Gardening, onions, fuschia, day lilies

broken branches under the hanging plant

My garden welcomes me upon a return from afar. I love that feeling. My toils have created a sanctuary, even though I never really thought about it that way... until returning home yesterday. It felt great to see my hanging pots in colors of pink and purple.My mother's day gift, a Dark Eyes Fushia was struggling a bit from being dried out, and it looked like it has been beat up by squirrels climbing through it to get to the sunflower seeds in the birdfeeder. There is a pile of broken branches under the hanging plant, capturing the damage it took while I was away. A shame, this was a damn healthy plant. My treatment was to soak it in a bucket of water. It did the trick, immediately bubbles started burping out of the plant, the sure sign of how thirsty it truly was. Recovery should be imminent.

 The Oenothera, Lemon Drops were bursting their first buttery blossoms of the season and the grass seed I had spread before leaving, was putting a hint of green across the land. Purple pansies lined the path of the herb garden and the Stella D'Oro day lilies were heading up with lots of small buds and thin wispy stems. I would have been happier to see strong strawlike stems, but I have to take what I get and be happy. I am!

This one to the left was just planted last week. It was a division of a larger plant that was pot bound and needed to be separated. I am pleasantly surprised to find it already bearing a flower bud. As a matter of fact the whole line of these I planted along the herb garden path, all have flower buds. So do the mother plants still pot bound in the original pot. Just amazing! This is one strong plant.

This onion was planted last summer, and never harvested. I found it lingering in last year's veggie garden. It was forming a huge bud at the top, so I decided to pull it out and see what was there. This small onion is what I found. I have never grown onions before so this was an interesting experiment. It was quite pungent when it came out of the ground.