of hours of labor doing things like pulling weeds, watering, deadheading, planting annuals, etc.

A big part of my job is rounding up volunteers to help with temple work projects. This task is hard for me, because I get nervous calling busy people to ask them to get their hands dirty working at the temple grounds.

In the past year I have also helped the main coordinators pick new plants and draw out new perennial beds, which has been a lot of fun. We're working with a Master Composter to add lots organic material to improve the soil.

I earned my Horticulture degree from Brigham Young University, which is heavily subsidized by my church. So it feels great to use that education as a volunteer at the temple.

It's helpful that I live just a mile away from the temple, so I have experience working with the same soil and microclimate challenges in my own garden.

Oh, and we have plenty of challenges at the temple grounds. It's definitely not a garden of Eden! Besides thistles and thorns and other weeds, we have to plan for deer eating plants outside the fence.

Supposedly this area was once a riverbed, so the original soil is poor, rocky clay. Since we're at the bottom of the Spokane Valley, the cold air sinks down here and gives us early fall and late spring frosts, plus extra cold temperatures in the winter.

In addition, the temple site gets a lot of drying winds. And the areas immediately south and west of the temple get intensely hot in the summer from sun bouncing off the white granite walls.

These harsh conditions have made refinements necessary in the twelve years since the Spokane temple was built. But the landscape is getting better each year as plantings - especially trees and large shrubs - mature and give the grounds a fuller look.

Soon the huge beds of peonies will be in bloom, and next weekend we're planting hundreds of annuals that will make a great show all summer. I'll try to remember to get some more pictures later in the season to post.

Saturated Spring Color in the West Bed

2011-05-16T08:41:00.000-07:00

It has been so exciting to see the vivid colors burst into bloom in the west flagstone bed this spring. It ended up as a rainbow of hues - warm purple, deep indigo blue, green leaves of course, golden yellow, orange-red, and hot pink.

The most rewarding part for me has been to finally have an area of the garden that looks 'designed'. Although the front yard is getting to that organized, polished point, it's not quite there yet. And of course the backyard abounds with pretty plants that are thrown in together without much planning.

Anyway, this west bed features repeating clumps of plants - both perennials and bulbs - that tie the whole area together and draw you along the path. Though it didn't turn out exactly as planned . . . the orange-red tulips were supposed to be peach 'Daydream' with a 'pencil-thin dark edge'. Hmmm. These tulips do not look like the picture on the bag from Costco. But I think their vivid color works even better than the soft peach would have, so I'm not complaining.

This photo shows Alyssum 'Basket of Gold' with dwarf purple irises (from my friend Robyne) and Aubrieta 'Axcent Purple' in the background. I grew the Alyssum from seed last year, so the clumps are still small, but they're adding a bright note of gold to the design.

I have been so impressed with this type of Aubrieta. It has been blooming for nearly two months now, outlasting each wave of bulb blooms and continuing to provide cheerful color. I highly recommend this plant, which also comes in rose, blue, and I'm pretty sure I saw a golden yellow version as well.

Here we have 'Crown Princess Mary' tulips, which were ordered from White Flower Farm last fall. It's another plant that I'd strongly recommend, since each bulb gives several peony-like blooms. It's given a lot of bang for each bulb. Of course my daughters are quick to point out that the beautiful hot pink color is their very favorite part of this bed!

I've learned that the only thing better than a beautiful plant is a beautiful plant set off by the perfect accent plant, so the colors, forms and textures of both plants enhance each other. In this case the 'Axcent Purple' Aubrieta is the perfect accent (ha-ha) for the tulips.

Here's a shot showing a 'Blue Jacket' hyacinth, which started blooming before most of the other plants and are completely spent by now. I cut back all the flower spikes yesterday.

Thankfully, as the 'Blue Jacket' hyacinths finished, these 'Blue Spike' grape hyacinths started up (Muscari armeniacum - available from Brent & Becky's bulbs). They are larger than most grape hyacinths but still smaller than regular hyacinths. They have proven to be good naturalizers for me, coming back in bigger clumps each year.

This photo highlights the difference in color between the warm purple dwarf irises and the true blue of the grape hyacinths.

Here's another shot showing how well three different forms can work together - airy, lacy golden Alyssum with bold balls of pink from the tulips and a mat of purple Aubrieta.

I'll end with a final shot of the tulips-which-are-not-'Daydream' with purple and pink in the background, to remind me that surprises can be even better than the plan. Now I'm looking forward to salvia, bearded irises, catmint, asiatic lilies, english roses, daylilies, coreopsis and yarrow to bloom in this area as the season progresses. Plenty of vivid color to come.

Mother's Day Projects

2011-05-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

First a sneak peek of the west flagstone bed. By next week the spring bulbs should be in full bloom so I can post a bunch of pictures. Above you can see a pink 'Crown Princess Mary' tulip with violet and orange flowers in the background.
Last weekend we accomplished a lot of work in the garden. A dump truck left 5 yards of bark in the driveway on Saturday morning, and we worked through sun, rain and hail to get it all spread by evening. My husband did most of the work, but the kids and I helped some, too.

I bought a fountain to match the birdbath from last year, both from Lowe's. My husband put it together and set it into place near the back patio. The sound of the water running is nice - not to loud, not too soft. Of course nothing can drown out the shrieks and wails of our kids when they're playing in the backyard, but after they go to bed the fountain makes the patio very pleasant.

I also brought home three more big black urns from Lowe's, to match the one I bought a year or two ago. I planted them simply with an Asparagus densiflorus 'Sprengeri' in each one. The conditions on our back porch are difficult for flowers, with shade for most of the day, then intense sun and heat for a couple of hours during the summer afternoons. Hopefully the asparagus ferns will be tough enough to take the extremes.

The bark in the beds makes a nice backdrop for all the emerging leaves, and the smell of fresh bark is wonderful. I chose 'bark fines' instead of bigger chunks, so it will be interesting to see if the small pieces rot away in one season or if they stick around longer. My tired husband informed me that he'd love to avoid this project next spring, if possible. The photo above shows a lily stalk among columbine leaves, with delphinium leaves in the background.

I was grateful for all the work my family put into these garden projects. Some moms enjoy breakfast in bed, but I was happy to get bark in my (flower) bed for Mother's Day. I also wanted a nice picture of the children to send to the grandmas and great-grandmas, which I caught after ice cream bribes, threats, and lots of eye-rolling (from me as well as the kids, wonder where they learned it?). You can see the result above. I hope all you moms had a great day as well!

More Sunny Daffodils and Garden Updates

2011-05-02T16:30:00.000-07:00

Here are some more photos of daffodils from my dad's backyard garden. My miniature daffs (Tete-a-Tete) are still blooming happily in my front yard - that's one advantage to having a very cool spring, the bulbs last forever. Last week it snowed here, though it lasted less than an hour before disappearing. A fellow gardener noted yesterday that we have just a few weeks before the summer solstice and the days start getting shorter again. Everyone within hearing just groaned, since it so often feels like winter still.

Winter or not, I have planted a bunch of new perennials and bulbs recently. All of my mail-order plants have arrived in reasonably good shape, including the siberian irises from JPW Flowers; the LA lilies from Brent and Becky's Bulbs; the poppies and rhubarb from Burpee's; and the campanula, phlox, filipendula, and siberian iris from Bluestone Perennials. I finally got all six hellebores from the Northwest Garden Nursery out of their pots and into the ground - that took some rearranging to make space.

I've got my eye out for some new perennials to buy, especially 'Absolute Amethyst' candytuft (Iberis) from Proven Winners and 'Peachy Seduction' yarrow (Achillea) from Blooms of Bressingham. They've been added to the Wish List on my sidebar. Maybe I'll find them this season or maybe not until next year.

I have also been intrigued by the new Itoh peonies offered by Monrovia. I bought 'Kopper Kettle' last year and look forward to seeing it bloom for the first time in June. I'd also like to try 'Julia Rose', 'Takara' or 'Keiko'. Today I stopped by nearby Gibson's Nursery and didn't see any of those three, so I came home with an old-fashioned 'Pink Parfait' peony instead. I will keep checking back to see if any of the pink Itohs come into stock.

I keep drawing plans for where to plant more bulbs in the front yard this fall - crocus, colchicums, hyacinths, more mini-daffodils. It's been so nice to have these little bulbs blooming for the past couple of months, while the backyard perennials and shrubs have been sleeping still. Meanwhile the 'Salmon Parrot' (or was it 'Apricot Parrot' - will have to check my notes) and 'Salmon Impression' tulips are just about ready to start blooming out front.

Vivid colors are getting ready to pop in the west garden - rosy and rosy-peach tulips, golden Basket of Gold, and many shades of blue-violet in Aubrieta, hyacinths and dwarf iris. Plus the unusual 'Hair' alliums are getting ready to bloom. I've got my camera ready to shoot lots of pictures when the flower buds finally burst open.

Purple buds are showing on the lilac shrubs and new leaves are unfurling everywhere in the garden. I'm looking forward to seeing the first blooms ever from some of the perennials planted last year - siberian and japanese irises, peonies, astrantia, columbines, yarrow. There's plenty to get excited about in the garden - now we just need some warmer weather to enjoy it!

Pink Tulips and Pink Daffodils Are Not the Same Color

2011-04-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

Many of you gardeners already know that 'pink' daffodils aren't exactly pink. Not mauve or bubble-gum pink, at least, like these tulips. So no matter what the catalog/website picture shows, you have to plan for peachy-pink or coral-pink daffodils.

I caught all these pictures in my dad's backyard when we visited for Easter. His garden, just 100 miles away in Moses Lake, is several weeks farther along than mine.

Over the past couple of years he has planted a new bed in the middle of the backyard, and when we visited there were several hundred daffodils in bloom along with tulips, a few hyacinths and fritillaria.

I used techniques from my last post when shooting these pictures. Since the house shades this bed right before sunset, these pictures were taken at about 5 pm with the sun behind the flowers. Aren't these true pink tulips dreamy?

But even more dreamy were the hundreds of daffodils in bloom. I ordered these next photos to show the progression of color as the double daffodils open and then fade over several days.

You can see that these 'pink' daffodils open a pinkish-orange color. I forgot to ask my dad which hybrid these are, so I can't name them, sorry.

The flowers in the background are blurry because I mostly used a 1.4 f-stop. Maybe a couple of photos go up to 2.0, but not any higher than that.

And the backlighting makes the flowers and background glow, just as Jose Villa promised. Don't you just feel warm when looking at these sun-filled shots? Me too, despite the rainy grey weather outside my window right now.

Anyway, as the daffodils age the peachy-pink color softens and softens . . .

. . . until the flowers are mostly white with a pastel pinky-peach center. Still not bubblegum, or even cotton candy, and definitely not mauve. But a pretty color nevertheless.

Wedding Photo Tips Adapted for Garden Photos

2011-04-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

This month I bought 'Fine Art Wedding Photography' by top photographer Jose Villa (available from Amazon here) and have enjoyed studying his methods and thinking of ways to apply them to my garden photography. Here are five of his tips that can apply, along with my attempts to illustrate his points with photos of the spring bulbs in my garden. Included are 'Tete-a-Tete' mini daffodils, 'Spring Beauty' scilla and 'Grande Maitre' crocus. Of course my photos are nowhere near as beautiful as his, which you can see on his blog here.

1. Photograph with your aperture wide open (ie with a low f-stop). In layman's terms, this creates a blurry background. It requires leaving full auto mode and going at least to Av mode, if not full manual. Unlike Mr. Villa, I am not quick enough with manual to use it much, so I set my camera to Av mode so I can push the f-stop all the way down to 2.8 or 1.4, depending on which lens I'm using, and let the camera figure out the rest of the settings. A bonus to using a low f-stop is that it reduces the blurriness from camera shake, which is especially helpful in dimmer light. You can see in the photo above that not all of the daffodils are on focus thanks to an f-stop of 2.0.

2. Take advantage of the soft skylight that lasts about 10 minutes after sunset (or before sunrise). Mr. Villa goes so far as to check sunset times on days when he's shooting a wedding so he can make sure to have the newlyweds available for photos during this time. Well, most photographers already know that the best light is right around sunrise or sunset. A cloudy day can produce similar light. The nice thing about this type of light is that there aren't many shadows, so you can shoot in any direction. This light also lets you capture good colors instead of the washed-out hues that can occur in strong sunlight.

3. Backlight your subject when shooting in strong sunlight. When I first started taking pictures for this blog, my instinct was to do exactly the opposite, and shoot with the sun at my back. But backlighting (shooting with the sun behind your subject) creates especially pretty pictures when the light is low just before sunset, with the flowers glowing. The photo above shows the same clump of daffodils and scilla as the photo above it, only one is backlit with the setting sun and the other is lit with soft skylight. The backlit flowers are very striking, though perhaps you can see true colors and detail better with the softer lighting.

