What's blooming today?
October is Breast Cancer Month, so please do get involved and help the fight against Breast Cancer.
Try to do at least one of the helpful tips listed above this month – more if possible, especially the one about seeing a doctor and scheduling a mammogram when recommended. I had two mammograms this year (a little scare but everything is OK), so I’m good for a while.
This October I’ll be looking for Pink products to buy. What will you be doing to help the fight against Breast Cancer?
I’ve got my work cut out for me this weekend! Yesterday evening my husband and I went to a new garden center that opened up near us – it’s called Reeves Nursery.
We’d driven past the site a few times in the last couple of weeks and when I took a look at their website I discovered that they have a “no tax” Wednesday every week … so we figured we might save some money if we went shopping for our plants last night.
It turned out that they were having a 20% off sale … so we got that instead of the “no tax” as that saved us an extra 7%. They had a great selection of plants in a variety of sizes and the prices were ok … I’d be happy if the prices were the lowest I could find, but the discount and the quality of the plants made me a happy gardener.
We ended up spending more than I thought we would. You see we have several hanging planters, window planters and 7 balcony boxes (those large low rectangular planters) to fill with annuals.
I did grow some of my own annuals this year, but not nearly as many as I need.
So … what did we end up getting?
A flat of Impatiens, 2 nice double flowering Begonia, 2 small Fuchsia, 6 dwarf Dahlia’s, 6 Gerber Daisies, a few Coleus, several Lobelia and Petunia plants, dwarf white night scent Nicotina, several Marigolds in vibrant orange and yellow and I’m sure a few other plants that I can’t think of right now.
I also picked up some early Girl tomato plants, Sweet cherry 100, English cucumbers a few types of lettuce and Swiss Chard.
The only plants I couldn’t find, but ones that I usually use in my garden or planters were annual Geraniums and Cleomes. When I found the dwarf Dahlia’s I thought I’d use them instead of the Geraniums but if I can find some Geraniums this weekend I might use both.
As for the Cleomes I did find some at Reeves but they were single plants in 4 inch pots at 2.99 each … and I need about 20 of them to border the back of my garden beds so I’ll have to find cheaper ones. Oh and I did take some seeds off the plants last year so I’ll be planting some of last years seeds in the back of the garden beds this weekend too.
Earlier in the week we’d been to another garden center. I wanted to find a replacement for one of my roses – Chicago Peace – as it didn’t seem to come back this year. With the great weather we’ve had all year I’d think it would show signs of life by now, especially considering that all the rest of my roses are 3 to 7 feet high, full of leaves and rose buds … but no luck.
So … I thought I’d replace that rose with perhaps a Weigela or another type of flowering hardy shrub since I’ve now lost two roses in the same spot in the garden. I did pick out a purple Weigela that I love, but then I found yet another Chicago Peace … so I guess the Weigela will go in another place in the garden and I’ll try the rose for the third and final time in my small oval patio garden bed.
All in all I think I picked up 75 or more plants! You know what I’m going to be doing this weekend … planting, planting, planting. I’ll also be pulling out all my seeds and get some veggies and a few other annuals started by seed.
Hows the weather in your area? Are you going to be planting this weekend too?
Wow I’m BAD. I run the Green Thumb Sunday meme and I haven’t done one since last November. Yep, bad bad bad meme creator!
Ok it’s time to get back on track. This meme is still alive … barely, but I know some of our members are still posting Green Thumb Sunday posts regularly, at least more regularly than I have been lately.
I don’t have a good excuse for my absence. As usual I haven’t been feeling well thanks to my Crohn’s, but yes, I’ve still been gardening and so far this year I’m amazed with my garden. I just need to start posting about what I’m seeing and doing more often, now don’t I?
So … if you’ve been participating in Green Thumb Sunday or waiting around to see if it was going to start up again … come on, let’s see some Green Thumb Posts. (please).
As I said above I’ve been amazed with my garden this year. I think it started waking up in February … way way early! By March 15th I had my first Crocuses blooming. Usually they don’t bloom until near the end of March.
This was the first crocus to bloom in my backyard this year. It bloomed on March 15th! Shortly thereafter more and more crocus popped up. They’re all done now though.
Years ago when I first started gardening I planted Snow Drops .. but I rarely ever saw them. Either they bloomed too early for me to notice or it warmed up to fast and they faded within days … unnoticed. It was obvious this year that they’ve been growing, multiplying and thriving as I had a few large clumps come up in March.
I even had a few tiny Dwarf Danfordia Irises come up too
They’re a little faded in this photo as they were already wilting by the time I noticed them. They didn’t last long. We’ve had some warm weather in March and April which wasn’t all that good for making Spring flowers last.
Here’s a shot of my center garden bed … full of red and white Tulips, Heuchera, Astilbe, perennial Geranium, and tiny shoots of Phlox and Hostas and probably a few other plants that I’m forgetting … I took this picture on April 18th. I just wish that I’d pushed the hoop that I use to contain the Phlox when it grows down a bit before I took the photo!
This is a wide shot of my garden. It’s small, but for the middle of April there’s a heck of a lot of plants up. All of my roses have fully leafed out now and more and more plants are coming up each day. Right now I’ve got Daffodils and Hyacinths that are just about finished blooming and I think my Glories of the Snow are pretty much gone. I have a feeling that I’ll have roses about two weeks earlier than usual this year too.
And Finally this is my dog, Midnight, enjoying some sun in the garden. She’s growing and blooming too. She’s two and a half years old now and still very puppy like in a lot of ways … just thankfully not quite as hyper as she was a year or so ago! LOL
How is your garden doing? What’s blooming? What’s growing?