Nursery Overgrowth

The nursery always looks terrible and this year is no different. It is completely overgrown. I can never keep up with the weeds and rarely even try. It is a big space that is contained on all sides by bush, fench, drive and a retaining wall. If it ever gets weeded, it all has to be done by hand, without shovel.

2 reasons why are shown in the photo. The delphinium and knautia will all get moved into the garden somewhere. What you don't see in the photo is 3 more reasons at the foot of all these weeds: orange viola, forget-me-not and variegated white lamium. That particular lamium is slow spreading so I am always happy when I find a volunteer. The solid orange viola has not made an appearance in my garden for 2 years now... until this one showed up.

The first 2 years we were here, the nursery was a temporary spot for everything I brought from my city garden. Long enough for the self-seeders to take hold and the bulbs to have very tiny babies. Tulips and lily randomly show up every few years. There are early orange in the nursery now that need moving. My only 'Pheasants Eye' Narcissus are in the nursery. I lost track of them before I got them moved this year.

Usually, I pull a path through to whatever I am moving. Dig it up to move and that is about all the weeding that gets done. I keep saying one of these years I will clear it out but it seems that is one of those things I like to talk about doing but am never actually going to do.

Like No Other

 Heliopsis

Last year, Nyla asked me to dig a Heliopsis out of her yard. Not the kind of thing I would have bought for myself. The foliage, which is all I could see when I dug it was weedy looking to me. The description of 'daisy-like' flowers was appealing but not very exciting. I like daisy though and I love a lot of the 'daisy-like' flowers... Osteospermum comes to mind. Plus, I have too much space and not enough budget to just turn things away. So I dug, drove it home and planted it toward the firepit from the 'Therese Bugnet' rose bushes. Then I forgot about it.

I had 'Loraine Sunshine' and I love it so I had an idea of what to expect. Of course, I wasn't expecting anything as showy as Loraine.

 Osteospermum

What a wonderful surprise it was to find out that it is showier with bigger and more flowers that last forever in the garden! Weedy foliage indeed! That hardly matters if the foliage is going to be absolutely covered in flowers for the whole season.

This is just the first year in my garden for this division. I can hardly wait for year 3 when it comes into its' own. There are a lot of annuals that fill with flowers like this for ages in my garden, Gazania comes to mind. But no other perennial gets this full of flowers from the start of the season all the way through.

Gazania

Pincushion Flower in Red

This Knautia was here when we moved in. The pincushion flowers are lovely and the first flush is gorgeous, reaching its peak when the plant itself is a compact little mound. But that is the best of it and athough it probably last longer than I would admit, it is very short-lived when compared to the rest of the gardening season when I have to deal with a plant that is a complete disaster.

It is weedy and can get really leggy. It can be cut back and will produce a second flush but it is pitiful to see. By fall, it will be flat and sprawling. To top that all off, it self-seeds voraciously and the seedlings are splayed out and squat.

It is resilient. I will give it that. It will grow anywhere and stretch to reach the sun. In the nursery, it blooms as high as the delphinium. Of course, if I ever weeded the nursery, all thse blooms would come tumbling down!

I've yet to find the permanent spot where I can tolerate it but I keep moving it every year, still looking. This means that I now have Knautia everywhere .

Showing Off Daylilies - Yellow

This isn't all of my yellow daylilies, but it's some of my favourites...

daylily So Lovely

daylily Atlanta Full House

daylily Delicate Design

daylily Jersey Spider

Unusual Daylily

I learned something new about daylilies today. A couple of days ago I took this photo of one of our new daylilies. It's got big 7" flowers!

daylily Ada May Musick

This evening, after the rain stopped, my husband noticed something odd about today's bloom. I had to run out and take a photo - same daylily, different time of day.

daylily Ada May Musick (polymerous)

See? It's got both an extra petal and an extra sepal - for a total of 8 instead of the usual 6. We looked this up and it's called 'polymerous'. First time I've seen one, but it took Kelly to actually notice it.

Heliopsis Loraine Sunshine

This is the third year for Loraine in my garden but it might as well be the first. For the first 2 years, she did not do very well. She was not getting enough sun, I think. So last year I moved her into the sun garden. She is doing very well in this spot and I expect she will stay here now. Last week, her first flower opened and she is full of buds.

Showing Off Daylilies - Red

I've had a bunch of daylilies bloom this week, many are new in my garden this year. The shades of red really vary.

daylily - unknown red

daylily - unknown dark red

daylily Nona's Garnet Spider

daylily Creature of the Night

daylily Fushia Fashion

daylily Cameroon's Twister

Random Blooms in July

I my Saskatchewan garden :)

Daylily 'Stella D'Oro'

Rudbeckia - yellow

Rudbeckia - orange

Rose, 'William Baffin'

Maltese Cross

Osteospermum

Marilyn's Rose

Linda's Yellow Lily

Rose, 'Morden Blush'

Lily, 'Tiny Bell'

Double Pink Peony

Lily, 'Landini'

Delphinium

more Delphinium

Columbine

Clematis

 

 

Volunteer

Our front deck was set on top of what was once a garden. Virginia Creeper pokes through and I am always pulling it up and out. Every year, a single columbine pops up from under the deck at the top corner. The first year, I left it so I could discover that it bloomed a clear yellow that went perfectly with the yellow and purple that I already had. Each year since, I have moved the yellow columbine out into the bird sanctuary when it pops up. Last year, I was convinced I had gotten all of the root, despite the fact that digging under a deck that is ground level is not easy!