4. Expose for the shadows. This applies to backlit subjects. To do this (sorry for the non-technical terms here), make sure that the center red dot on your screen flashes/beeps right on the point (often the center of a flower) where you want the best focus and correct exposure. This will cause you to lose some detail in the 'blown out' highlights of the background (which will be blurry anyway since you're shooting with a low f-stop), but will keep your focal point clear and properly exposed. This makes the overall photo brighter, with soft colors and glowing light. In the photo above, you can see white splotches in the background that have no detail thanks to the low f-stop and overexposure, but they don't detract from the flowers in the focal point, and the whole photo is filled with light.

5. Overexpose for soft colors and glowing light. I have a hard time giving up vivid colors to create this effect, but I tried for this post. You can see that the photo above is slightly brighter and the colors softer than the one below. Mr. Villa overexposes by adjusting his manual ISO setting to one f-stop below the speed of the film (so he sets 3200-speed film at 1600-speed). Since I'm not that proficient in manual and I don't use film, I adjusted the exposure on my computer by using Photoshop Elements' RAW editor.

Of course most of us aren't going to be able to create photographs as beautiful as Jose Villa's, but experimenting with his methods could help us capture some shots that are better than expected. I'm certainly having fun with his tips, and can't wait to try them out while photographing my children, too. If you try any of these tips and have success, be sure to leave a comment and post a link to your photo(s). Best wishes!

GGW's Picture This Contest: Let's Talk About Light

2011-04-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

When I read about Gardening Gone Wild's theme for their April photo contest - light - I thought of this picture right away. I took it around New Year's at the Santa Barbara Zoo, and the cheerful backlighting reminds me of everything I miss about California winters - mild temperatures and sun. Ah well, if we can't live in California at least we can visit once in a while. So here's my entry for the April GGW photo contest.

Parade of Small Spring Bulbs

2011-04-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

Small bulbs have been the stars of the garden so far this spring. I love the small bulbs because many of them bloom early, and once the show is over their diminutive foliage doesn't draw as much attention to its half-dead state as large tulip leaves do when they die back (although I planted some tulips last fall anyway). Above is a shot of Crocus 'Grand Maitre' and blue Scilla 'Spring Beauty'.

One drawback to small bulbs is that a photographer has to sprawl in damp grass or hunch down into the dirt to catch good photos. My neighbors must have had a chuckle or two at my contortions on the front lawn the other day while snapping these photos.

Last week I mentioned how unusual Crocus tommasinianus looks when the flowers first stretch up. So here's a photo to demonstrate. Somehow they look half-dressed. Though it's not apparent in this shot, sometimes it takes a few days for the petals to grow long enough to enclose the stamens, so there are bits of orange sticking out the tops even when they're closed.

But when the sun shines these cheerful little flowers throw back their petals and glow! In this photo you can see them blooming amid tulip foliage. I saved myself some work last fall by planting crocus right on top of tulip bulbs. With the tulips at 8" deep and the crocus at 4", there was plenty of room for both.

Here you can see blue Chionodoxa (Glory of the Snow) blooming with Aubrieta 'Axcent Blue' in the foreground and more Crocus 'Grand Maitre' in the background. I'm planning to add some C. 'Pink Giant' to the mix as well, since this is what I see out my kitchen window while doing dishes. I was hoping the Aubrieta would bloom at the same time as the 'Basket of Gold' (Aurinia saxatilis) planted beside it, but so far no luck. Hopefully the bloom times will overlap at least for a little while, since the deep violet and gold would be pretty together.

I can't remember if these are Chionodoxa luciliae or C. forbesii 'Blue Giant', which makes it difficult to order more to match. Though if they're so similar, maybe it won't matter what type I get.

Here a shot of Chionodoxa with Phlox 'Emerald Blue' in the background. I had an idea that these might bloom together, but the phlox isn't even close to blooming yet. There's plenty of trial and error in trying to match up spring blooming partners.

It's interesting to compare the light blue of the Chionodoxa with the light blue Scilla 'Spring Beauty', which are also blooming right now. Though both could be called 'true blue', the Chionodoxa leans slightly toward periwinkle while the Scilla (above) is an almost turquoise blue.

I planted Scilla around clumps of miniature daffodils ('Tete-a-Tete') in hopes that the blue and yellow would play off each other well. So far most of the daffodils haven't started blooming . . .

. . . except for the clump in the photo above, which makes a cheerful combination. This pretty picture - with afternoon sunlight backlighting the flowers - was definitely worth a few strange looks from the neighbors and a few damp spots on my jeans, don't you think?

Crazy for Crocus

2011-04-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

Although crocus aren't the most exciting flowers - they're small, their colors are limited, and they don't repeat bloom - they were the only thing blooming in my March garden. And that made them fabulous!

These first photos show 'Golden Bunch', which has been in bloom for nearly a month now (surely they'd expire faster if our weather was any warmer). This type is 'bunch blooming', meaning that each bulb produces numerous flowers. The photo above shows the flowers from just 5 little bulbs that were planted last fall. I'm so impressed.

The second type of crocus to start blooming in my garden was Crocus tommasinianus 'Barr's Purple', also planted last fall. Whereas the other crocus in my garden form complete flowers low down and then send them up, this one sends up half-formed flowers that gradually fill out. They look kind of ghostly at first.

Above are more of the tommies. Many crocus are great naturalizers, which means they increase in number each year. My neighbor has lots of crocus as well, including some of the pure white and lavender-and-white striped types. Since she planted them five years ago, the clumps have expanded quite a bit. Can't wait to see how much mine increase in future years.

These last couple of photos show 'Grand Maitre' crocuses, which I picked up at Costco last fall. I think the bag contained 50 or 100 bulbs for about $14, which is a great deal either way. The only drawback to Costco is their limited selection, whereas Brent & Becky's Bulbs offers 36 different types of spring-blooming crocus.

I've been marking up pages in the B&B catalog to remind me which crocus to order for fall planting this year - more of the same types that I already have, to fill in empty spots. Might as well make March as colorful as possible! The small bulbs are easy to tuck in around perennials and shrubs, and they're much less work to plant than others since they only go 4" deep. Now my other small bulbs are starting to bloom - Chionodoxa, Scilla and Galanthus. I'll post pictures of them next week.

Pink Roses, English & Otherwise

2011-03-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

Roses won't be blooming in my garden until late June, but I pulled out some photos from last year for this post. Above is my very un-artsy display of five of the english roses in my yard. I thought it would be interesting to compare the shapes, colors and sizes of the different blooms all in a row. From left to right: Sister Elizabeth, Eglantyne, William Shakespeare 2000, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, The Countryman. Too bad you can't sniff them - Sis Eliz and CR Mackintosh have a myrrh scent, The Countryman is sweet strawberries, Eglantyne doesn't have much of a scent for me, and Wm Shakespeare is true, rich, old rose fragrance.

Above and below are shots of Princess Alexandria of Kent, a new english rose in my garden last year. The color was surprising - the young flowers have a definite coral-salmon tint, then they age to almost pure pink.

The flowers are large and their shape is lovely. I can't remember exactly how they smelled, except that they did have a fragrance and I liked it (so it couldn't have been myrrh, which isn't my favorite).

This is a close up of the button eye in a Sister Elizabeth bloom. Those buttons are just adorable. The color is such a pretty mauve-pink.

These next two are of Double Pink Knockout rose, which is not growing in my garden. I was assigned to buy a new rose bush for the elementary school rose garden, and my local nursery strongly suggested that a knockout rose would be the most sturdy, hardy, easy-to-grow plant for the school. So I picked this one and took a few pictures before we planted it at the school.

The color of this pink knockout is a gorgeous deep, true pink - slightly on the cooler side. I don't especially love the shape of single knockout roses, but this double form is handsome. I'm not sure that I'll make room for any in my garden, though, since I'm stuck on english roses.

And here is a final picture of soft cotton candy pink Englantyne, which will most likely be the first rose to bloom in my garden again this year. I don't wish to rush through the next few months, as I wouldn't want to miss the tulips, peonies, delphiniums and iris . . . but I'm looking forward to rose season for sure.

Pink and White Crabapples in Bloom

2011-03-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of my 'Spring Snow' and 'Royal Raindrops' crabapple trees. Of course they are from last year, since we're still about 2 months too early for crabapple blooms this season. But I never got around to posting them last year.

'Spring Snow' is supposedly the only fruitless crabapple tree. Its dimensions are estimated at 20' x 20', but it grows in a columnar form - so maybe a bit narrower than the estimate? I had a hard time picking between this tree and one of the flowering pears, but ended up with a Spring Snow since it stays smaller and smells much better in bloom than a pear. I also like how the flowers come out with the leaves to enhance them, while pears flower before the leaves emerge. But pears have glossy leaves and better fall color . . . there just isn't a perfect tree, is there?

Here is what I thought was a 'Prairie Fire' crab, but I now think it's a 'Royal Raindrops' - see this link for more info about RR, plus pictures. Aren't the flowers a pretty color? The leaves are dark maroon and are shaped like hawthorne tree leaves with pretty cut edges.

I have three of these baby trees in the back (plus six of the Spring Snows). Their dimensions are estimated at 20' tall by 15' wide. They're supposed to get berry-like red fruit and orange-red leaves in the fall, though none of them did last year. I'm excited to see the fall color and fruit when the trees mature more.

I keep meaning to prune off some branches and try to force them into bloom in a vase, but haven't done it yet. How early can you cut crab branches for forcing? I'm sure the answer is on the internet somewhere and I just need to look it up.

One of the 'Royal Raindrops' trees looks like a cat scratched up the trunk. I'm worried that the deepest wound (shown above) will continue to pull apart and disfigure the trunk as it grows. The wound is on the north side of the trunk, so it's protected from winter sunscald. Should I replace it now, while it's small and easier to match to the size of the other two trees, or wait and see what the trunk does? What do you think, fellow gardeners?

Flowers from California that I Miss

2011-03-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

This is the time of year when I wish we still lived in sunny, warm California. So I pulled out some photos taken at the Santa Barbara Zoo when we visited over the Christmas holiday. Above is Clivia miniata, which only grows as a houseplant here. Our neighbor in Santa Clara had several - including a yellow one - growing happily in the ground.

Well do I remember sitting in the park with friends while watching our preschoolers playing on the toys and exclaiming, "This is why we pay such high rent! So we can sit at the park in March with 70 degree weather." Above and below are pictures of California Lilac, or Ceanothus.

The rent is cheaper in Spokane, but we stay indoors and away from parks in March. Although this week we are supposed to reach 50 degrees a few times, which is fabulous weather for this time of year in Spokane.

I have no idea what plant produces the pink flower above (any guesses?), but the fact that it was evergreen and blooming over Christmas break was charming.

I think Agapanthus is the plant I miss most from California, with Zantedeschia aethiopica (Calla lily) a close second. They both grew like weeds in full sun or shade in my California garden, and they seemed so exotic to eyes used to colder climates. I don't think I ever mentioned that neither of the 'hardy' agapanthus that I planted in my garden (see this post) survived the first winter here. I piled some bark over top to help protect them, but it wasn't enough.

I have gradually realized that my garden at the bottom of the Spokane valley is in a harsh microclimate, despite being rated at zone 5. We trap the heat in the late afternoon if the sun is out, then all the cold air sinks down at night. That makes for wider extremes of temperature (and more late spring and early fall frosts) than the areas farther up on the hills. Plus our looong winters are stressful for many plants. Above is a grouping of succulents: jade plant and Echevaria, perhaps?

But enough moaning about my microclimate. The good news is that the 'Golden Bunch' crocus started blooming last week (above), and yesterday the kids and I were happy to notice some of the lavender Crocus tommasinianus starting to bloom as well. Early or late, spring does come eventually.

Garden Tour: Northwest Woodland Garden in Spring

2011-03-08T20:08:00.000-08:00

During my hellebore-buying trip, I took these photos of the gardens surrounding the Northwest Garden Nursery. I believe the gorgeous tree above is an old moss-covered Corkscrew Hazel (which I misidentified as a willow at first), also known as Harry Lauder's Walking Stick or Corylus avellana.

Of course there were plenty of hellebores dotting the garden, including these by the creek.

Here is a closeup of those hellebores from above. There were plenty of white snowdrops (Galanthus species) in bloom as well, and you can see a few in this shot if you look closely.

This is my favorite scene - all those ferns and mossy tree branches are the essence of a Pacific Northwest garden, don't you think? As I drove from Portland to Eugene and back, I loved it that even though the deciduous trees along the freeway hadn't leafed out yet, they were already green from all the moss on their branches. Spokane trees don't look like that!

