Hydrangeas

Sunday Stroll

My favorite flowers are in bloom!  These “Endless Summer” hydrangeas are in our front flower garden.

I’ve also got a trio of hydrangeas in the back flower garden.  The lace cap has abundant flowers this year.

I also planted white and pink hydrangeas in the back garden in fall ’07.  Neither bloomed last summer, and I’ve forgotten if this one is the pink or white.  I guess I’ll just have to wait and see, and enjoy the lime green buds for now.

To see who else is strolling today, visit the Quiet Country House.

More Pretty Peonies

Today was a very nice day at school, and I was greeted by these lovely blooms when I got home.  I used to think that perennials looked like weeds most of the year, and much preferred annuals.  Now I understand!

Bleeding Hearts in a Mason Jar

The bleeding hearts are taking over my back garden.  I love their pretty white blooms, and I’ve considered planting their hot pink counterparts, too.  But they’re problematic because they’re starting to crowd their neighboring hydrangeas, a white one and a pink one.  So, I grabbed the clippers and a mason jar and headed out to trim them back.

After I arranged them, I realized that I didn’t know if they’d hold up in a vase.  I asked my mother-in-law and soon found out that she loves to use these flowers in bridal bouquets, and that they should last well as cut flowers.  That made me happy, because I’d hate to cut these flowers to have them die in only a few days.  And I’m notorious for leaving dead flowers hanging around in my house.  I’ve got some dead daffodils in my bathroom right now.

I’m not sure why, but mason jars have become my favorite vase for flowers.  They just looks so much better than those crystal vases I got as wedding presents when I’m using flowers I cut from my own garden. 

Have you ever had to deal with a pretty plant that got a little bit out of control?

Bleeding Hearts

Spring Break Gardening

This week is spring break and I’m planning to enjoy the time off on my vacation.  The sunny location I’m visiting is right in my own yard.  I spent today outside in the gardens, cleaning up and getting ready for the growing season.  When all the work was done, I grabbed my camera so I could post an update.

I started the day by planting  more raspberries, this time Royalty Purple, and some Chester blackberries.  The photo above shows leaves on the Heritage Red raspberries we planted about a month ago.

In the vegetable garden, the mixed baby lettuce is starting to emerge, which is the first among the many different lettuce varieties I planted.

The peas are up and stretching toward the sun.  I hope to see their tendrils wrapping around the wires before long.

I weeded and cleaned out the front and back flower gardens, as the hydrangeas, bleeding hearts and peonies are coming out of dormancy.  But the flowers already in bloom stole the show.

The daffodils are still beautiful, as more and more of them open each day.  I’m already scheming to plant more of these bulbs up around our mailbox in the fall.  The one day of planting is well worth the show in spring.

The potted pansies are still showing off, thriving with the chilly evening temperatures.

What’s going on in your gardens?

New Beginnings

Sunday Stroll

If you look carefully, you can see the raspberries that we planted outside of the garden fence.  While we do have deer in our yard a lot, I’m not that worried about them eating the raspberries because of the thorns.  It’s the birds I know will get to the raspberries, whether they’re in a fence or not, so we put them outside to save room for the veggies inside.

Here’s a picture of the garden where I planted seeds yesterday.  It just looks like sticks for now, but I can imagine the lettuce and peas already.

The spring breeze kept the wind chimes playing throughout the day.  It was nice to listen to them as I planted seeds and any time I went outside.

The bleeding hearts in the back flower garden are starting to make their appearance.  These white bleeding hearts do very well in the back of the house, thanks to the shade in the afternoon.

On a related note, I’ve added a new Garden page, where you can see what’s in our garden currently and when it was planted.  I hope to add many more plants to the list and some pictures as the growing season goes on. 

To see who else is strolling today, visit the Quiet Country House.