So I was surprised to see it pop up again this year. I was also slow to deal with it. Which meant it bloomed. Bigger surprise was that it isn't yellow! It is a columbine I have not seen before, blooming white with a very faint hint of purple. I love it and it makes me want to lift up the deck to see if anything else is surviving under there.

Little House in Pink

The Little House is another place here that had a gardener at one time. When we arrived, there were pink columbine, a peony and the odd few other things that were harder to identify since all of it was tangled up in weeds and overgrown.

Across the road from the Little House is our combine garden and our gate to close the road is in this spot as well. It is very pretty in the spring and summer with dark purple lilac, linden flowers and the few perennials.

Over the years, I have barely managed to even get it weeded. Proably once a year it gets cleared up a bit and when I have an overflow of plants I don't know what to do with in my garden, they can get thrown here. Theoretically until I figure it out but in reality, they rarely get moved out once they are abandoned at the Little House.

Last year, I noticed Cranesbill in this yard and when it stopped blooming, I promptly forgot about it. Until last week when I noticed a huge, beautiful patch of blooming pink and pale purple all along the weed edge. That drove me out to take a walk around the Little House with my camera.

And I noticed something I never noticed before. Everything that gardener planted is pink. Pink shades with the odd bit of purple. There is columbine, peony, wild rose, cranesbill and they are all in pinks. The only plant in either of those gardens that does not bloom pink or purple is a bright creamsickle orange daylily that I added two years ago.

This morning, I decided that daylily is going when I clear this out. I am going to keep this garden pink, pale purple and white. I like it :)

Big Flowers

One flower doesn't make a garden, but it sure can look impressive on its own.

First up is a new daylily bought on one of our trips to Harbour Breezes last summer. Of course, it's not a big patch yet, but the flowers are huge and it sure is eye catching.

daylily Heavenly Orange Blaze

We've already made our first trip to Harbour Breezes this year and came back with this stunning white Japanese iris - blooming before we got it into the ground.

iris ensata Grand Island

Pow! Cloud Chaser

The first of our new daylilies from last year's shopping spree bloomed today and it's impressive. None of the photos I took do it justice. The flower is huge - 10"! I'm in awe of daylilies - Mother Nature makes this beautiful bloom that only lasts one day.

daylily Cloud Chaser

Unfortunately it's a little too impressive for the spot where I planted it - definitely not a good choice as you can see below, so next year it'll be in the front garden.

Linda's back garden

Swept Over

Hurricane Arthur swept through Nova Scotia on July 5th taking with it several dahlia stalks and clematis flowers from my garden. The delphinium patch was just starting to bloom. Now they lie at a 45 degree angle and our neighbour has a better view than we do.

delphinium and spirea

(Delphinium blooming in my garden originally from seed from Danielle in Regina.)

Iris in July

Unbelievably, I have Iris buds still opening. Not sure when the last time I had Iris opening in July was. 'Moonsilk' opens in July but all my old iris are typically long done by now. 'Mrs. Andrist' still has lots of buds.

Such and odd garden year.

The purple is 'Stepping Out' and this is the first year it has bloomed in my garden. It came from Nova when we did our big iris exchange last fall.

The yellow is 'Bumblebee Deelite'. Just identified this year, it has been in my garden for many, many years. Moved with me from my city garden, it was one of my first original four iris. They arrived from Judy's garden all at the same time and were the start of my iris obsession.

The bright yellow makes this iris a plant that can be grown far from the windows yet still be spotted easily when it opens.

First of the Clematis

I've certainly had my challenges growing clematis over the years, mostly to do with giving them enough room to stretch out - something to grab onto in the garden. What works for one, does not work for all.

This one, which I think is 'The President', is always the first to bloom right in the middle of a patch of early yellow daylilies. Its flowers are huge and start out dark purple, lightening up as you see below.

clematis 'The President'

The second to bloom is 'Blue Ice', also with big flowers. I've had this one the longest. It grows new from the ground each year, has outgrown its trellis and twists in among the tall phlox stems. The first blooms have this pale purple tint, with later blooms more white.

clematis 'Blue Ice'

I'm anticipating more clematis blooms during the next couple of weeks - all of the rest are full of buds!

Pinks in the Backyard

Most of the first plants in our garden came from my Mom's and sister's gardens. "Mom's pinks" have been reliable and we now have several patches. The blue foliage grows like a mat and looks great all year - even in spring - because it keeps its foliage under the snow all winter.

My luck hasn't always been so great with other types of pinks. It's not that they don't grow for me, it's that they don't stay where I put them. We have self-seeded patches of pinks all through the front gardens. This patch below is new to the back garden and it really brightens up this corner. I'm feeling the urge to try and put some more pinks where I want them...