The pond was restful with a hundred shades of green surrounding it and a fountain trickling in the center.

I'm pretty sure that the yellow pine is supposed to be that color, probably a rare and valuable form, but it just looks sick to me. However the color is cheerful next to all the other green conifers.

I'll end with the shot of several hypertufa pots filled with succulents, which were colorful despite the earliness of the season. This garden was a delightful backdrop for the hellebore stars of the show.
Meanwhile, in my garden there are four golden crocus in bloom, finally, though nothing else yet. Spring will come!

Winter Jewels Single Hellebores

2011-02-28T09:07:00.000-08:00

As promised, here are pictures of some single hellebores bred by Ernie and Marietta O'Byrnes and photographed during my Official Plant Fanatic trip to their nursery last weekend. Again, I'm guessing on names since all of these plants were growing out in their gardens and I didn't check name tags. The one above is probably an 'Apricot Blush'.

If you want to see the nursery gallery of single hellebores, click here. The O'Byrnes have decided to focus exclusively on the hybridizing and growth of their Winter Jewels lineup of single and double hellebores to meet increasing demand. So these gorgeous plants will become easier for gardeners to find and buy in coming years.

I have a lot of admiration for plant breeders, as it takes a combination of science, art and hard work to hybridize new plants. I'm fascinated with english roses from David Austin, siberian irises from Schafer and Sacks at JPW Flowers, New Millenium delphiniums from Dowedeswell, heucheras from Terra Nova nursery, and gorgeous daylilies and hostas from so many breeders. Plus the countless bulb choices developed by dutch growers over the years, all those new echinaceas and clematis . . . and surely I could think of more if I spent the time. Not every new plant introduction lives up to its advertising, but many of them prove to be wonderful additions to our gardens.

These two dark heucheras must fall into the 'Black Diamond' group. White Flower Farm is offering 'Black Diamond' in its spring catalog, along with 'Cherry Blossom' and 'Golden Sunrise' from the O'Byrnes.

Heronswood doesn't offer Winter Jewels, but has a large collection of single and double hellebores for sale. I'm especially tempted by their new 'Anemone Smoky Pink', which looks a lot like the pink hellebore in the photo below. I just love those pink ones!

My local nursery carried some 'Golden Lotus' hellebores last year, which are from the double Winter Jewels collection. So I'm sure that plenty of other local nurseries carry Winter Jewels as well. If your favorite nursery doesn't have any in stock, ask them to order some from Terra Nova (who are wholesale only) for you.

By the way, none of these companies have paid me for advertising. Really, that's a laughable thought for my little blog, so I want you to know that my reviews are completely unbiased by anything except my passion for pretty plants!

The picture looks like a 'Cherry Blossom' WJ hellebore, with its clean white and raspberry shades. Currently the Winter Jewels series and many others are seedling lines, which allows for interesting variation but makes it impossible to know exactly what you're getting unless you buy the plant in bloom in person. That is a drawback for any of us who are a little OC about getting exactly what we want. I have read that tissue culture propagation for hellebores has made great strides recently, so I expect that more and more strains will be offered that will be perfectly uniform.

This last photo shows a large pink-flowered clump nestled into ferns in the O'Byrne garden. I'll post more pictures from their beautiful garden - which includes much more than just hellebores - next week. If you want to see my post on the double Winter Jewels hellebores, click here.

Winter Jewels Double Hellebores

2011-02-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos of the double Winter Jewels hellebores that I saw at the Northwest Garden Nursery in Oregon. I didn't stop to write down names to go with the pictures, and there's variation within each named group, so I'm giving my best guess as to the names. I believe the one above would be 'Onyx Odyssey'.

Here are flowers from the six plants that I lugged home with me on the plane. In the center is an 'Onyx Odyssey', and clockwise from the white 'Sparkling Diamond' you can also see what might be a 'Harlequin Gem', light pink 'Cotton Candy', green 'Jade Tiger', and 'Peppermint Ice'

I had imagined the plants coming in little 4" pots, but the smallest size was a 1 gallon, and most of these were in 2-gallon pots. I removed the pots and some extra soil (though the pots were mostly roots), wrapped the root balls in plastic grocery bags, and carefully packed them into a giant tote bag. Somehow they fit - mostly - under the airplane seat as my carry-on. My arms are sore today from carrying that heavy bag around!

Here are some other pictures of double-flowered types. Above is a 'Peppermint Ice'. Visiting the nursery was quite an adventure. It was out in the middle of nowhere, and by the time I arrived at 10:05 am (5 minutes after opening on the first day), there were already over a hundred people crowded into the tiny greenhouse, picking through potted hellebores.

I think the one above would be 'Berry Swirl'. I spoke briefly with Ernie O'Byrne, one of the owners, and he told me that last year they had 1300 plants out for the first day of their open house. During the two hours that they were open that day, they sold all but 40.

Here is 'Golden Lotus'. Based on my experience, I would recommend that you get there early on the first day if you ever decide to go to their open house. Otherwise there won't be much left.

Here is another 'Golden Lotus'. You can see the variation within named groups, as the first plant has a bit of burgundy around the edges of the petals (tepals), while the second plant is entirely greenish-yellow.

I'm guessing that these next two photos show 'Cotton Candy', though the online photos of CC don't show any quite like these. Many of these hellebores were growing in the gardens surrounding the nursery, so I imagine that not all of them fit into the named groups.

I also took photos of single-flowered hellebores and wider views of the gardens. I'll do two more posts to show all those pictures.

Here is a lovely 'Berry Swirl' plant. I think it might be more sophisticated to admire simple, single-flowered hellebores, roses, peonies, etc. But I can't help but fall for the frilly doubles.

Here is another 'Onyx Odyssey' plant, this one more black than the maroon one at the top of the post. Honestly, I don't think there were any double-flowered plants that I didn't want to take home with me - plus plenty of the singles, too! But I'll have to be happy with my half-dozen . . . and look forward to interesting seedlings in the years to come.

Floral Valentines Cupcakes and Hellebore Fest Trip

2011-02-14T08:40:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day! There are a dozen women who work at my husband's office, and this year I decided to do something for them for V-Day. I picked up glass votive holders from Target, several bunches of carnations from the grocery store, and some ribbon. Here they are, all packed in a box-top for easy transport to the office.

They have a nice clove scent and kind of look like cupcakes, except without the calories. At the end I added little black bows for a finishing touch. Now I just need to get my youngest daughter all dressed up in her red-and-black outfit with matching heart-antennae-headband and go deliver them together.

My darling Valentine gave me a great gift this year. After listening to me moon over the gorgeous Winter Jewels hellebores that are bred by Marietta O'Burnes in Oregon and offered to retail customers during just a couple of weekends each year, he suggested I take a little trip next weekend to pick out some hellebores myself!

So on Friday I'm flying and driving to Eugene, Oregon, and on Saturday morning I'll be at the Northwest Garden Nursery Open Garden Days to buy some hellebores and take lots of pictures for blogging. Although a few catalogs offer a Winter Jewel hellebore or two, these plants are seedling grown and exhibit some variation in flower, so you have to pick them out in bloom to be sure of the exact coloring.

Are any of your Oregon bloggers going to make it? If you want to see pictures of these amazing plants, click here for single flowers and here for doubles. Or you can come back next week and see what I've come up with on my little adventure.

I had to add a photo of my delivery-girl helper for flowers and cards today. So sweet!

Visions for the 2011 Season

2011-02-07T20:16:00.000-08:00

After a large remodeling/relandscaping project in the front yard last spring, I'm planning to take a break from big projects this year and just let things grow. As you can see above, there is plenty of dirt showing in the beds that should be filled in by plants eventually. Then the eye will view groups of plants as flowing masses instead of polka-dots on a brown background. Alas, I'm afraid my 'Otto Luyken' laurels (the dark green shrubs in the photo) are going to be a lot smaller after I prune away the parts that died back this winter.

Here is a 'before' photo of the front, before we added took down the railing, added steps and more beds, and built a stone-based column at the corner. This year I'm not ordering any annuals to fill in, which I'm hoping will help the beds to look less cluttered (but the shrubs and perennials just need to GROW!). I've got hardy 'Blue Moon' wisteria planted at both front corners of the house, and someday it will be big and gorgeous - though probably not this year, sigh. But the 500+ spring bulbs - crocus, tulips, hyacinths, chionodoxa, scilla, and mini-daffodils should put on a great show soon.

Here is the flagstone path on the west side of the house in midsummer 2010. Hopefully by this summer there will be a lot less dirt showing. There are three climbing roses to add some height, though I don't expect them to grow too much this year. Our growing season is just so short that plants take a long time to get big. At least the 'Elfin' thyme is filling in nicely between the flagstones.

Here is one of those climbing roses - 'Teasing Georgia' - along with lavender catmint and golden 'Early Sunrise' coreopsis. I posted a lot of close-up shots of flowers last year. The photo above shows three plants, so I guess it counts as a mid-range shot. But I'm not too excited about any of the wider shots in this post - they just don't look that great. My goal for next year is to take more wider-view shots and have them turn out nicely.

Do you remember how all the 'Pagan Purple' delphiniums (in the rear of the photo above) blew over last year? I bought a bunch of hoop supports and am hoping that they'll provide enough support to keep the delphs upright this year. The hoops aren't as good (or as time consuming) as staking individual stalks, so we'll see if they work very well or not.

Of course I've ordered a few new plants already. I received my 'Jarradale' grey-blue pumpkin seeds in the mail this week (Johnny's Select Seeds), and I fell for the 'Double Click Cranberries' cosmos seeds as well (Park Seed). I can't wait to see the cranberry color. If they don't get sold out, I'll get three 'Medallion' super poppies in the mail (Burpee's), which are a lavender-mauve color. So far I've managed NOT to order a pink 'Woodside Romance' daylily since I'm hoping that my local nursery will have it (but White Flower Farm convinced me that I really need this plant), and maybe I'll get white 'Sunday Gloves' as well. Good thing I have a few new beds to fill in.

Also from Burpee's, I ordered a couple of 'Victoria' rhubarbs. I'm not a big rhubarb fan, though my dad likes it in pies (and I make pies, so he'll like me better now that I'm going to grow rhubarb). My real reason for ordering was that it has such BIG leaves and can handle full sun and zone 5 winters! Our summer air is too dry for most hostas to grow in the sun, and many other large-leaved plants are tropical in origin and not hardy here. I feel pretty clever about this solution to the 'little leaf' syndrome in my backyard beds, and I plan to include it in the designed beds when we finally get the backyard in order.

You remember that my backyard (pictured in these last four shots) is currently a hodge-podge, where I'm trying out lots of plants to find which ones are worth including in the final design in a few years. I'm freely adding to the hodge-podge this year, with three new siberian iris from JPW Flowers: blue 'Over the River', turquoise 'Mister Peacock', and deep violet 'Trim the Velvet'. I also ordered white 'Snow Queen' siberian iris from Bluestone Perennials (can you ever have enough siberian iris? apparently not), along with 'Blue Paradise' phlox, Filipendula 'Flore Pleno', and Campanula 'Birch Hybrids'. And that's all for this year . . . probably.

Evergreen in Zone 5, Huh?

2011-01-31T09:07:00.000-08:00

This post is a followup to my post last year on which evergreens actually looked good by midwinter in my zone 5 garden. The 'Queen Charlotte' violet surprised me with fresh-looking green leaves and an actual flower (in January! - a miracle for sure), but be warned that the rest of the photos are more dreary. Honestly I feel like I'm posting pictures of my armpits - very unsavory - but here are the facts on the evergreen situation.

The Sagina subuluta groundcover looks about the same color as it is in summer - with some straw-colored bits mixed in. It doesn't make a huge statement at less than an inch tall, but it's nice to see some patches of green on the ground.

I had high hopes for my two 'Green Tower' boxwoods (click on the name for more info from Monrovia), and they're looking OK but not spectacular. They aren't totally bronze like so many boxwoods, but they aren't a very 'fresh' shade of green, either. Some of the long stems were sticking out sideways (like a bad hair day) after heavy snow, but they have mostly recovered now that the snow has melted.

The only juniper I find attractive, super-hardy 'Blue Star', is of course looking fine despite the cold and snow. You can see the touch of pink in its needles that appears during the cold months. Other types of needle-leaved evergreens do well here in tree or shrub form - arborvitaes, spruces, firs, pines - but they just seem boring and prickly to me, so I don't have any in my yard.

