Flowers Archives - Page 11 of 18

Bzzzz June 13th, 2008

I was never able to measure up in the ’80s when big hair was in.

I have baby fine, straight hair. All my exertions with perms, hot hair dryers, roller brushes and sprays only emphasized my genetic shortcomings when it came to creating big hair.

Fortunately, I don’t have to rely on my shallow gene pool to create an abundant look in the garden. All I need is a good deal of compost, flowers and patience.

Sometimes though, my garden seems to be a black hole. I can’t tell you how many truckloads of compost I had added to this hardpan Maryland clay soil. As for the flowers, I keep planting and planting to achieve the riotous abundant look I adore in the cottage garden magazines and books.

Don’t get me wrong. The plants grow just fine, but there seems to be an endless amount of room for more shoving in of more plants.

The problem is that it’s expensive to buy perennials in huge quantities, so I also try to start from seed, sometimes indoors and sometimes just direct seeding. And I don’t know what will bloom when around here until I live with it for a while. That means that I have to live with a flower for at least a year, maybe two, until I really get a sense of its habits and behaviors. The I have to engage in quite a lot of moving things about.

Still…I think it’s worth it.

Lavender, lamb’s ear and astilbe border

See here. I didn’t mind weeding around the lavender in the cool hours this morning. The scent is glorious. And I rather think it looks as if I had a plan when I put the lavender, astilbe and lamb’s ear together. In truth, I had no idea they would bloom at the same time. It was just serendipity.

You would never know that this very bed used to be a swampy low spot in the yard that collected water after rains. Copious amounts of compost and deep digging solved that problem.

Thyme, pink vinca, rose campion and ice plant

And here. Although I complain about the rose campion, I do think it looks rather at home with the other pink flowers in this border. Serendipity again.

Orange coneflower, red hot poker and ?? (Sheesh, help me with this purple flower someone )

How about the orange cone flower and red hot poker? When I dragged the cone flower home from my local garden center I had no idea where I planned to put it. But the bald spot behind this red hot poker was just crying for a plant. I had no idea they would bloom together.

(By the way, I started these little purple jobs from seed last year. I have purple and white flowers like this EVERYWHERE. I cannot find the seed package. Please, someone enlighten me. I’m quite sure it’s a hideously common flower, so just stop laughing and kindly post me a comment or send me an email with the name.)

So tomorrow I head out to the garden center once again in my quest for the abundant look. Frankly, it’s much more satisfying that all that time dinking around with my hair “back in the day.”

Posted In: Flowers, Gardening

Tags: Blogging

18 Comments

Bzzzz May 27th, 2008

After the rains that devastated my New Dawn roses, I had nearly given up hope of finding a solution.

But I bought my husband some brand spankin’ new post hole diggers as a Memorial Day gift–I am nothing if not considerate–and he put them to good use.

He managed to ease the roses out of the offending and broken down trellises. He then dug some impressive holes. I installed lag eye hooks and wire to support the dangerously thorned branches.

They don’t look so bountiful right now because I had to do a wee bit of pruning. Okay, it was a mambo pruning session.

I maybe got carried away in making up for neglecting to give these bountiful roses their proper prunings for a while. These are the remains of a single New Dawn pruning. (Please note by the orange paint on the grass that I called Miss Utility to mark where the power and other wires are located. I’m not ready for a new husband.)

Frankly, nothing short of a natural disaster could kill these roses. In fact, as I was paging through Barbara Damrosch’s newly revised Garden Primer the other day I happened to read her section on climbing roses in which she called the New Dawn “indestructible.” Indeed.

I am so buoyed by my husband’s skills with the post hole diggers I am plotting numerous new projects–trellises, outdoor showers, grapes. Don’t tell him. He’s still recovering from his Memorial Day project.

Posted In: Flowers, Gardening