A Whiter Shade of --Purple!

Maybe that should be Violet!  The Korean Spice Lilac and the Siberian Iris are blooming together this year, providing two shades of violet purple for the garden palette.

Lovely.

Red, White and Blue Climbers

Climber's pot from above with False Indigo blooms to the right.

Today's pot was for the climbing plants.  I used Moon Flower this year. After reading about growing it with Morning Glory, I'm off to find a blue Morning Glory plant ready to go, grow and bloom.  I did add a Scarlet Runner Bean to the pot to attract hummingbirds.  The beans can be eaten when immature and used for dried beans at the end of the season.  If I find a blue Morning Glory, I'll have another red, white and blue planter: one on the deck and on just off the patio.

These pots are not climbers, but upright Zinnias.  They just fit in my decorative urns.  No planting up necessary!

Summer, we are ready for you--whatever you hold in store for us weatherwise!

Potting Up the Planters

My red, white and blue planter for Memorial Day, Flag Day and Fourth of July includes:

Lobelia Magadi Compact Dark Blue and Lobelia Laguna White

Verbena Aztec Violet

Supertunia Black Cherry

Osteopermum Soprano White or African Daisy

Salvia Playin' the Blues

Sutera Snowstorm Giant Snowflake

All are drought and heat resistant for the deck which is a true hot box!  It was 95 degrees this morning in the sun at 8 a.m. and it's still May.  What will August bring?

A Day in Spring--Finally!

Just made a tour of the garden. The gnats are bad but don't bite!  Things are growing and blooming right on schedule despite the weather.

I was going to read but this view drew me outside.  

The Knock Out roses are budding, 

the Lily of the Valley are starting to bloom.  

The fern and the Lady's Mantle are up.  

The hosta is huge already.

Recognize it, Alice?

We made concrete stepping stones from these leaves long ago.

I still use them in the girls' fairy garden (see last post for photo).

There's a hedgehog, but he's not real!

Under the window is the "Primrose Path" along the stone  path

A Hosta, a fern and Creeping Jenny keep the shady corner bright.

The Weigela is ready to burst.

Finally!  Real Spring!

Now, back to my book.

Spring?

After a week of rain and sun and heat and cold--and tornadoes!--today is more like March with pollen.  It's very windy and chilly.  I can't even be outside due to allergies.  But the garden is enticing and at least I could take some photos.

The Bleeding Heart looks better this year.

I thought I may have lost it to drought in the past two years,

but it looks like it has revived.

The pink Azaleas, the blue bloom of Ajuga and the white of Sweet Woodruff

perk up the garden after the daffodils and tulips are spent.

I laid out the fairy garden, but the girls will be 

redecorating  it throughout the summer.

The Irish Moss did not come back, 

but I planted some Foxtail Fern recently.

My newest addition is a succulent garden in an old planter.

That's Papyrus in the center.

I can't wait to see what it does in August

when the Azalea, Ajuga and Sweet Woodruff blooms are gone.

Spring? at Last?

The day after May Day--

and it's 80 degrees!

We've been on Nantucket for five days.

Before the long weekend trip,

the daffodils were out.

I just planted the blue anemones.

We turned the bird bath over.

And we cleared the debris out.

The anemone looks fine.

It might have rained here.

It did on Nantucket...

The  tulips have bloomed while we were away.

And some look a little burned 

by the high temperatures

and drying winds.

The spirea is blooming this year

after nothing last year.

The Tete-a-tete Daffodils 

are almost gone.

But the tulips are yet to bloom.

Daffodils were  definitely blooming for the

Nantucket Daffodil Festival over the weekend.