These hellebore leaves are growing in full winter shade on the north side of our home, and the leaves are still a beautiful green but buds have not yet formed. I figured out that if I want my hellebores to bloom before May, they have to get some winter sun. Of course they need summer shade, so planting under deciduous trees is perfect. Their leaves turn brown faster with winter sun, but in exchange I'll get early flowers. All of my other hellebores are getting winter sun and have buds formed and blotchy brown leaves.

The various heucheras in my yard are looking OK, if a bit flattened by the snow. Above is 'Lime Rickey'. 'Green Spice', 'June Bride', 'Prince of Purple', and 'Autumn Bride' all look similar, with slightly faded colors from summer. They'd look better if I would clean out the brown leaves around them, but that hasn't happened yet.

The Juncus spiralis 'Corkscrew' clumps still look pretty good, and they bounce back from the snow easily.

This photo shows Thymus 'Elfin' in front, Penstemon 'Elfin Pink' on the left (how cute, the Elfins are together), and Aubrieta 'Axcent Blue' on the right. All of these plants are doing fairly well this year. The grey thyme looks dreary, but perhaps it's better than bare earth? The penstemon leaves are holding up better this year than last year, looking wilted but green. And the aubrieta even has a few small violet flowers on some plants.

The 'Big Blue' liriope is pale and listless, but still somewhat green. Again, better than bare earth, I guess.

The poor 'Otto Luyken' laurels look like a joke, with the top halves burned brown by subzero temperatures and the bottom halves pretty green where they were protected by snow. They looked better last year. Here's hoping that the stems are still alive and the brown leaves are quickly replaced by green ones during their spring flush of growth.

I'll finish with a 'Golden Lotus' hellebore bud to show that there is hope for spring eventually! As you can see my grand plans for including non-needle-leaved evergreens in the garden haven't been as successful as hoped. At least all the boulders are looking good. It's so hard to find the right balance between winter interest and summer interest in zone 5 - with every 'boring' evergreen shrub you plant, you give up space for flowers and interesting foliage in the summer. Even though our growing season is shorter than most, I spend so much more time outside during that time of year that I'll probably keep weighting my garden toward summer interest. What's your opinion on the right balance?

Cut Flowers for January

2011-01-24T09:37:00.000-08:00

Even though my mother isn't a huge flower fanatic like me (I inherited that from my dad), she always buys herself some cut flowers in January. She says it's cheaper than a session with a psychiatrist and just as helpful for the mild depression that's hard to escape during a grey Washington January.

Last week I took her advice and picked up a bouquet of roses from Costco. Only $15 for two dozen roses, and they perked up my mood nicely. I put them in a ceramic bowl that my grandmother passed off to me. What a family affair.

Roses don't last nearly as long as carnations, which is why I brought my grandmother a vase of carnations in her favorite colors: coral, hot pink, and a bicolor carnation that brought the two colors together.

If you're battling the January greys (which are even worse than the blues, by the way), I hope you have enough left in your budget to pick up a few cut flowers to bring home. If not, you can enjoy these pictures instead. No matter what others say, I think eye candy is good for the soul.

Tips for Ordering Plants by Mail

2011-01-10T11:15:00.000-08:00

If you are planning to order plants from a catalog or website, here are a few tips that I've learned from past experiences. Why order by mail? I grew up watching my dad order plants from catalogs. He lived in a small town with few nurseries close by, so catalogs were the only way to get much of a selection. Catalogs and the internet offer an endless selection of plants that you may not be able to find locally. The pictures in this post don't have much to do with the words - they're just random photos that haven't fit into other posts yet. Above is 'Eglantyne' rose.

I have learned that even if my favorite local nursery (Gibson's - which is just a mile or two away from home) doesn't have a plant in stock, they can often order it to be delivered on the truck that's coming anyway in a week or two. This is a better deal than ordering online, because I don't have to pay shipping, and I get a 1-gallon perennial instead of a 2- or 3-inch pot (which is what often comes by mail) for the same price. After looking at 'Summerwine' yarrow (Achillea) in catalogs all last summer, I happened upon it in during the fall clearance at Gibson's. I brought home a hefty plant for just $7.50. I was glad I hadn't paid twice that much plus shipping to order it online. Above is Salvia 'Victoria' or 'Evolution' - I can't remember.

If you can't find a plant locally, it's easy to research a new catalog or internet nursery through GardenWatchdog. When you type in the name or zip code of the company, you'll find ratings of plant quality and customer service from past customers. The 'Watchdog 30' list shows the 30 top rated companies and is a good place to find a reputable mail-order company. I've been pleased with plants from Bluestone Perennials, Oakes Daylilies and Forestfarm, all of which are on the top 30 list. Above is 'Vintage Pink' double petunia.

When buying groceries with kids in tow, I'm a big fan of one-stop shopping. But I don't order plants that way. I love finding a nursery that specializes in the plant I'm craving and searching through their huge selection for the perfect cultivar(s) for my garden. These types of nurseries know just how to handle their specialty plants, so you'll get a quality, well-cared for plant in the mail. I've had good experiences with these specialty nurseries: Swenson Gardens for peonies, Joe Pye Weed's Garden for siberian iris, Swan Island Dahlias, White Oak Nursery for daylilies and hostas, and David Austin Roses for english roses. Above is 'Rozanne' geranium.

When catalogs sell out of some plants, they often substitute something similar. That drives me crazy! The reason I order by mail is so I can get exactly what I want. If you don't want subs, make sure you indicate it on your order. Try to order early to reduce the chances that your plant is sold out. Last year I ordered a 'super poppy' from Heronswood and forgot to tell them 'no subs'. They sent me two plants of a different kind of poppy instead. Although it was generous for them to substitute two plants for the one I had ordered, they were the wrong color for my garden and I had to give them away. I don't want to bash Heronswood - I love their hellebores! - but I'll be sure to write 'no subs' on my order next time. Above is 'Endless Summer' hydrangea.

Are you obsessive compulsive about color like me? While considering a plant from an online nursery, it's easy to open another tab and google the plant's name to find pictures of it in real gardens. I'm always wary of 'true blue' pictures in catalogs, because so few plants are actually blue. If you see a blue rose, tulip or daylily offered, be aware that it will be lavender in real life. Although siberian irises can be true blue, you can see that the 'Blueberry Fair' flower above is actually blue-violet.

Finally, remember that the prettiest catalog doesn't necessarily have the best plants or best values. I order something every once in a while from White Flower Farm so they'll keep sending me their luscious catalogs, but I can often find a better value elsewhere. Van Engelen's paper catalog doesn't include any photos (though their website does), but their bulb prices are amazing.
I hope these tips help make your mail-order experience better! If you have some words of wisdom, please leave a comment to share. Above is Forget Me Not (Myosotis), which is a very true blue.

Beautiful Backlit Bougainvillea

2011-01-03T09:10:00.000-08:00

Sunlight, flowers and warmer weather were waiting for us when we visited California over the holidays. Our kids were happy to see Grandma and Papa, and I enjoyed photographing some of the flowers.

These pictures are of Bougainvillea, a flowering vine that is commonly grown in California but never seen outside the greenhouse in Spokane. Since this plant is native to the mild parts of Brazil, it's only hardy in zones 9b and 10.

The showy flowers aren't really flowers at all, but papery bracts. Flowering happens best when the plant is a bit stressed, so gardeners have to be careful not to overwater.

Bougainvillea vines are almost as common as Agapanthus in California, and I wonder if some gardeners there tire of them. I didn't have time to get bored with them during the three years we lived in Silicon Valley.

Since this plant is relatively pest-free and drought tolerant once established, it's a great fit for California gardens. I won't be attempting to grow it as a houseplant, so please enjoy it for me if it grow in your climate!

Top Ten Photos from VW Garden 2010

2010-12-20T11:19:00.000-08:00

These are some of my favorite photos from my garden this year. I also want to share a few things I've learned from studying photography. Above is a shot of dogwood blooms (Cornis florida) from the spring.

Here are the amazingly true blue flowers of 'June to Remember' siberian iris. Photography has taught me to look for and appreciate the beautiful parts of a scene, even if there are some parts that don't look great. That definitely describes my garden - partly pretty, partly not, depending on the time of year.

People also have their good angles and not so good angles. This applies to photos and personalities. If you look for the negative, you'll always find some, but you can always find some good, too. This photo shows the english rose 'William Shakespeare 2000'.

I knew almost nothing about photography when I started this blog almost three years ago. But it's amazing what you can learn when you put your mind to it! So don't be afraid to learn something new. Above is a 'Stargazer' oriental lily.

Sometimes simple is beautiful. Here are the leaves of 'Blue Angel' hosta. The leaves aren't as showy as a flower, but I love the way their shapes flow and the water droplets sparkle.

Flowers are fleeting, and waiting too long to get out to the garden with the camera means that I'll miss out on some beautiful blooms (or cute bees). Childhood is fleeting, too. I need to remember to pause and appreciate the wonderful things about my children at each age, because soon they'll move on. This flower is a 'Giggles' dahlia.

Here is a 'Blue Mirror' delphinium. I especially appreciate true blue flowers because they're rare in the garden.

Above is a photo of 'Pink Double Delight' coneflowers. The flower shape changes as it ages, but each stage is beautiful in its own way. If only us women could believe that about ourselves!

Wacky and unusual plants, like this corkscrew rush (Juncus spiralis), make the garden more fun.

Photography has taught me that good light is magical. The midday sun is harsh and bleaches the color out of flowers. Early morning or sunset light is more gentle and allows the flowers and colors to really shine.

To help them shine, children (and the rest of us) need gentle encouragement and not harsh criticism. So I'm especially thankful for the many kind comments left on this blog. I wish you a wonderful holiday season. I'll start posting again in January.
And here you thought I couldn't count . . . it was really hard to pick just ten, so I cheated and included an extra photo.

Amaryllis Blooming & Igloo Building

2010-12-15T11:08:00.000-08:00

The amaryllis (is the plural amarylli?) and the igloo have been the stars around here lately. Above is 'Zombie', a striking coral-pink double amaryllis from Van Engelen.

It has been so fun to watch the show on my kitchen windowsill. First one bloom opens, then more and more.

I shot pictures with the cloudy sky as a backdrop. I thought having three blooms on one stalk open all at once was beautiful . . . .

. . . and then a few days later a second stalk opened up three more just beneath the first.

One of the three bulbs the arrived in the mail is obviously not 'Zombie', but it doesn't look like anything else on the Van Engelen website, either.

I didn't mind getting a surprise, though. The stalk on this one is very short and the flowers are so sweet, don't you think?

Finally, here is a shot of the new garden structure that my husband built, with my son posing in front. It was tall enough for me to stand up inside, and my adventurous husband was planning to sleep inside one night (that's what people do around Spokane for fun in the winter, didn't you know?). Unfortunately warmer weather and rain began to melt the igloo immediately after it was finished, and now it's just a small pile of snow in the grass. R.I.P.

A Few English Roses

2010-12-07T19:49:00.000-08:00

Thank heaven the garden is asleep right now, as there's too much to do in preparation for the holidays without adding gardening chores to the list. This week I'm just posting a few pictures of David Austin's english roses. Above is 'Sister Elizabeth'.

'Claire Austin' is touted as the best white english rose to date, but my young plants are still getting established. They put out a few blooms last summer but I hope for a better show next year.

Warm pink 'Princess Alexandra of Kent' has a hefty bloom with a soft, old rose scent.

Here is 'Lady Emma Hamilton', a delightfully fragrant rose with beautiful sunset coloring.

Finally, this is tiny 'Francine Austin', with sprays of sweet little white roses touched with blush pink. You'll notice the aphids on the bud to the right. I didn't use any pesticides on the roses this year. Occasionally I used the hose to spray off heavy aphids, but that was all. And the plants did just fine!

Celebrating White . . . Flowers

2010-11-30T16:57:00.000-08:00

I saved this post until white snow made its appearance in the garden and I needed to be reminded that white is beautiful . . . snow really is pretty until January, but by March I'm past done with it. And when it snows in May around here, it just makes me cranky.

But we're focusing on flowers here instead of flakes, so please direct your attention to the gorgeous white delphiniums in the first two photos. These were grown from 'Green Twist' delphinium seed and are a great flower for sun. If you don't mind staking, that is.

Above is an 'Esther Reed' double daisy, which is a classic plant for cutting and for the garden. If you cut back the first round of blooms promptly, you'll be rewarded with a second flush.

The only non-Austin rose in my garden is 'White Meidiland', shown above. I can't say enough about its great glossy dark foliage and low groundcover habit. It's such a useful rose - except for cutting, as the stems are not very long. Sometimes I bring them inside anyway for a short bouquet.

Sun-loving white Armeria maritima is a fun change from the usual hot pink versions. The only drawback to the grassy clump of foliage is that I can't tell when weedy grass has invaded until it goes to seed.

