July Jewels

July Jewels

The Hollyhocks just started blooming against the house on either July 1 or 2. They are so pretty!

The one in the stackstone bed is huge but hasn't popped any flowers out of all those buds yet.

Daylilies such sunny pleasers!

My yellow day lily clumps are huge again this year even the one that I took a digging from in May. The first one (bottom of rock garden) started blooming on July 2. They are such sunny looking pleasers.

I am so pleased with my morning garden walks now. The eye gets assaulted by glorious colours and forms that bring such pleasure to my heart. July is when all my hours and days of hard work are paying off! 

Pink peony transplanted into triangle bed has 7 flowers.

 Peonies:   The pale pink Peony in the triangle bed (which I had transplanted 2 years ago from the wild bed where it was getting too much shade) had 7 blossoms on it this year! It is looking so gorgeous! 
My newest Peony (planted last year) Julia Rose peony only had 1 flower, (and 3 duds.)  It was the most gorgeous huge flower!  I will have to do some research to find out why some peony buds don't develop….

Wild Bed Peony 

There are still 2 peonies in that wild bed, one at each end. They are tough survivors! The Peony at far side of the wild bed has 3 blossoms this year! It hardly gets any sun there, so I am so impressed. The driveway side peony has some leaves but no flowers for about 4years now. I wish I had some great spots to move them to….

My Tiger lilies started blooming in late June. They were quite abundant but are almost finished blooming already. We have been watering the beds, but what we lack is a good rain, not just the daily showers we have been getting. The lawn is starting to go yellow and look sparse in places.

The orange striped lily at the top of the rock garden is gorgeous! I cut it off and put it in a vase in the house.

Red Pot Lilies and Morden Ruby Rose bush 

The red pot lilies in my stack stone bed are  quite short this year,  (due to digging them up and moving them a bit further away from the Morden Ruby rose last fall), but they are blooming nicely.  The white lilies in my Round Angel bed have a similar problem. They are slow in coming up and are few compared to last year's abundance. I'm hoping that next year my lilies will all do well again. Maybe it's time to buy some new bulbs?

Earlier in June: my oriental poppies were magnificent however ! 

Perennial Phlox 

The Phlox that I had rescued from WalMart is blooming well and adding so much colour to my Long Perennial Bed.

This year I had bought Lavatara from Tail Creek Nursery as my own seedlings had died due to lack of watering when I was away. The Lavatara plants that I put in my Round Bed are growing, but the flowers are tiny and looking strange. I wonder if that plant is a similar looking weed?? Will have to wait and see how the other Lavas in my Stackstone bed turn out. 

July 5: I dug up and moved my Sleeping Beauty hosta from the spruce tree spot to my Stackstone bed at the shady end. Then I planted the day lily from Wendy W in the Spruce spot. That hardy lily had been sitting in a pot on the deck stairs since mid May and it ben put out a flower sprout so I will soon be able to see what colour it blooms. 

In that tiny Spruce bed there are also a Shasta daisy, a tall "floppy orange" lily, a small perennial geranium and some calendulas that I had started from seed earlier. 

Morden Ruby- such a stunner!

My Lupins are doing a great job of competing with the roses for finery.  The Dark purple one in the Round Bed was the first to bloom, then the pink one. I also have a third colour, more of a magenta . 

The ones in the Triangle Bed were not far behind in popping open. Now I have to go around and cut off the spent sterns so that I don't have too many baby Lupines next year. Right now I have one Lupine that self seeded in the middle of a clump of bearded irises in my Triangle bed. It will have  to come out though, since it is too close to my Julia Rose Peony. 

Pretty Lupines and white daisy, a few Jacob's ladder flowers are still blooming. 

 

Yesterday I dug up and moved one clump of Dianthus/ Pinks away from the edge of the rock garden bed where they were growing and blooming.  I had to dig out some of the Cosmos seedling that were in the way. (I had scattered some cosmos seeds in the top of that bed last October when I took out the dead ones, so there are a lot of little ones coming up.)  Right now those cosmos are mostly sitting in a pot of soil on the deck until I find a permanent spot. (I gave a pot of them away on the weekend). There is still one clump of Dianthus there to move, but right now I don't want to disturb anything else growing in that bed. 

Roses:

My Morden roses are growing huge this year. The Ruby is taller than ever and has tons of buds on it! All my rose bushes are blooming now and looking so fabulous! 

Morden Magic- Ruby Rose

I need to find a better location for my small Morden rose growing at the end of my Long Perennial bed. It is so crowded right now by my Spirea, but that being said, it does have one nice little rose bud on it. 

John Davis Climbing Rose.

My pink Mordens are all looking so fabulous right now! The Blush was the first one to open its blossoms , followed quickly by the Ruby, then the centennial. The Belle was a couple of days behind but they are all doing well. I guess the shot of blood and bone meal scratched into their soil in May really helped.  The John Davis Rose is covered in buds and started opening them at about the same time as the Mordens.

Tough Hansa Rose

I trimmed the wild rose bushes in the Side of House bed. I cut back the huge Hansa rose there a little but it is just starting to bloom so I want to enjoy the flowers first before I prune too much. I also cut off some wild golden rod at the far end which are shading the Bergenia there. (That Bergenia had belonged to my Grandmother in Germany.)

My garden flower beds are looking fabulous!!!!!

John Davis

Veggies and Other Good Things

  Veggies and Other Good Things June 6 to 10/2016

The tomatoes are doing well. The Early Girls did not thrive at first.  I’m wondering if I need to buy a new Early Girl tomatoe. Maybe keeping the seeds year after years from the same plants weakens the seeds??? I’m sure I read that somewhere. 

The Lemon Boy tomatoes grew the fastest. We also bought a new Beefsteak tomato this year. 

The tumblers were small and spindly this year and took their time to grow. They are doing ok but not thriving. The patio toamtoes are doing quite well.

We have 2 tomato plants in the veg garden (Purple Russian?) and 2 tomatoes on the deck, a patio and an early girl. A tumbler which I repotted yesterday is coming up on the deck too. Our dog, Brandy has been good about not bothering my plant pots. Thank you, my girl!

Along the outside wall of the greenhouse in the big pots we have :

1 pot of potatoes

2 Early girls, 

2 lemon boys, 

1 patio tomato, 

1 purple Russian

1 Beef Steak.

Looking forward to a good harvest.

The squashes were growing well in their little pots in the greenhouse so I planted them out into the veg garden a couple of days ago. (June 10) There are 2 zucchinis, 2 Spaghetti squashes, and 2 butternut squashes. There is also one small squash in the raised bed. (Spaghetti) So far so good.

The veggie seeds in the raised bed have sprouted quite well, Beets, radishes, dill, onion sets, peas lettuce and beans. 

We germinated the beans in a glass jar using a wet paper towel. Then we planted a few straight into the raised bed and a few into small pots in the greenhouse. The ones in the green house sprouted first and are about 5 inches tall. The ones in the raised bed only just broke the surface. Why: I think some seeds need warm soil so the greenhouse is good for that. 

One row of lettuce did not sprout at all. Old seeds maybe, or I planted them too deep? 

Might have to try again with a new batch of seed.

Oriental poppies are gorgeous! they popped open June 9.

Clematises. My Durandii has big leaves and beautiful dark blue flowers on it now.  :)

The Nellie Moser clematis has tall stems, small leaves and not one flower bud! :(

It’s such a pleasure to go out and do a “garden tour” and see how everything is sprouting and growing bigger by the day. I love June!  :D