A Gardening Break

It was so nice this weekend, low 80's with a nice light breeze blowing, that when we went out running errands, I picked up some plants for my flower bed.  I like to add some annuals for color until the perrenials bloom and I have a trellis that needed something on it. I've got some honeysuckle planted there, but it will take a while for it to climb up and I am impatient.

I love my flower bed. It was a birthday present one year. About 50 years ago, there was a house behind the one we live in now. (Rumor has it, it was so high off the ground, cows could walk under it.) The big oak in the backyard got hit by lightening and ended up burning the house down. There was a ton of broken, mossy, cool looking brick around and I had been talking about making a flower bed out of them. So, one birthday weekend, my husband came home with mortar and concrete and I learned out to do brick work. It was a lot of fun and I had a blast.

I used to have Alaska Daisies planted all around the outer border. They were white and had huge blooms on them. The butterflies loved them. Winter before last, the armadillos not only dug them up,  (I'm used to that-rushing out to replant the morning after) but they ate the roots, too. I haven't replaced them, not sure why. I think I got tired of digging them up and dividing them every year. I had run out of room for them. So, I have moved on to the next phase of the flower bed. I have some small, yellow daisies, I think they are called Lamb's Ear Daisy because of the shape of the leaves. They are going to need digging up and dividing this fall. I will use them around the border in place of the white daisies.

Here's a little photo tour of this bed, along with what's old and what's new.
This is a shot of what I think are the Lamb's Ear Daisies. The partial pot in the top left corner is full of Impatiens. I have a ton of those hanging in baskets under the cedar tree in back and they just keep reseeding themselves. Everything that has ever been under those baskets has at least 3 or 4 Impatiens in it. Impatiens are the only thing I really have growing that isn't drought tolerant. Since we seem to be constantly in an extreme drought situation, I've been growing drought tolerant plants for years.

                                          

This red beauty is what I got to go on the trellis. It's called Crimson Sun Parasol. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw. It looks like red velvet. It's already clinging to the trellis.

I love Periwinkles. I have some in there every year. They are almost as good at reseeding as the Impatiens, but this year, they haven't started to sprout. I got some in different colors than what I had in there last year. Bright fuschia, and a medium pink. I tried to find some white ones, but nobody had any in stock. I'm good with these, though. I know the butterflies will like them.

I also got a couple more Dianthus (or pinks). They were marked down to .50 because they were so rootbound they were dying. I got a bright pink one and a little white one. I am pretty sure this pink one will make it. The little white one, I don't know. I already had 3 or 4 in assorted shades of pink.These have such a great spicey smell to them. Reminds me of cloves and something else, but I've never been able to figure out what the something else is.

 

Here's a shot from the end of the flower bed. The tall, sword shaped leaves are Candy Lilies. They are orange and yellow. It's a cross between a day lily and a blackberry lily. Most of the ones you see here have grown from seeds dropped from the flowers. They are a perennial, too . They are fairly cold hardy. The leaves will die back, but not the roots. The flowers come up from the center of the leaves on a skinny stalk and last a couple of days. It's a summer bloomer.  The rust color pot in the back has 9 jade plant leaves in it. I repotted my jade plant a few weeks ago and these fell off, so I stuck them in a pot of dirt. They seem to be surviving so far.

Last, but not least is Lantana. I have always loved this stuff, but never had any. They are sitting in two planters on either side fo the steps. The planters are actually the things that go inside a chimney when you build a house. Can't think of the technical name for it right now. They were "rescued" leftovers from a building site because I though they would make neat planters.  They have a nice mossy patina on them that helps keep the soil moist. They are some sort of unglazed clay/ceramic material and do tend to dry out easily.    I had no idea that Lantana has small, soft thorns on them until I started putting them in the planters.

I hope you enjoyed the tour, If you would like some Candy Lily seeds, let me know and about late August or early Sept., I can send you plenty of them. :)