Have you ever noticed how dogwood (Cornus florida) blooms look like presents while they're opening? So sweet. This small tree wants partial shade in dry or hot climates. The fall leaf color is a wonderful crimson.

Now we move to the shade-loving plants, though I expect you can get away with full sun in a mild climate like gardeners enjoy in Seattle or England. Above is Astrantia major, also known as masterwort.

Here is Anemone nemerosa, the European Wood Anemone. Who would expect such a delicate flower to be such a thug? In my sandy garden soil, it spreads like wildfire by root and seed. It would probably be better behaved in heavy clay.

Fluffy white 'Bridal Veil' astilbe lights up my shade garden in June. It looks nice in a bouquet with delphiniums, astrantia, daisies and roses.

Here is a white bleeding heart, Dicentra spectabilis. I was lucky to get a shot, as my children love to pull the flowers apart to find the 'sword' in the middle of the heart. Although this plant goes dormant for summer in warmer climates, it lasts almost the whole growing season here in cool Spokane in shade.

I'll end with a shot taken out the window as we drove through the Idaho panhandle on the way to Utah last weekend. We saw plenty of snow on the roads while driving, and now it's coming down steadily outside. I'm grateful that we're safely home, though maybe I wish home wasn't such a snowy place!

Oriental Lilies From Late July

2010-11-22T09:23:00.000-08:00

These pictures of Oriental lilies are from late July of this year. Lilies are a nice way to perk up the garden after the big burst of blooms in June. They are one of a very few things blooming in my garden by midsummer.

The first four photos are of 'Stargazer', which is the most famous Oriental lily. I posted about lilies last year (here), but these photos are better. In this photo you can also see white Physostegia 'Miss Manners', otherwise known as obedient plant.

Unlike many types of lilies with downward-facing flowers, all of the lilies in this post face out or upward. They grow 2-4 feet tall, bloom for a few weeks in midsummer, are hardy in zones 4-10, and gradually increase in number.

Maybe the coolest trait of lilies is that they have contractile roots. This means that the roots can pull the bulb down to the correct depth.

Here is a shot of 'Casa Blanca', the classic white Oriental lily. Oriental lilies are known for their strong fragrance. I love to catch a whiff of it outside, but inside it's too strong for me.

These last two photos show 'Brasilia'. You can see the interesting variation in color between the different flowers. All of these plants were added a few years ago, and they're still going strong.

Perhaps the only con of lilies is the mess their anthers make if you brush up against them. I have been unable to remove their stains in a few shirts. But if you're careful to avoid that problem, then lilies are pure joy for the midsummer garden.

Favorite Color Combos With Blue-Violet

2010-11-15T08:54:00.000-08:00

Does blue-violet look good with every flower color? It seems to work fine with all the colors in my yard. Above is light blue-violet fanflower (Scaveola) with pink double petunias and steely 'Blue Star' juniper.

Of course white looks great with blue-violet. Above is white 'Rolling Cloud' siberian iris with 'Six Hills Giant' catmint.

True-blue 'Blue Elegance' bearded iris and mauve pincushion flower (Scabiosa) work nicely with catmint, too. Shades of blue-violet are the team players of the color wheel, after the greens, of course.

More shades of pink - light 'Eglantyne' roses and mid-pink 'Pink Double Delight' coneflowers - show well with a 'Walker's Low' catmint background.

Deep blue-violet 'Worth the Wait' siberian irises are lovely with mauve 'Sister Elizabeth' roses and white 'June Bride' heuchera. Hmm, I may have gone a bit heavy on the pinks for this post . . . but here's one more anyway.

Light blue-violet 'Blue Clips' campanula and deeper 'May Night' salvia cool off the vivid pink petunias.

Blue-violet 'Caradonna' salvia is smashing with lime 'Green Jewel' coneflowers. Of course, lime green looks smashing with a lot of colors.

A deep crimson 'William Shakespeare 2000' rose deserves deep blue-violet 'Purple Pagan' delphiniums as companions. Please ignore the less than straight stance of the delphiniums; someone (ahem) must have forgotten to stake them.

Rosy-orange 'Giggles' dahlias work with catmint. I realize too late that I didn't catch any pictures of blue-violet and golden yellow, another favorite (note to self: photograph the 'Stella d'Oro' daylilies with 'May Night' salvia in the background next spring). I've seen maroon and blue-violet looking good together. Also fire-engine red, florescent yellow and royal blue. Can you think of a color that clashes with blue-violet?

Crocus speciosus Encore

2010-11-08T12:25:00.000-08:00

Fall has brought some gloomy, rainy, grey weather. Imagine my delight when I walked outside on the first sunny day in a while and found a second round of flowers from the Crocus speciosus.

I already posted some pictures of these flowers here, but was so delighted with their rebloom that I had to do an encore post.

Fresh crocus flowers in fall are a delight anyway, but a double set of blooms from each bulb might push C. speciosus to the top of my favorite bulbs list. Of course there are plenty of showier flowers in spring, but these lavender beauties seem to shine even brighter since there's nothing else blooming in the garden right now.

I pulled out graph paper to draw a rough map of where the current clumps are located so I can plant more next fall in just the right places. Can you ever have enough fall crocus? I can imagine planting a few more each fall for years to come.

The bulbs pictured came from White Flower Farm at $8.95 for 25 plus shipping, but they were also offered by K. van Bourgondien at $9.50 for 25 bulbs and High Country Gardens at $13.49 for 24 bulbs.

WFF says C. speciosus is "the easiest to naturalize, most floriferous, and least expensive of the fall crocus." They're hardy from zones 4-8, and their diminutive foliage won't make the whole garden look shabby as it grows and dies back next spring. If these bulbs aren't already on your wish list for next fall, add them now. Just don't buy so many that they're out of stock when I try to order, ha!

Warts: Better on These Squash than on Your Nose

2010-11-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

This ghostly, warty white squash isn't exactly cute, but it's the perfect all-natural decoration for Halloween.

Here's another warty white oddity, and I wish I'd caught a better picture of the starfish-shaped squash at the bottom left. All of these warts were on display during our recent visit to Knapp's Farm in Greenbluff, WA.

Most people try to hide their warts when visitors are coming, but Knapp's Farm brought them all out to show off. Well, at least the squashy ones.

I was amazed at all the beautiful color combinations on these squash.

I should have bought some to bring home, but it was hopeless to try and pick favorites. So I just keep shooting pictures instead.

We did bring home some highly anticipated, new-crop Honeycrisp apples. If you've never tasted Honeycrisps, you are missing out on the most amazing apple ever. I don't know why anyone eats Red Delicious anymore with Honeycrisps around.

This basket sported warts in several stylish colors on squash with highly varied shapes.

I saved the best for last. Just try to tell me that this lime-green apple-shaped warty wonder isn't the cutest thing you've ever seen. Thank heaven my face doesn't look like this, but all those warts are so fun on a gourd.

A Rainbow of Pumpkins with Speckles, Stripes and Warts

2010-10-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

As a child, I thought all pumpkins were mid-orange in color with blocky-rounded shapes. Boy, was I wrong! Last Friday we took the family up to Knapps Farm in nearby Greenbluff, WA. While the children enjoyed the straw bale maze, miniature horses, blackberry picking, and Punkin' Chunkin' (shooting pumpkins out of a giant rocket launcher), I busily snapped photos of the amazing variety of pumpkins, squash and gourds. Centered in the picture above is a blue 'Marblehead' pumpkin.

Since I'm obviously not a pumpkin expert, I'm not sure if all of these squash are classified as pumpkins. For more information on pumpkin and squash varieties, see this website.

There were many types of cute miniature pumpkins for sale, like the white ones above.

Some of the orange pumpkins showed different shades that reminded me of a sunset or a bonfire. There were plenty of warts on display.

The blue pumpkins were my favorite. I looked for blue pumpkin seeds last winter and couldn't find any.

These 'Turk's Turbin' pumpkins were amazing! The variety of vivid colors and the unusual shapes reminded me of a circus.

Above is 'Rouge vif D'Etampes', also known as the Cinderella pumpkin.

This blue cinderella-shaped pumpkin was my favorite, and I found out its name: 'Jarrahdale'. Armed with this information, I'll be able to find seeds and grow some in our garden next year. Stay tuned next week for pictures of the warty, wacky squash we found at the farm.

Fall Flowers

2010-10-19T08:55:00.000-07:00

I have had some pretty flowers blooming this fall in my garden. Unfortunately, the Colchicum 'Waterlily' shown above is not among them. This photo was taken last fall, when only one of the three large (and expensive) bulbs bloomed, putting out three flowers. None of the plants sent out leaves in the spring, so they died from either the cold winter or the gallon of bubble solution my children spilled nearby. Hmm.

This autumn I planted three Colchicum cilicicum, described as 'vigorous and easy to grow' in the White Flower Farm catalog. All three bulbs sent out flowers, but I discovered that slugs like to eat them. This was the only bloom with petals left, and it's not very impressive. Next year the show should be better if I make sure to keep the slugs and bubble solution away.

This poor 'Farmington' double flowered aster was planted in a half-shade spot when I was hurriedly preparing to leave town during the summer. I never made time to transplant it to a better spot, and by now the sun is so low in the sky that it never gets any sun. Next spring I'll move it to a full sun spot and hopefully enjoy more than two flowers next fall.

I am undecided about how much I like the color of these daisy-form rose-colored chrysanthemums, available from Bluestone Perennials. They have certainly put out plenty of color, though, even though they were just planted this spring.

I had to cut back six of the nine mums yesterday, as hard frost hit last weekend and turned most of the garden to mush. Somehow one clump of three mums escaped damage, but all the dahlias turned black, the hostas and hydrangeas look melted, and the coneflower blooms turned brown (although the coneflower leaves still look fine).

The Crocus speciosus, or autumn crocus, have shrugged off the frost and are sweetly blooming in little clumps around the front yard. I just planted them last month, so it has been fun to see them bloom for the first time.

It's nice to have something fresh in the garden while most of the plants are tattered from the summer heat or succumbing to frost.

Many of the fall crocus are hardy only to zone 6, so I can't grow them. But C. speciosus is hardy all the way to zone 4. What a tough little flower. It's supposed to be a good naturalizer, if I can keep from digging it up when transplanting perennials. And if I keep that blasted bubble solution away.

I couldn't resist posting one more picture of these cute fall crocuses, so here it is.
Yesterday I planted about 100 more bulbs, and I still have somewhere around 300 left to get into the ground. They include parrot and Impression tulips, hyacinths, miniature daffodils, chionodoxa, scilla and several types of crocus. Stop by in the spring to see plenty of cheerful pictures of their flowers.

'Munstead Wood' English Rose

2010-10-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

Last spring I planted the new David Austin english rose, Munstead Wood, in my backyard garden. I happily looked forward to chocolate-crimson colored flowers.

You can see in the first photo that I did get a few deeply colored roses. But then the flowers lightened up to the same color as 'William Shakespeare 2000', another crimson english rose that I have planted nearby. Above is a photo of the lighter Munstead Wood blooms with a double campanula in the background.

The color remained lighter during the summer months, then darkened again as fall approached. None of the flowers on my bush were quite as dark as the photos in the David Austin catalog. But they were still pretty.

As the catalog says, there is a nice 'old rose' fragrance, though it isn't as strong as Shakespeare's. And the size is very manageable, at 3 ft high and 2.5 ft wide.

Even in its first year of growth, and despite being planted in partial shade (morning sun only), the shrub put out regular flushes of blooms throughout the season. It didn't have problems with disease, though of course a few aphids found their way to the new growth.

If you are thinking about adding this rose to your garden, I'd recommend it. Just don't expect all the flowers to be as dark as the pictures in the catalog - especially if you live in a climate with very hot summers.

Regardless of the color, isn't that a gorgeous flower? I just love these english roses!

The Many Faces of Pink Double Delight Coneflower

2010-10-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

Some people don't like double flowered plants, but I'm a fan. When it came to selecting a coneflower (Echinacea) for my front yard, I felt that the single types with their brown center cones were not in keeping with the look I'm trying to create. Don't get me wrong, coneflowers look fabulous in prairie style gardens. But I'm not making a prairie here.

I looked at Pink Double Delight (PDD) coneflower for months - years even - before buying any. Part of the delay was the cost of this new and popular hybrid - how could I buy enough to make an impact without spending hundreds of dollars?

I decided to buy several small pots of PDD and divide them up into even smaller clumps as I planted them this spring. I ended up with nine plants, and I fertilized to make them grow faster. I think the fertilizer might have made some of the stems floppy, so I'm not going to do that again next year.

