Phew, it's Sunday of the long weekend and it's time to relax a little bit. My Friday post was almost completely accurate. I've spent almost all of the weekend out in the yard, digging in the dirt and planting a variety of containers and even a few more perennials.
My front flower bed faces north and with the exception of two containers, one with impatience, the other fuschia, the bed is entirely made up of perennials.
I've lived in this house six years as of July, when I arrived it there was lily of the valley and not much else in the bed. Since then I've dug out all the lily of the valley, and put in a few perennials every year.
The heartleaf bergenia with the stocky purple flowers in front was just tiny when I planted it. It's definitely gotten huge and I will likely cut it back and move part of it this fall. The bush to the right is a spirea, I think an Autumn Joy (not certain of the variety), it's yellow green leaves turn a lovely red in the fall. I've got three hostas in that I've added over the years, several ferns (which don't seem to be doing well this year), aruga for ground cover, a lamium, a columbe, a bellflower, and a couple of plants called veronica. This year I added a couple of periwinkle (one on either side of the bed, and a purple leafed plant whose name I have forgotten. The leaves open up in the day and close at night, and I noticed it has white flowers under the foiliage. I'll try to get a good photo of it later in the summer.
As you can probably tell, the west side of the garden gets more sunshine than the east side. I would think the east side of the garden may only get an hour or two of sunshine a day, and even less so the closer to the house. Yet the impatience do beautifully tucked away in this corner. There has been a blight or some sort of disease killing off the impatience locally. I've been fortunate in that I haven't lost any though I did find it was much harder to find them at the garden stores this year.
I've pared down the containers a little bit more this year On the front patio, I only have three These have pink dahlias, upright verbena (rather than the trailing), one pink, one white, and an artemisa which has a lovely silver color.
The view isn't the prettiest looking this way...but the neighbour's clematis are helping block the view of the air conditioning unit. As an aside, I'm surprised they were allowed to install the unit so close to my house...it was there when I moved in so I just have to put up with it.
In the front yard, I got lazy! I bought two containers, with geraniums, euphoribia, and calibrocha which I simply pulled out of the hanging baskets, and replanted in my containers. Not only was it easy, but the plants are well established, and fill out the pots so much more than the bedding plants.
In front is a pot of yellow wave petunias. I always overfill my containers..there are six plants in the container!
On the lower deck in the back yard, I've moved most of the containers to catch the sunshine. The chair with the two pots (and frog) will be moved to another spot when the plants get a little fuller.
There are three containers with osteospermum and argeratum two tomato plants with a companion container of marigolds, and the two containers of gallardia and portulaca. Hanging on the potting shed is a container of pansies.
(Not sure what's happening but I've having some difficulty adding more photos...I'll keep trying but Blogger does not appear to be my friend right now.)
I love the sunny faces of osteospermum especially these pink ones with the yellow edging on the flowers. They do so well in the summer right through to fall).
I usually plant these with alyssum but find the smaller plants dies off early. Hopefully the aspertum will do better.
This is one of two containers of the gallardia and portulaca. I found both varieties in pink shades but neither were blooming so this will be a surprise.
Both like the sunshine and heat, so I'll move them around on the deck as the summer heats up.
There are six plants in this container as well, two of the gallardia and four portulaca. It will be interesting to see how full it gets.
On the upper tier of the deck are three tall containers. Last year I tried calla lilies and had very limited success. Lots of green and very few flowers.
This year I thought I'd stick to something more generic, so I have geraniums, blue and white lobelia, and dichondra. The latter is something I've never grown before, but it is a trailer so I'm hoping it will grow up and over the edge of the planter.
In total I've got nineteen containers, not including one I planted of cat grass earlier today. (That doesn't count because it is just seeds, right?) Anyway I've kept to my limit of 20 finally. The first full year we lived in the house I was at 30+ and every year I would say I planned to scale down. I have, little by little, by a couple of containers each year. I love the color the plants bring to the yard but there is quite a bit of work to keep them up. I look forward to the days when I'm not working full-time and have more time to spend enjoying the time outdoors, not simply working at keeping it all up. (Just 30 more marbles!)
To end with, I'll share a photo of a visitor to the yard today. I've been feeding the birds (and apparently the squirrel too) throughout the spring. Isn't he/she a fat little thing? I spotted it climbing down the dead evergreen in the back yard, checking out the feeder (which is currently empty) and then climbing down to the ground where seed has been spilled.
I know they can be nuisances, but I still think he/she is pretty darn cute. As long as it stays outside and doesn't try to visit the house I'm okay with it.
Hope you are all enjoying wonderful weather and have time to enjoy the outdoors. This is a long weekend for us, so I have one more day to do so....and I definitely will be!
