Showing posts with label Gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gardening. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

The Yard...

I have been quite pleased with our yard this spring.  Last year we got a new driveway and this new sidewalk.  The perennials I planted after have mostly done so well!  The french lavender mostly died, but I had too much blue in there anyway.  And, all of the victoria blue salvia came back after the winter.  And... the dahlias!  The winter seemed bitterly cold and awful and long to me, but I guess it couldn't have been too bad.

The above picture was before the roses and peonies started blooming.
 The peonies have been huge.

I also love this double daisy I found at a nursery.  (The nurseries here stink.  I haven't found anything to compare with good old Willard Bay Gardens...)

Here's a shot of the eastish side of the house.  Needs a good cleanup.  The dusty miller grew right through the winter and now needs a good chop.  I've planted a plumbago since I took this.  I've tried and tried to get bleeding heart, both the regular and fernleaf, and brunnera to grow, and they just won't.  Soil too acidic maybe?  I guess I'll have to stick with the hostas and heucheras.
 The westish side, which the girls call Stony Way (the year old project to make a path out of the cement chunks taken out of our driveway is stillllll not done...), has a long bed of roses and other perennials.
 Here's my herb pot on  the west side.


 Lots of roses.
 And a jasmine arbor, which is making the whole yard sweetly fragrant right now.

 The back yard is coming along.  I edged the play area with logs for the girls to walk on.  Built two square raised planters (which I still need to stain), and just finished a brick edged bed for raspberries.  Still lots to do back here.


Friday, May 13, 2016

Goodbye Parsley...


These little guys showed up twice in my herb pot last year and laid waste to my parsley plant.  It came back better than ever both times, so I wasn't too concerned a couple days ago when the girls came running to tell me that they're back.  This time, we did some research.  And the parsley strippers are...

Image result for papilio polyxenes

Papilio polyxenes!  Or, black swallowtail.  Isn't it pretty?  I didn't take that picture.  I'm kind of honored that these beautiful creatures saw fit to lay their eggs in my herb pot.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Favorite Bulbs...

Get your carpal tunnels ready!  Autumn is around the corner, and that means, for those of us living, for once, in a place that has winter, bulb planting!  My sister and her wonderful yard were requested to take part in a botanical garden tour next spring, so I just sent her a list of my favorite bulbs.  Here it is:
Awesome!  Congratulations!!!  Better get serious about those bulbs... 
So for tulips, you can get amazing results by planning for three "seasons".  Pick a general color scheme (salmon, magenta, pink; or if you want to go classic, red, yellow; anything you want.)  We used to cut out pictures from a catalog and mix them around to find great combinations.  Then pick an early (March), a middle (April), and a late (May) of each color, and plant them all together, then as they get done, the later ones are blooming past them and it makes all sorts of lovely combinations.  As a general rule, smaller tulips bloom earlier, bigger later.  I will list my favorite tulips, which are almost all late.  Triumph tulips are a variety that has lots of color variation, but they are not known for being terribly perennial.  These pictures are all from vanengelen.com, which is a site that I ordered from in the past.  They have good info and descriptions.  Mix the tulips with daffodils and other bulbs.
Darwin tulips- my favorites:
Akebono
Tulip Akebono
Apricot Impression
Tulip Apricot Impression
Daydream (my favorite tulip of all...)
Tulip Daydream
Silverstream
Tulip Silverstream
Single Late Tulips:
Blushing beauty and Blushing Lady.  Actually hard to tell apart, though not in this picture...
Tulip Blushing Beauty
Tulip Blushing Lady
Menton
Tulip Menton
Renown
Tulip Renown
Dordogne
Tulip Dordogne
Temple of Beauty
Tulip Temple of Beauty
Oh, I love them!  These are all late (mid-April to mid-May), sturdy, tall, solidly perennial.
Next,
Species tulips:
bakeri Lilac Wonder (not lilac, pink)
Tulipa bakeri Lilac Wonder
Double Early Tulips:
Montreaux
Tulip Montreux
Now for the daffodils.  These also have different "seasons", but they are all earlier than the late tulips.
Marieke
Narcissus Marieke
Little Gem
Photo: Narcissus Little Gem
Topolino
Narcissus Topolino
Delibes
Narcissus Delibes
Segovia
Photo: Narcissus Segovia
Hawera- my favorite FAVORITE daff
Photo: Narcissus Hawera
Cragford- ok, I forgot about this one.  This one is great too.  Very fragrant.
Narcissus Cragford
Minnow- and this one.  These three are essential.
Narcissus Minnow
Other bulbs:
Hyacinthoides hispanica excelsior.  Go big on these.  Do not under any circumstances plant muscari.
Hyacinthoides hispanica Excelsior
Camssia- Idaho native, nice plant
Camassia
Galanthus (snowdrops)
Galanthus
There.  My favorite bulbs.