Floppy stems is a problem with some coneflowers. With a mature height of just 16 inches, PDD is supposed to be compact and sturdy. If you plant them in full sun with good drainage and don't give them much nitrogen, I think PDD will be fine, as most of mine were.

Part of the fun of PDD is how the flowers change as they mature. At first they look like daisies, then they fluff up and start to look like cushion mums. Unfortunately, because they have petals in the center instead of stamens with pollen, the bees don't visit these flowers. But I've planted enough catmint nearby to keep the bees busy.

I was worried about how the vivid mauve-pink flowers of PDD would blend with other colors in my front gardens. But I've come to love the combination of cool lavender and warm rosy-peach with the true pink of PDD.

Of course a nice feature of PDD and all coneflowers is their tolerance of intense sun, heat, and drought (once established). Another perk is their bloom time, which starts just as the roses have taken a break - but well before chrysanthemums start blooming - and continues until frost. The picture above shows the fall flush of blooms on the rose behind PDD.

I noticed that the White Flower Farm catalog recommends that this coneflower be planted in the spring unless you live in zone 6 or warmer. I'm planning to transplant some of these coneflowers to make more room for the oh-so-vigorous clumps of catmint nearby, and it's hard to wait until spring instead of just getting it done now. But since I live in zone 5, I'll try to be wise and wait.

Actually, I have PLENTY of work to do already this fall. With just 125 bulbs planted, I still have 405 sitting here waiting to plant. How did I end up with so many?! My back is getting sore just thinking about it. Thank goodness only 40 of the ones to be planted are tulips, which have to go deep. All the others can be planted more shallowly and so will take less work.

But back to Pink Double Delight coneflower. If you can afford the price (or if you find a good sale) and have a sunny, hot, well-drained area, I'd give this plant two thumbs up. Just be skimpy with the fertilizer, and you should be very pleased with these sturdy plants.

Fall Colors: Crimson and Gold

2010-09-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

I've been hurriedly snapping shots of the garden lately, hoping that I'll have enough to illustrate this blog until spring. I don't have gorgeous red maple or pin oak trees turning colors in my garden, but I do have some smaller plants sporting fall hues. I thought I'd post these colorful leaves today after focusing on green ones last week.

These first three shots are of peony leaves. Funny, but the first two pictures show divisions from the same mother plant. The crimson plant was less water-stressed than the golden one.

Here is a 'Limelight' hydrangea bloom in front of the ruddy peony plant. Despite being planted in a challenging spot, this hydrangea has put on new growth and flowers each year. I can't say the same about my bedraggled 'Endless Summer' hydrangeas. Of the five bushes, only one plant put out a single bloom this year.

These last two shots were taken on the same day from the same tree. The great news is that this is the transplanted dogwood, which survived the summer! Now if it can just make it through this winter, I think it will be 'out of the woods' and sure to survive its recent move.

Fall is a last burst of fiery color before the greys and whites of winter. This week has been sunny and warm (up to 80 degrees F), and I'm soaking as much in as possible. Then hopefully I'll survive the coming winter, too!

Plain Green is Not Boring

2010-09-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

Is it because winter is approaching that green seems more beautiful than ever? Above is a picture of corkscrew rush, Juncus effusis 'Spiralis'. This plant is part of the grass family, and you can see its small brown flowers hanging from the spiraling blades.

I've heard that this winter is supposed to be especially cold and moist. That means it will be a long, long time before my hostas - like 'Blue Angel' above - show their heads again above ground.

Tiny Sagina subulata, or Irish moss, looks like a magical forest up close. Supposedly this plant is evergreen, but I'm learning that evergreen perennials aren't very attractive during our cold winters. They look just half-alive, which is worse than fully dormant in my opinion.

This is the biggest hellebore leaf in my garden, on 'Velvet Lips.' Most of my hellebores are still getting established and aren't even close to full size. I'm hoping to see pink 'Kingston Cardinal', peach 'Apricot Blush', and yellow 'Golden Lotus' bloom for the first time next spring.

Here is lady's mantle (Alchimella mollis) blooming earlier in the year. Doesn't it look like ballerinas in tutus swaying about? It's much too pretty to call 'plain.'

And here is a rosette of blue-green Lewisia cotelydon leaves. It would look better without the hard water stains all over. But it's still an interesting plant, even when out of bloom and just 'plain green.'

Somewhat Off Topic

2010-09-17T18:54:00.000-07:00

This blog is meant to be about plants and gardening, so I usually try to stay on-topic and post pictures like the one above. It shows 'Dolcissima Flambe' petunias, lavender 'Blue Clips' campanula, and deep blue-violet 'May Night' salvia that are blooming right now in my garden.

Last week I mentioned that we were expecting another baby, and then I had a miscarriage a couple of days afterward. What great timing. So this week I'm indulging myself and posting pictures of what makes me happiest in life. Kisses from my daughter make me happy.

Big smiles on the faces of my children make me happy - especially when my friend Randi captures them with her camera. I think those smiles are prettier than even the most exquisite flowers.

Living in beautiful Spokane with my family makes me happy, despite our six months of winter. This picture was taken on the bank of the Spokane River last month. Isn't the scenery gorgeous?

This picture does not reflect reality. Everyone's hair is brushed, there isn't any peanut butter smeared around anyone's mouth, and no one is pinching anyone else or whining about being pinched. But it's such a pretty picture that I ordered a big print and hung it on my wall. That makes me happy, even if we can't look forward to a new baby in the spring.

Dahlias or Daybeds?

2010-09-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

With frost fast approaching, the dahlias haven't much time left. So I'm enjoying them while I can. These pink ones are 'Excentric', which I ordered from Swan Island Dahlias this spring.

Swan Island has an excellent selection and good prices, and if I ever decide to try dahlias again I'll definitely order from them. If you live in a climate with a longer growing season then Spokane and you like dahlias, you should check them out (by the way, no one pays me to say anything on this blog).

This vibrant dahlia is in the same flower bed as all the similarly-colored petunias (in the background) along the flagstone path. It's pretty and cheerful around there.

This 'Giggles' dahlia is in the front yard. Anyone who has read me ranting about how I hate construction-barrel-orange will laugh when I say that I love the color. But the hints of pink and the different shades of orange are so intriguing. I always stare at them when I walk by.

And now we come to the reason for the title of this post. The bumblebees think these dahlias make perfect beds! I've seen half a dozen bumblebees lounging at once on these dahlia flowers.

When I walked by the other day, a bumblebee was sitting on a dahlia and lazily waving her leg at me. I had to chuckle at that. Was she thanking me for planting her favorite flowers?

The bumblebees are crazy-busy on the nearby catmint. Maybe they tire themselves out so much that they have to rest on the conveniently located dahlias. Whatever the reason, it has been very amusing to see them all lying about.

Speaking of crazy-busy, I've been neglecting to answer comments lately. We've been busy getting back-to-school shopping done. But school finally started today for the older two (hooray!), so I should have more time to spend here. Except that I've got several hundred bulbs to plant soon . . . well, we'll see.

Front Landscaping Project: End of Summer Views

2010-09-02T19:13:00.000-07:00

After our major landscaping project this spring, I was excited to see how the plants would fill in by the end of the summer. Here's an update on the progress with some wide view pictures. Sharing wide view shots is a Big Deal for me with such a young garden! Above is an 'Autumn Wood' daylily with daisy-form rose mums and 'Rozanne' geranium. I like how this color combo turned out. The five 'Rozanne' geraniums I planted this spring have grown quite large and have bloomed all summer long. I'm very pleased with them.

Here is a 'Giggles' dahlia with 'Walker's Low' catmint in the background. I planted a dozen of these dahlia tubers in the front yard and have been disappointed with their flowering. Half of them aren't blooming yet, and the first frost is coming up fast. I think dahlias aren't a good investment for my cold climate unless I buy them already in bloom. The tall, narrow form of the dahlias doesn't work well in my flower beds, either. Of course the catmint is growing by leaps and bounds and already needs to be divided. The bees love both of these plants. They busily buzz around the catmint and appear to take naps on the dahlias.

This is another shot of the dahlia, mums, 'Autumn Wood' daylily, 'Rozanne' geranium and some lavender lobelia in the background. I planted the lobelia to fill in some blank spots around the beds, but the little clumps just make the beds look cluttered.

My vigorous 'Abraham Darby' rose is in the middle of its second heavy flush of blooms. Unlike my experience with this rose in California, I haven't seen any rust on the leaves since planting.

Here is The Wide View shot for the post. I like the color scheme - warm peachy pinks, rosey pink and lavender. The foliage is a nice mix of glossy dark green (Otto Luyken Laurels, dahlias, creeping phlox), steely blue (Blue Star junipers), warm mid green (daylilies, lilyturf and Sagina subulata groundcover), and light blue-green (bearded iris).

Speaking of greenery, I am especially pleased with how my 'Green Tower' boxwood is growing (you can see it on the right of the shot). I was nervous that it would get crispy with all the sun and heat reflecting from the south side of the house, but it still looks perfectly fresh and green. Monrovia states that it will stay this color all winter instead of turning 'bronze'. That's great news since my winter lasts six months. This boxwood stays very narrow and can grow up to nine feet tall. It stands as a welcoming sentinel by the entrance to front veranda.

In the above shot you can see three types of filler annuals (they're the really short ones): double pink petunias, warm lavender lobelia and cool lavender fanflower (Scaveola). Like I said, it's colorful but cluttered. When the 'Blue Star' juniper reaches full size there won't be room for annuals anyway. Too bad it's a slow grower.

Although I'm not pleased with their contribution to the overall scheme, the double pink petunias are really pretty up close. You can see a touch of lime green at the base of the petals.

I'll end with this shot of 'Pink Double Delight' coneflower and 'Evolution' salvia (which grows as an annual in my climate). So what do you think of the end of season product? I think it turned out pretty well overall, though I'm planning a few tweaks here and there. Next year I'm not planting annuals, so no dahlias, petunias, fanflower, lobelia or salvia. But everything else should get bigger and fill in better. Eventually you won't see any bark. This fall I am adding a couple of 'Coral Supreme' peonies and six 'Just Because' lavender siberian iris to replace the ones I killed. But the overall color scheme and design will stay the same. It's nice to have one part of the yard mostly settled.

A Lady, A Maiden, and Fritz

2010-08-24T10:31:00.000-07:00

Could you fern fans guess what the title means? Today I'm posting about the ferns in my garden. Above and below are pictures of Athyrium felix-femina, the lady fern.

Lady ferns grow to about 2 feet tall and 1.5 feet wide. The one in my garden gets plenty of water and just an hour or two of early morning sun. It's growing well, which always surprises me when it comes to ferns.

Here are two pictures of Adiantum pedatum (?), or maidenhair fern. This fern is also growing well in almost full shade. I think it's my favorite fern.

There are different types of maidenhair fern, and I can't find the tag to be sure exactly which species I have. Doesn't it look like it belongs next to a waterfall in some gorgeous wild setting? I can't believe it's growing so well in my yard.

Above and below are photos of Athyrium filix-femina 'Frizelliae', or tatting fern. I'd nickname it Fritz, except it's obviously the most delicate and feminine fern in my garden.

The fronds would make a pretty necklace. I bet they'll be pretty in floral arrangements once my little plant gets bigger and I'm willing to sacrifice some fronds for the vase.

Above is a picture of Japanese tassel fern, Polystichum polyblepharum. It's a good thing I'm writing all these names down in a post. If I lose the tags, I'll never be able to remember them. This poor little guy is supposed to get 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide, but he's smaller this year than last year. He probably needs a different spot.

Here is what I think is an ostrich fern frond, Matteuccia struthiopteris. I brought it home from a plant exchange without being sure of the name. Can anyone correct me if I'm wrong? I have it in a pot because I heard that it would take over the yard if I put it into the ground.

This is an interesting little - really little - fern that's supposed to grow in full sun to part shade. I have it in part shade just to be cautious. It's called Dwarf Golden Scale fern, or Dryopteris affinis 'Crispa Gracilis'.

At full size, this fern can get 8-12 inches tall and 10-12 inches wide. Mine is a bit smaller than that, but otherwise doing very well. It does get some hot sun for parts of the day and doesn't seem to mind.
I also have a Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum 'Pictum') in the garden, but forgot to take a picture. Its silvery leaves wouldn't blend in with all the green ferns anyway. But it looks very nice with 'Green Spice' heuchera and 'Blue Angel' hostas. Despite being a die-hard flower lover, I'm very fond of my ferns.

Photography Update

2010-08-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

My camera setup is a Canon EOS Rebel XS with an EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens. I took the advice of the photography books I read and bought a base model camera but splurged on the lens. Above is a picture of a bud on the english rose 'Eglantyne'.

