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Bi-color Monkshood makes a lovely addition to the garden

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Bi-color Monkshood buds

Monkshood Aconitum

Our bi-color monkshood has started to bloom. It’s a lovely flower. A little unusual looking but lovely just the same. I should have tried to get a photo of the foliage as well as it’s quite nice.

I grow two types of Monkshood. The second type doesn’t bloom until the end of August thought – it’s the Azure monkshood and it’s absolutely lovely. Don’t worry there’ll be photos when it blooms.

Bi-color Monkshood Mature Flower

Monkshood Aconitum

I grow this monkshood in the far corner of my garden near some roses and our very very slow growing holly tree. It spruces up the area when it’s in bloom.

Do you grow any unusual or less common types of plants?

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Shade loving spring flower

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I took this photo about two weeks ago.

Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of this plant. It’s a spring flower that for me, only blooms for approximately one week each year. The name is something like pasiflora … but yeah, I know it’s not a pasiflora as it’s certainly not a passion flower.

Whatever it is, it’s a lovely spring flower who’s blooms open fully in the daylight hours and close as the light dims in the late afternoon. I have mine planted in a fairly shady area, so it does well in shade.

This flower is no longer blooming and it’s foliage will die down sometime in the next few weeks as we come into the warm weather of summer.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Thin leafed poor blooming azaleas?

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How did your Azaleas, and Rhododendrons do this year? Did they bloom well? Is the foliage lush and full?

If you azaleas didn’t seem to do as well this year as they have in the past, or if the leaf coverage is rather thin you might want to be proactive and take some measure to help them get healthy so they’ll bloom well next season.

Apply azalea fertilizer in the spring. You might want to give your plants one light dose before they begin to bloom, perhaps just as they come out of dormancy, and another dose shortly after they’ve finished blooming. Fertilizing will encourage better growth and the plant should get fuller looking.

Lightly pruning blooming branches and bringing the flowers indoors or lightly prune immediately after the blooming season ends.

You’ll be cutting off some of the new growth, but when pruning takes place near the beginning of the season it actually encourages new growth. By pruning, fertilizing and watering regularly throughout the season your azaleas should be stronger the following year.

You might even want to thin some of the older branches after the blooms fade in order to shape the tree for the following year. It make take a few years to prune your azalea into a nice shape that shows off it’s fullness as you do not want to prune too much off at once.

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