Bloomin'

Casablanca Lily

I stepped out with my coffee this morning and was greeted by what I call a Casablanca wind.  Their fragrance literally perfumes the air when they're in bloom.  Get one.  Or two.  Don't get more than that or your yard will smell like a thruway rest stop bathroom.  Not kidding!

Misty Morning

Lush

Garden in July

Stargazers, hemercallis 'Toreador's cape', acanthus, sedum 'autumn joy', liatris, red hot pokers, lupine, bee balm, echinacea, amaranthus, Japanese variegated grass, shit ton of weeds.

First Stargazer!

Still opening this morning

And look at how many blooms to come!

Did you know the Stargazer has only been around since the 70s?  See here for its fascinating history.

Bloomin'

Knautia, johnny-jump-ups

Butterfly Bed

A closer look at those colors in the evening light. Jupiter's beard and salvia.
Looks kinda patriotic, no?

Just a reminder...

Perennial gardeners are time travelers. When we see this...


We think, "Mmmmm stratification."

Time travel doesn't mean we get to skip around like idiots causing paradoxes. It's more of a Billy Pilgrim thing. It means we're required to look at the big picture. It means seeing the lushness in the middle of February, knowing the potential that is lurking, waiting, cracking open in the ice, reseeding itself at a frequency we don't usually perceive. To paraphrase what a very wise woman once said to me, "There's no summer garden or winter garden. There's just garden."

Another Garden Tour. Wanna Come With?

Daylilies on east side.

In the morning, I walk and I look and I think. Here I think, "This spot's taking shape."

Ignore the buckets and cable wire- I do.

Left side, same area.

Nothing is planted here because we've been fighting wild grape and invasive buckthorn. I think we won and so now I am planting more daylilies so the entire east side of the house will have them.

Virginia bluebells setting seed.

All that leaf mulch will stop the seed from getting through,
so I kick it away and move on.

Oh! Rose Campion is showing her first blooms!

And here come the Missouri/ evening primrose. They're ready,
but too rainy today to really open up.

Aww, lupine holding water droplets. Pretty sure there's no such thing as a bad looking lupine. Now I'm done with my coffee so it's time to go in. But I don't wanna go in!

Lemme just look at Dry Belly Gulch to see what it's doing after all this rain. It'll only take a minute. Follow me, now dodge the dog shit and poison ivy. Just a little farther, between here and the barn field....

Now that was worth walkin' over to.

Something Pretty

Shapin' Up Nicely

This was the butterfly bed about six weeks ago.

And as of yesterday. Still not at peak, but lookin' good, yes?

Morning Rainy Garden Tour

Acanthus budding. So sinister looking you'd think it's poisonous. It's not-

with leaves like that it doesn't have to be.

Painter's palette (coral bell flowering in background).

Ladys' Mantle (often grown for precisely how lovely it looks holding water droplets).

Dandelion 'medusa' (not really, but I don't know the name of this wild volunteer).

Makeshift emergency birdbath. The poor crows were actually panting in the heat yesterday.

And last but obviously not least, hemerocallis 'Red Suspenders'!

This is the earliest he's ever bloomed and look how big! If that doesn't stop you on a garden walk, nothing will!

Japanese Irises

I think the unopened ones look like paintbrushes
dipped in purple. That's what I think.

Orange Crush

Okay, it's actually orange phlox. Hope it survives the transplant.
Wicked hot and dry here.

The Bee Balm Chronicles

2008

2009

2010

Main Bed Again

Just cuz I am loving the colors so much this year. Bottom pic is the backside. We're sodding to expand it. Bigger. More. Bigger. More. Bigger. More.

Colors

Liatris, red hot poker, red daylilies.

Bee Balm Beginning

Mulched, Weeded, Blooming

Top: Main bed that we started three years ago. The peonies that we rescued from the edge of the woods are blooming in there! Bottom: New bed started this year in foreground. So far it's got Harry Lauder's walking stick (a super cool shrub), scabiosa, a few lilies, Japanese anemone, tomatoes, fescue and lots of annuals.

It's been a pretty dry spring so far, so lots of hand watering and hoping for rain to get our seeds going.

Butterfly Gardening

Tiger swallowtail on Jupiter's Beard. That's another perennial grown from seed. Badass.

Centaurea, Columbine

No rabbit pillaging this year.