Actually, I got the camera with the 18-55IS kit lens for Christmas 2008. Then I bought the higher quality lens in November 2009 after my photographer friend Randi suggested it. Above is a shot of 'Blue Mirror' delphinium.

The new lens is SO MUCH better than the kit lens! It is sharper and captures colors more vividly. Because it goes down to a low f-stop (2.8 - that makes a narrow field of focus), I can blur the background to make the subject pop. Even wooly time groundcover (above) looks pretty.

I still rely on Photoshop Elements 7 to edit my photos and get them ready for posting. Then I sharpen them in Picasa 3, because that saves them in whatever format Picasa uses and ensures that they don't lose color when they upload onto the net. Above is 'Green Jewel' coneflower with 'Caradonna' salvia in the background.

I know there's still a lot to learn about photography, but it's fun to look back and see how far I've come in the past couple of years. Never mind that it's easy to come a long way when you're starting from zero! Learning this new form of creative expression has helped me avoid the mommy-mush-brain that sometimes creeps in when I do nothing but change diapers and wipe up spilled milk. Above is a shot of luscious 'William Shakespeare 2000' rose blooms.

I don't take nearly as many pictures of my children as I do of my garden. Sorry, kiddos. But I do catch some nice shots here and there. Above is my youngest daughter in the evening light. If you look closely, you can see my arms and camera reflected in each of her eyes. And speaking of my little monkeys, I need to get off the computer now and go buy school supplies.

Vivid West Garden in Midsummer

2010-08-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

I was really excited to see how the vivid violet-lavender-golden-peach-rose west pathway garden would turn out this year (I posted about it here and here last summer). I shouldn't have had such high expectations. Of course everything is still small and there's a lot of bare earth showing. The peachy-yellow 'Crown Princess Margareta' roses haven't started growing up their trellises, so there isn't much height, either. This is the view when looking south.

Good thing I planted some boring old pink petunias, as they are providing the main color right now. In this shot you can also see lavender 'Blue Clips' campanula and violet 'May Night' salvia. I had two salvias come up from seed this year - obviously 'May Night' can reseed, though not very heavily.

This photo is from a month ago, when my 'Lady Emma Hamilton' rosebush was blooming. You're looking toward the north. In the foreground are the last blooms of golden 'Stella d'Oro' daylilies. My 'Apricot Sparkles' daylilies haven't bloomed at all this year. I cut them up into little sections while transplanting last fall, so hopefully they just need some time to get up to blooming size.

The 'Hush Little Baby' daylilies are finishing up their heavy bloom period. The flowers are smaller this year than last, probably because of being transplanted. These poor daylilies have been moved 5 or 6 times since I ordered them online several years ago. I think they're finally settled for a while.

I also divided my 'Early Sunrise' coreopsis clumps into tiny pieces when transplanting, so they're pretty small this year. A few cheerful flowers have shown up, though. All of this dividing should pay off in a year or two, when I'll have 3 plants of each type blooming in matching clumps (6 plant total) across the flagstone path. Plus a dozen total of the salvias and 8 of the catmints.

Here is a daylily's backside with lavender 'Walker's Low' catmint in the background. The new little catmint clumps are finally starting to fill out and cover some bare ground. Next year they'll be the perfect size, and by the next year they'll probably need to be divided.

Here is the first bloom from the 'Excentric' dahlias. They should get going and be pretty for a couple of months before the frost zaps them in October. Remember the rosy-orange dahlias I gushed about last summer? Although I dug up the tubers last fall, I never got around to storing them properly and they froze to death in the garage. This fall I'll probably just let these tubers go and order new ones next spring.

I waited a day to post this so I could get a photo of a peachy 'Smoky Mountain Autumn' daylily and show that not everything in this bed is pink . . . but even SMA looks pink today! Good thing I like pink.

Peachy-Keen Flowers

2010-08-04T09:08:00.000-07:00

I seem to remember using the phrase 'peachy-keen' in elementary school. It was a pretty way of saying 'cool!'

Although I haven't used that phrase in years, it seemed like a good way to describe the flowers for today's post.

The first three photos are all of delphinium 'Princess Caroline'. Although these shots are pretty, the plants aren't growing very well for me. That probably has something to do with me not staking this year . . .

Here is a shot of the first flowers on astilbe 'Peach Blossom'. Doesn't it look more pink than peach? Bluestone Perennials says that this cultivar is the best for handling dry conditions, so when I saw a pretty plant at Lowe's for a good price, it came home with me.

This is a bud of the daylily 'Millie Schlumpf'. I have three Millies planted next to some Pink Double Delight coneflowers, and I really wasn't sure how the colors would work together. But the peach and mauve-pink are looking good along with periwinkle 'Rozanne' geranium flowers.

Here's an open flower from Millie in the warm evening light. My daylilies are mostly planted in the front yard, so they all got transplanted when we relandscaped this spring. They're sending out some blooms, but not an overwhelming amount. Next year will be better.

This is an 'Abraham Darby' rose up close. Imagine a sweet citrus scent to go along with the flounce of petals.

All of these peach flowers are making me excited to see the blooms on my new 'Kopper Kettle' peony (leaves shown above). Click the name to see pictures at Monrovia's website. Isn't it going to be beautiful next spring! It had better be, for the price I paid.

English Rose Sniff Test

2010-07-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been smelling my english roses to see which ones have the best fragrance. Above is 'Claire Austin', which is supposed to have a lemon scent. Try as I might, I can't catch much of a fragrance at all from this one. Maybe it will put out more of a scent in future years when the shrub is older and stronger.

'Francine Austin' (above) is another white english rose with miniature flowers, and it smells sweet like crabapple blossoms. Creamy 'Crocus Rose' (not pictured) also smells softly sweet, and sometimes like cloves.

I can't remember exactly how 'Crown Princess Margareta' (pictured above) smells, and it doesn't have any flowers for me to check right now. Seems like it smelled good, and the catalog says it smells strongly fruity. I like fruity scents. I'm also having a hard time remembering yellow 'Teasing Georgia' (not pictured), which is supposed to have a tea rose fragrance. I'll have to check during its second flush of blooms.

The DA catalog says 'Queen of Sweden' (not pictured), 'Charles Rennie Mackintosh' (above), and 'Sister Elizabeth' (below) smell like myrrh. To me, they smell like my Grandmother's makeup.

QoS is out of flower, but I keep sniffing CRM and SE to try to like the scent. I'm not quite there, though - I think I'm not a big fan of myrrh. But I love the mauve-pink color of CRM and SE.

When a gardener friend smelled 'William Shakespeare 2000' (above), she exclaimed that it smelled just like a rose should smell. I agree - I guess that's the 'Old Rose' fragrance. 'Munstead Wood' (immediately below) and 'Eglantyne' (below the picture of MW) smell similar to me, though their scents are fainter.

This year I have already written about the strawberry fragrance and lovely form of 'The Countryman' here, so I didn't post any pictures today (below is 'Eglantyne'). I don't know that I can actually detect strawberries, but I really like the scent of TC.

'Princess Alexandra of Kent' (below) is a new rose this year, and it has a nice but soft citrusy fragrance. The surprise about this rose is that the buds are salmon colored before they open into warm pink flowers. The catalog picture looks like a cooler shade. The flowers are pretty, but they don't fit well into my cool-pink backyard scheme.

The new 'Abraham Darby' roses (pictured below) that I planted this spring have a tangy and strong citrus scent, just like I remembered from this rose in California. I'm happy to report that the leaves show no sign of rust disease in the dry Spokane climate.

Blooming for the first time in my garden this year is 'Lady Emma Hamilton' (below). There's some citrus in the scent, and also a yummy pear aspect. I'm still not a fan of straight orange for my garden, but this rosey-orange color is definitely winning me over. The color of this rose reminds me of sunsets - it truly glows in the garden. So 'Lady Emma Hamilton' has captured the top spot on my favorite english rose fragrance list.

My First Japanese Iris Blooms

2010-07-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

I first planted Japanese Iris (I. ensata) in my garden three years ago, and this week I finally saw some flowers! These are definitely the largest and most flamboyant blooms I've ever seen on an iris.

The top three pictures show 'August Emporer'. I don't like a lot of bi-colored flowers, but I'm making an exception for this one. The blooms are wide (7 or 8 inches across) and flat.

Unfortunately this flower didn't last long - it only looked fresh for about a day. I guess that's why it's a Japanese iris. Japanese gardens are known for their elegant restraint, so a flower this showy must have to make up for it by being very short-lived.

Behind the 'Fire and Ice' hosta you can see the leaves of the first unnamed Japanese iris clump I planted (thanks Kathy). It hasn't shown any purple flowers yet, so I guess I need to move it out into more sun. But the leaves are very pretty.

Here is 'Momogasumi', which was advertised as being pink. Hmmm. That's not what I'd call pink, but I guess what they meant to say is that it's pinkish lavender.

I also have a start of white 'Eden's Charm', but it didn't bloom this year. Neither AE nor M nor EC are very large clumps yet. They have just a few leaves each and look rather pitiful (hence the close up camera shots).

I can't wait to see the show when the clumps mature and put out a bunch of blooms at once. I'll have to look quickly to catch them before they're gone, but they will make some nice floral fireworks for the middle of summer.

Why You Should Stake Delphiniums

2010-07-12T16:21:00.000-07:00

I never got around to staking my 'Pagan Purple' delphiniums this year. I was kind of hoping that since they're overcrowded in a bed with a large lilac shrub that they'd all kind of hold each other up. Apparently I was wrong.

Here is a picture of one of my backyard flower beds taken a couple of days ago. You can see Campanula 'Pearl Blue' down low, a crimson 'William Shakespeare 2000' english rose shrub, violet 'Caradonna' salvia, and the giant 'Pagan Purple' delphs. The tallest ones are over six feet (two meters) tall.

Here is the same view from this afternoon. We've had a very windy day today. Even the rose has flopped over. Its stems should get stronger with a few more years of growth, so I'll not worry about staking it. But I definitely need to remove a few of the delphs and stake the ones that are left for next year.

This is a pretty shot, despite the fact that the delph stalks are pointing the wrong direction. In the background are bleeding heart foliage and 'Lime Rickey' heucheras. I love lime green and deep violet-blue together.

If I didn't love their flowers so much, I'd never put up with all the work needed to grow good delphiniums. They need rich, moist soil. They need extra stalks removed in early spring so the clump doesn't become too congested (I didn't do that either this year, oops). And staking, of course.

The good news is that you don't have to feel guilty about chopping off a ton of flowers to fill up a vase when the stalks are already laying on the ground. Do you notice how the vase looks like it's leaning? The wind knocked it over a couple of seconds after I took this shot. Nothing broke, though, and I put the flowers in a bigger vase.

I also cut some of the crimson roses and put them in a vase with delphs to give to a friend. These are some seriously pretty flowers! Although the delphiniums don't smell, the 'William Shakespeare 2000' roses have a very strong, romantic scent.

At least I caught a shot of the bed before the wind trashed it. Live and learn.

Portraits of 'The Countryman' English Rose

2010-07-07T19:08:00.000-07:00

'The Countryman' was the first David Austin English rose that I purchased. I'm sure I've mentioned before that the vibrant blooms remind me of fluffy pink-frosted strawberry cupcakes.

In his book, David Austin says that this is one of his favorite roses. It isn't the best for cutting, as the flowers last just a couple of days in a vase before shattering, and the stems are quite prickly. The blooms are velvety soft and deliciously fragrant, though.

I have been encouraged to share some wider view shots on my blog. That is difficult for me, as my garden isn't established enough to look good from afar. But I'm trying it now . . .

Here you can see that 'The Countryman' makes a nice, full bush. At 3 feet tall and 3.5 feet wide, it's a nice landscape rose. It's surrounded by white and violet delphiniums, iris, thrift, columbine and oriental lilies (not yet in bloom)in a morning sun location.

And here is an even wider shot. You can't actually see the rose, as it is hiding behind the white delphiniums at this angle. But I shared a wide view shot, and it didn't kill me. Almost, but not quite. Phew.

Let's finish with another close up shot. I love the way the stems softly curve upward. It's quite a different look from the ramrod stiff stems of the hybrid tea roses. Lovely, eh?

Siberian Iris in Violet, White and Cobalt Blue

2010-06-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

June is finally here and my siberian irises have bloomed! Above is 'June to Remember', which is an often sought after but rarely found cobalt blue color.

Here's a close up shot of 'June to Remember'. This iris is available from Joe Pye Weed Gardens. I posted more details about this and other siberian irises last year (see that post here), but my pictures are better this summer, thanks to a better camera lens.

