What's Blooming This Week 5/28/08

This is my Arabian Nights dahlia, planted just this spring. That's why I love bulbs, they're so easy that just about anyone can grow them.
This is my Pentestemon, planted last year and relocated to the back yard this year. It is covered in white blooms.
My mountain laurel has buds on it! I'm very excited because I haven't ever grown one of these before. They remind me of summer in Northern Virginia, because I used to see them all the time when I went running.

Elle is still blooming away. It's one of the most photogenic roses that I have ever grown. :)

The Peppermint clematis blooms are still there, believe it or not. Some are a little worse for the wear but are otherwise okay.

I Made It!!

I'm happy to report that the family visit is over and I've survived. We went up to Arkansas to visit my mother and sister. We got some nursery visits done and lots of baby snorgling. We had a family cookout and it went pretty well. We had an awesome hotel room with super comfy furniture, high speed internet, a hotel pool and fitness room and a huge shopping center next door. I am not saying that the visit was perfect, but there was no blood loss and no one was harmed in the filming of this vacation. I also got some material for my book, so I'm happy. :) Now for the long trip home tomorrow, I hope it goes as well as the trip out here did. See you on the other side!

The Watched Pot

Seed starting has never been a strong point of mine, but I saw the packet above in Target the other day and knew that it had to be mine. I like it because of its decorative value, but also because I have always wanted a passionflower vine. So I got them and a little peat pellet greenhouse and planted them. And started waiting. And waiting.....still waiting every day and checking them. I think it's a bad sign that mold is starting to pop up on top of the peat pellets, but I still hold out some hope. The package says germination can take up to 28 days and it's been...um who knows, like I wrote down the day I planted them *snort*. We'll see if my faith will get rewarded.

What's Blooming This Week 5/16/08

Angel Face is still plugging away, in spite of a bad case of black spot. If you look carefully at the 3 o' clock petal you'll notice a small white spider that is peeking out. Unfortunately I think I got it when I was spraying it down with fungicide.

The Peppermint clematis is still blooming away. I'm waiting for the pompom in the center to open up, but the petals have unfurled and it looks more like a clematis bloom now.

This is my new Little Duckling clematis that I got for Mother's Day. Isn't she a beaut?

This is the Butter and Sugar siberian iris that I got last summer. I've had a devil of a time getting a good picture, because the white reflects back so much on the pictures that you can hardly see the yellow.

Oddities

Sometimes I am attracted to plants because they are just odd. One of the first plants that I got when we got our new house was the Peppermint clematis pictured above. It had a green center and whitish petals, and looked very different. We put it in the first flower bed that we built. Then we moved that bed the next spring. It started to grow and even got a few flowers, but then it died back. I thought it was dead so I dug it up and replaced it with a jasmine plant. But rather than throwing it out I put it in a pot and left it on the patio over the winter. Lo and behold this spring it started growing like mad, so when we rearranged the beds in the backyard I planted it by a shephard's hook with a windchime on it. It put on lot of flower buds, one of which you see above. This brings me to my quandry. The flowers are fairly small and they aren't brightly colored. I bought another clematis, Little Duckling, thinking to replace it, but I haven't. There is something that still appeals to me about Peppermint, and so it lives on in my garden. I think I'll plant my Little Duckling clematis under my other shepherd's hook with the hummingbird feeder.

Veteran's Honor

Is that not the most absolutely perfect rose blossom that you've ever seen? Strategically captured with droplets of water from a passing rain storm? :) Thank you dear One Truth for the lovely present. It looks lighter in the picture than it actually does, in person it seems to be darker.

The Joseph's Coat rose is still going gangbusters. I can't believe the variety of different colors on the plant. We're going to get a trellis for it this weekend because it's starting to flop over now.

There was a line of powerful storms that tore through Mississippi and Alabama today. Thanks be to God that it wasn't worse than it was. Tornados were sighted right south of the airport, which is right across the street from where I work. So things could have gone much differently today.

Maintenance

Now that we have our beds set up and plants planted for the spring it is time to maintain it all. So when I got home from work tonight I strapped my trusty sidekick to my chest (Quickbeam in her Baby Bjorn carrier), took my pruners and headed out to the garden. I trimmed all of the old blooms off of my roses and cut them back some. They have some black spot issues so Mawavi treated them. We also cut the dead wood off of our poor crepe myrtle trees. For those not in the know, when we bought the house we had them trade out the old dead trees for some crepe myrtles. But a late spring freeze killed the tops of them. I thought they were gone, but they came back in the bottom part of the tree. Now they are looking like they were butchered while we are waiting for them to recover. We puttered around for a while and enjoyed being outside. It was perfect weather today and I want to soak it all in before the hot humid weather gets here. Here's my Veteran's Honor rose bush, getting ready to bloom.

What's Blooming This Week 5/3/08

Welcome Home Rose

Neptune Rose Elle Rose Joseph's Coat Rose Acadian Miss Louisiana Iris