Finally Some Flowers to Photograph

The hellebores in my garden are warming up for their best show ever.  'Pink Tea Cup' (first four photos) started blooming a month ago, in the middle of January.



This plant has a lot more flowers than last year.  So many things in life don't get better with age - isn't it nice that plants do?



Here's another view of one of my two 'PTC' hellebores.



I'm waiting for the first ever blooms on my double pink 'Kingston Cardinal' hellebore.  Pale pink double 'Cotton Candy' and rose and white 'Peppermint Ice' hellebores will soon be sporting blooms as well.



The leaves of 'Velvet Lips' hellebore look like sea monsters emerging from the ground.  Did I mention that last year?  Well, that's what I always think when I see them.



'Double Queen' is getting ready to open spotted cream double flowers.



Here are buds on my  'Apricot Blush' hellebore, which happen to be entirely yellow without any apricots or blushing involved.



And finally here's a bud on the double 'Golden Lotus' hellebore.  Spring is coming!

Last Year's Flowers and This Year's Plans

I'm illustrating this post with photos from last year's garden.  Above is Veronica 'Purplelicious.'
There are actually a few flowers starting to bloom right now in my garden.  I couldn't believe my eyes last week when I noticed a bloom on a 'Pink Tea Cup' hellebore.  Last year it didn't bloom until March.  Of course the flower is kind of beat up from the harsh weather and not worthy of a photo.  There are also a couple of purple blooms on the 'Accent Purple' Aubrieta (rockcress).



Above are some flowers on 'Rolling Cloud' Siberian iris. 
I'm excited to get going on some landscaping in the backyard this spring.  Right now we have a bunch of small flower beds cut out of the grass around the edges of the backyard.  I'm planning to have the rest of the grass removed around the edges of the yard and just have lawn in the center.  It will give the roots of all the little trees more room to grow without competition from the grass and will make mowing a lot easier for my husband.  I have plenty of other project in mind for the backyard, but they'll have to wait a year or few.



Above are 'Mer du Sud' bearded irises. 
The challenge with removing the grass around the edges of our yard is keeping the grass and aspen tree roots from the neighboring yards from growing under the fence into my shrub/flower beds.  My neighbor to the north planted a bunch of quaking aspens right next to the fence we share, and the roots are already sending up baby aspens in my yard.  I still haven't figured out the best barrier to install in the ground under the fence.  Any suggestions?





Above are 'Blue Spectacle' tulips. 
I've been considering which shrubs to plant in the new shrub beds.  I've got plenty of perennials and trees blooming in spring and early summer, so I need to focus on late summer, fall and winter interest.  I've decided on twelve 'Green Mountain' boxwoods (planted in groups of 3 in several areas) for winter structure and six 'Little Lime' hydrangeas for late summer blooms.  I'm also thinking about planting two 'Mikkeli' rhododendrons in a new raised bed.  This type of rhododendron is hardy to zone 4 (!), and I think I could keep it happy in a raised bed with excellent imported soil, plenty of bark mulch and regular applications of acidic fertilizer.  



Above are blooms on an unknown Siberian iris.  Do you think it might be 'Caesar's Brother'? 
I'm planning to consolidate most of my perennials into a few perennial areas in the backyard instead of having them growing all over.  I need to be ruthless to get rid of some of my less favorite perennials so I'll have time to care for the ones that are left.  It's so hard to get rid of any of them, though.  And I always seem to find new plants that I want to find a place for . . . .   



Speaking of new plants, above is the first bloom ever on my 'Medallion' poppy plant.  I'm very excited to see blooms (fingers crossed) on the three 'Heartbeat' poppies I planted last fall.  I'm not a fan of orange-red poppies, but these rose and burgundy shades are fabulous.  I'm also hoping for first-time blooms on two 'Blue Moon' wisterias, an 'Alabaster' Epimedium and three 'Capital Red' tree peonies.  I ordered seeds for 'Polkadot Pippa' Digitalis (foxglove) and have also been drawn to 'Illumination Pink' Digitalis (currently available only in England) and an 'Lady of Shallot' English rose.  We'll see if I find places for those plants in the new scheme.

A New Window to the Garden

Forgive me for straying off the topic of gardening, but I'm been directing my creative energies inside lately.  Recently we added a new window to our living room.  Learning photography has made me more aware of lighting, and I really disliked the cold, dark feeling that came from having only north-facing windows in this room.  So we removed a corner gas fireplace that we never used anyway and cut out a window on the east wall (on the center right side of the photo above).



Here you can see the new seating area around the new window, complete with a reading light for each chair.  The morning light through the window is wonderful, and the room is significantly brighter in the afternoon.  I enjoy being able to glance outside at the garden while I'm sitting at the piano.  You'll also notice the metal leaves sculpture on the wall, which has a funny story behind it.  It belonged to my husband's grandmother, and his cousins used to joke about who would take the ugly thing when she passed on.  We did take it, spray painted over the bronze finish with a pewter color, and now we get compliments on it all the time.  A peony from that grandmother's garden is growing right outside this window as well.  



As remodeling projects often do, our project kept getting bigger.  We ended up buying several new pieces of furniture and rearranging everything.  The couches are now centered on the windows to the backyard.  Thankfully the glare off the snow makes it difficult to see the sad state of my backyard right now.  Over the past few years I've been working on the front yard and shoving all sorts of random plant purchases in the backyard.  I'm hoping to get some landscaping projects finished in the backyard this summer, which will improve the view.



Here is a view of the piano with my favorite painting by Abbott Fuller Graves hanging above it.  I love the sun-speckled, overflowing garden that surrounds the front door in the picture, and the shutters are my favorite color of blue-green.  This painting has been an inspiration for my own garden.



I put together a new photo wall with family photos by my talented friend, Randi.  I'm still undecided on whether to repaint all the black frames grey or not.  What do you think?  A grandfather clock that was actually made by my husband's grandfather is on the right.  I'm so glad we were able to make room for this special clock in our living room with the remodel.



Another little project I finished last weekend was sewing a new valance for the kitchen window with fabric to match some of the throw pillows in the living room.  It helps tie the rooms together.  Of course the gardener in me loves the plant motif on the fabric!  I enjoying bringing the garden indoors with houseplants and various plant-themed decor.  I'm glad the garden has been asleep for the past few months to give me time to work on these indoor projects, but now that they're mostly finished I'm looking forward to spring outside.