Here is the first flower from my young 'Blueberry Fair' iris plant. I ordered this one from Schreiner's Gardens. You can see that the flower form is very similar to 'June to Remember', except 'Blueberry Fair' is more violet than blue. This picture doesn't capture the violet as well as it shows in the garden, sorry.

White 'Rolling Cloud' iris flowers drift amid the catmint. Siberian irises are a nice addition to your garden if you want something a little different. Nearly everyone seems to grow bearded irises, but few grow siberian irises.

Another 'Rolling Cloud' iris with Kathy's pink cranesbill geranium and purple 'Bonanza' clematis in the background. Siberian irises are not as easy to establish as bearded irises. They require good conditions and a few years of patience before they start putting on a great show.

Here we have 'Tanz Nochmal', which is also a beautiful true blue. Although siberian irises only bloom once a season, I'll always make room for them in my gardens. Where else can you find such blues?

The last siberian iris to bloom in my garden is violet 'Worth the Wait.' I have to agree with the name. I'm still waiting for my 'Just Because' siberian irises to bloom. Maybe next year will be the year, especially if I don't transplant them this summer and put them through transplant shock!

Here's a wider view of my 'Worth the Wait' clump, with white heuchera flowers and pink 'Sister Elizabeth' english roses in the background. The english roses are blooming now, so stay tuned for more photos of these prettiest of all flowers.

Bearded Iris in Pink, Blue and Violet

2010-06-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

Here are photos of some of the bearded iris I have in bloom. Above is the border bearded iris 'Pink Bubbles.' It's a bit smaller and blooms slightly earlier than the tall bearded iris.

The rest of these are tall bearded iris. This one is 'Rippling River', which has great rippling ruffles and a sweet fragrance.

Another shot of 'Rippling River'. Some of the stems leaned over under the weight of the flowers. These aren't planted in full sun, and we've had an unusual amount of rain this month. Perhaps they'd be sturdier in full sun and with less rain.

This flower bed features 'Rapture in Blue' bearded iris, mauve pincushion flower (Scabiosa), '6 Hills Giant' catmint (Nepeta) and a white 'Rolling Cloud' siberian iris in the background.

Here's another shot of 'Rapture in Blue'. It's so elegant - I think I need a dress that looks like this!

Here is the unnamed iris from my grandmother's garden. It looks like 'Titan's Glory' to me, and it has a wonderful fragrance.

Here's another view of grandma's purple iris, with 'Esther Reed' daisies on the left and a forest of delphiniums ready to burst into bloom.

This is 'Mer du Sud', which is nearly the same color as 'Rippling River'. It doesn't smell as good or have as many ruffles as RR, but none of the stems bent over.

I'll finish with another shot of 'Rippling River.' You can see a slight variation in the color between this picture and the one above. All of these iris change color a bit in different light, making a pretty show all day. None of them bloom more than once in a season, but that makes for less deadheading, so I'm not complaining.

June 2010 Bloom Day

2010-06-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

I always mean to participate in the monthly Bloom Day hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens, but it usually doesn't happen because 1) I only have flowers blooming six months out of the year, 2) sometimes I have another post all ready to go that week, and 3) I forget. But this week all I have to post is a bunch of pictures of flowers blooming right now . . . so I'm joining in the fun. Above is a hazy sunset photo of 'Walker's Low' nepeta, which is blooming all over my front yard right now.

Here is the VERY blue 'June to Remember' siberian iris. You know how all those catalogs cheat and make flowers look more blue than they really are? Well this one really is this blue. It's a stunner.

Here are more unnamed asiatic lilies from Lowes. They're rosy-orange. I'm proud of myself for opening up and letting orange into the color scheme.

The baby 'Rozanne' geraniums are starting to put out a few flowers. The flowers are so interesting, with shades and blue and lavender and a magenta cast that you can only see in certain types of light.

I pulled out all my normal shasta daisies because they smell bad, but this spring I planted some 'Esther Reed' double daisies. They're great for cutting - I remember how pretty they were in the giant bouquets I saw last June at Pike Place Market in Seattle. Give me an armful of peonies, delphinium, double shasta daisies, and maybe some sage, and I'll be happy all day.

My 'Clementine Blue' columbine is putting out more blooms. I have seeds to grow more but keep forgetting to plant them. I'll get that done soon, maybe.

The 'June Bride' heucheras are in full bloom. Recently I started new plants for a neighbor by cutting off some woody stems, pulling all the leaves off except a few at the top, and plunking them into potting soil in the shade. They've grown their own roots now and are doing fine. Did you know it was that easy to get new heucheras?

I'll finish with a shot of 'Rolling Cloud' siberian iris with 'Six Hills Giant' catmint in the background. The evening light makes the picture special. I keep meaning to get up and capture some morning light shots, but it gets light around 4 am this time of year, and I'm not that early of a bird. Evening light will have to be good enough for now!

Wedding Flowers and Temple Landscaping

2010-06-07T10:58:00.001-07:00

My brother got married last weekend at the LDS temple in Richland, WA, and of course I took some pictures of the flowers and landscaping around the temple. The roses were in full bloom and were breathtaking!

The landscaping made good use of large masses of plants. I'm not sure which rose this is. The flowers look too big to be 'Bonica' and too full to be 'The Fairy'. Maybe they're J&P 'Pink Simplicity' or something.

Isn't this a lovely scene? Especially for us pink lovers! There was a high wind advisory in effect, and several rain storms passed through in the days before and after the wedding. But were lucky to have sunny, calm weather for photos after the wedding.

I was fascinated with the evening light filtering through these hardy geraniums. They looked magical.

Right now this area is mostly green, but the curving swathe of daylilies will erupt into bloom soon.

This rose is my mom's favorite color. My husband gets a kick from pointing that out whenever we come across some especially vivid hot pink.

The temple had plenty of my favorite shrub: 'Otto Luyken' laurels. What good taste the designers had!

We brought a few of our own flowers to the temple, including this giant fake one in my daughter's hair. You can see the deep blue-violet of 'May Night' salvia and vivid hot pink of 'Knockout' roses in the background.

The wedding colors were orange, aqua and white. The deep orange roses and white peonies in the bridal bouquet were lovely.

I think this photo turned out really cool. Look at that gorgeous sky and white clouds behind the steeple. The temple is such a beautiful place.

And here's the happy couple right after the wedding. Congratulations, you two!

Frugality is Not Dead

2010-05-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to my grandmother, from whom I inherited a love of gardening and an admiration for thrift - the virtue, not the plant (Armeria maritima is called thrift). Not that she will ever read it, since she doesn't have a computer. But after posting about my extravagant plant purchases this spring (see that post here), I feel the need to write about my frugal habits, too.

I have made use of seeds in my garden, which is a very thrifty way to get plants. Never mind about the entire flat of annuals that I nurtured on my kitchen windowsill for six weeks this spring, then set out in full sun with the cover on and STEAMED to death in a mere hour or two . . . no, let's not dwell on that. Instead, let's focus on all the new columbine (Aquilegia) plants that are growing from the seeds I scattered last fall. The top two photos show 'Melba Higgins', and the one below is 'Clementine Blue'. The new plants aren't blooming yet but should look something like the parents in these photos.

Actually, I didn't kill all of the seedling annuals - some of the 'Dolcissima Fragolino' petunias survived, so I planted them out this week. I ordered more 'Victoria' salvia seeds to replace the dead ones, and I hadn't used up all the 'Twinny Peach' snapdragon seeds, so I replanted those.

My other frugal habit involves a knife to divide plants. Along with two 'Blue Moon' wisteria vines, I ordered two 'Pink Double Delight' coneflowers from ForestFarm.com. The coneflowers that arrived were large enough to divide into four plants each, eight total. You can see a couple of the little clumps above.

Last fall I cut apart my clumps of 'Walker's Low' catmint (Nepeta) to spread around the yard. They're just starting to bloom now, and will continue until October. I love this plant enough to put up with the seedlings that pop up all around the mother plant.

When I found 'Marcus' salvia at WalMart - definitely a store for the thrifty - I snapped up six pots and cut them into 11 plants. The 12th cutting didn't end up with any roots, oops. That's always the danger with dividing little plants. Marcus is supposed to be a miniature form of 'May Night', with slightly lighter-colored flowers and a similar long bloom time. I was in need of some low growers around the front yard, so I was excited to find these.

So there you have it, Grandma. I'm not completely lost to frugality. Phew, I feel better now.

Still Celebrating Spring

2010-05-17T16:58:00.001-07:00

When I read other bloggers writing about their roses blooming, I think they must be having summer already. Roses are a summer flower, aren't they? Anyway, we're still celebrating spring around here.

The transplanted dark pink dogwood is blooming. I am so in love with this tree! An especially cold night made the flower color more vivid than usual. I'm still nervous about how it will do when the weather gets hot. Hopefully it will settle into its new spot and regrow roots quickly.

The clearance rack 'Katherine Havemeyer' lilacs are blooming for the first time. Unfortunately some of them are losing leaves and shoots to bacterial blight, but I think they'll outgrow the problem. I'm going to pull out more of the lawn that currently surrounds them to give their roots more room. I'll also make sure they get watered deeply and fed with low-nitrogen fertilizer this season, and that should help them withstand disease better in the future.

The white dogwood is also blooming, with lavender vinca flowers underneath. Sweetness! Soon the 'Stellar Pink' dogwood will join the show.

All my ferns are unraveling their new leaves. They're so interesting to me, even without any flowers. Did I mention how much fun I'm having with my new camera lens that goes down to a 2.8 f-stop? It creates some great blurry backgrounds to make the focal point pop.

Here at 2.8, the lens makes the bark in the background look like it's painted in an impressionist style. The sea pink (Armeria maritima) in the foreground is so pretty. Many plants have buds ready to pop open, and many of them are blooming for the first time in my garden. So I can wait a month or more for the roses, and continue to enjoy spring for a while.

Conquering My Collecting Tendencies

2010-05-10T16:58:00.000-07:00

Did you know that all you have to do to avoid wrecking designs by collecting plants is to buy all your plants in multiples? Three, five or six at a time and you're cured! Wink, wink. So that's what I've been doing this spring. It makes me feel virtuous by design standards but my frugal conscience is squirming. Apparently I can't please both parts of my gardening personality at once.

The no-name asiatic lilies pictured above were calling my name over at Home Depot, so I brought home three, then nine, then three more little four-inch pots and planted them in clumps throughout the front yard. In the right of this photo you can see a baby chrysanthemum - I ordered nine of these from Bluestone Perennials this spring. Supposedly they'll grow to full size by fall - stay tuned to see the rose-colored blooms. On the bottom left you can see one of the five 'Rozanne' geraniums I brought home from my local nursery. Soon it will be covered with light blue-violet flowers. Two types of dahlias were also planted - six of one and twelve of another type. A few more 'Walker's Low' nepeta were added. And the 'Emerald Cushion Blue' creeping phlox count is up to fourteen.

Here is one of the twenty-four (BIG gulp) 'Big Blue' liriope (lilyturf) that I planted this spring. Six came from the local nursery, some of which were divided and two of which went into pots on the front porch. Bluestone had a half-price sale, so eighteen more were ordered from them. They're making good edging along the new front beds. Nope, no plant collecting in my front yard, just solid design. Finally.

I added six more 'May Night' salvias to the six already planted in the west flagstone path bed. Soon the six golden 'Stella d'Oro' and six peach 'Apricot Sparkles' daylilies will be blooming in concert with the deep blue-violet spikes of salvia. Oh, my beating heart - those colors will be sumptuous together. Then the lavender catmint will start, and the bearded iris in gold and violet, and the pink penstemon . . .

In the backyard, there's still some collectitis going on. But I sprinkled seeds of deep blue-violet 'Melba Higgins' columbine (about to bloom above) throughout the hodge-podge beds. Hopefully they'll tie the collector's corner together a bit? I've also edited those beds to include a mostly consistent palette of iris (German, Japanese and Siberian), peonies, roses and delphinium. It's looking less like a holding are and more designed! More pictures will come later when blooming starts.

I only brought home one of these 'Fire and Ice' hostas from Lowe's. Like I have any more room for hostas with two dozen different types already . . . but this one was so full and pretty that it came home anyway and will go into a pot for a while. I'll admit that there is currently no design involved in my hosta museum, but eventually they'll be divided out into a coherent scheme.

In other garden news, the lady's mantle is leafing out and holding water drops gorgeously, just like it's supposed to. This tough little plant didn't even flinch when the temperature dropped down to 26 degrees F last week. Much of the newest growth on other plants succumbed to the hard freeze, but the plants themselves survived and will eventually outgrow the damage. Phew. Happy Spring!