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| Bearded Iris |
We've had a great blooming spring. Color has permeated my gardens. The perennial bed is looking regal. My bearded Iris' were and still are spectacular with lots of blooms on tall stately stems with a cascade of color over a long period of time. Heads of blue, dark mauve, white, white with purple edges blend into a spectacular show. Siberian Iris' in purple, white and yellow add to the show.
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| Bearded Iris |
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| Tritoma...Red Hot Poker |
In addition to the Iris' I have had a super turn out of blooming plants. The Tritoma, otherwise known as Red Hot Poker is blooming nicely considering it was planted last spring as a garage sale purchase. The pot I bought had three sickly looking transplants from some one's spring perennials divisions, and I scalped them up for a dollar or two. Yet despite humble beginnings they are structurally delightful and a nice new addition to the perennial bed. Sometimes opportunity trumps planning, this surely is one of those occassions.
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| Red Hot Poker-Tritoma |
This is a very disappointing place to garden. Before I lived here I thought it would be an exciting place to garden. I expected moist air, some wind, lots of light, and light friable soil. What I found was not rich soil but pure sand with a complete lack of organic material. I found that wire grass sublimates all efforts to garden. It multiplies at an alarming rate, and it invades any raw soil surface, or mulch. Since moving here I have had a campaign to improve the soil and the showiness of the garden bed. I want more color, more plants, and more cutting flowers. To this end I have spent a lot of money, time and energy improving the soil with compost, mulch, wood chips, and fertilizers. A watering system has helped. Fertilizer has helped. Mulch has helped the most, the six inches of mulch has cut the invasive grass and welcomed worms to our garden beds. The health of our plants has improved with all of this soil enrichment. Birds are often in the yard searching for worms in the mulch. That observation alone made me know that I was winning the battle to improve the soil.
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| Penstemon, I believe |
Let me show a few more plants in this bed. The photos will tell part of the tale, but the tale continues because blooms are waiting to take their turn to shine. The day lilies are loaded with buds...daylilies of many different varieties. The butterfly bush has not come to bloom and the hostas have filled out to a mature state after being planted three years ago and living a skinny skimpy life for the past three years. Some research this week tells me that that is the nature of Hostas, many do not grow to full size for three years and mine seem to be coming into their own, so I await the flowers that should follow. I will write another posting on these further bloomings later this spring. As for now, I will add a couple of more plants that are currently blooming
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| Penstemon plant...unusually short plant |
in this garden bed. I have a couple of plants I will call "rescues". I bought them for a dollar each at the local nursery because they were in a pretty nasty state of decomposing. After some pampering each has recovered spectacularly to bloom presently. Penstemon has a beautiful purple color, but no height. I am pretty sure this should be a foot to eighteen inches high. It is not. It is about five inches high, as you can see in the photos. Oh well, win some lose some. Pretty enough! The second rescue plant is a blue salvia plant that has recovered spectacularly. It is really a stunner when seen as purple
blue clump from across the yard. I would like to buy a few more of these babies. They put on quite a show from twenty yards.
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| Blue Salvia |
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| Blue Salvia |
Well this posting has become way too long. I will continue documenting this perennial garden in one of the next few postings because there is more to bloom in the short term future, and I want to photograph them to share with you. There appears to be daylilies, campanula, sage, daisies, phlox and more yet to come to bloom. If you are interested in reconnecting with the tales of this perennial garden, please subscribe to the blog using the tools to the right and we will let you know when that posting comes up. I hope to hear from anyone who enjoyed this little garden trip, and I additionally hope you comment and come back to visit with us again. Thanks!
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