As the Garden Grows

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If you want to see my garden here’s a sneak peek

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Warning! My garden is very small. It’s jam packed with plants, but it’s small.

Here’s a view of the garden. I took this photo while standing with my back against the edge of the house. In other words I took it from near the base of the back stairs.

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As you can see I utilized every space available!

To the immediate right there’s a small storage area. Basically it’s a large grey wooden box that’s attached to the stairs. We keep our garbage containers in it. On top of that area I have several balcony planters where I grow everything from lettuce to tomatoes. I’ve also got my Jasmine or Camellia or whatever it is (see last post) in that area, as well as a Christmas cactus, ornamental pepper and a passion flower.

Immediately in front of the garbage storage area and our enclosed back porch is our small patio area. You can only see a portion of this area in the photo. We have a nice patio table that takes up most of the patio space. We’ve also got raised flower beds surrounding the patio. You can’t really see the central flower bed well in this photo but it’s behind the table.

So the patio table is surrounded by lovely plants. This gives the area the feel of being a separate garden room. Yes, I’m growing some tomatoes in pots on the patio. I’ve also got containers with cucumbers, green beans and tiny tom or cherry tomatoes growing on the other side of the table.

The rest of the garden is a mass of roses, lavender, balloon flowers, brown eyed susans, spring bulbs, hostas, lilies, daylilies and at least a hundred other types of perennial and annual plants.

Our neighbors house is behind ours. He actually lives on the adjoining street so his driveway is at the end of our garden. We also have very close neighbors on either side and can in fact see at least four of our neighbors backyards from our garden. I suppose that’s why I’ve tried to grow plants that are 3+ feet tall along the edges of the garden. It creates the illusion of privacy even if our yard is not the least bit private.

Oh yes I said the garden was small. It measures about 17 feet wide by 30 to 35 feet in length from the back of the house.

There. So now when I talk about my backyard garden you’ll have a good idea of what I’m talking about.

BTW if you click on any of my photos it will take you to my flickr account where you can click on the words “all sizes” above the photo to see a larger image if you want to see the photo in greater detail.






Butterfly Milkweed

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I noticed that my hybrid Butterfly Milkweed – Asclepias tuberosa – had started to form buds. I had noticed the developing buds about a week and a half ago as I took a walk in my garden checking on all the plants as I went.

Luckily I had my camera at hand and I was able to take a few nice photos of the developing buds:

Milkweed tuberosa buds

Butterfly weed is a herbaceous perennial that grows up to two feet in height. It dies back each winter and then re-sprouts in late spring from underground tubers.

Milkweed is slow to come up each spring. If you grow any form of milkweed you should always take care to mark the spot that it grows in each fall or at the very least try to remember where it was as it’s slow to make an appearance and you wouldn’t want to dig in the area and damage the plants roots.

Flower clusters of brilliant orange or red appear in midsummer. Once the blooms are spent attractive green pods develop. When the pods mature they open to release silky parachutes that drift away on autumn winds. This is how the butterfly weed propagates as the seeds of the butterfly weed are on these silky floating strands.

Each cluster has many flowers, several of these flowers will have an inner whorl of petals that are called the corolla and an outer whorl of sepals that is called the calyx. Butterfly Milkweed is a little different from other species of milkweed in that the sap is not milky nor are the leaves opposite.

Butterfly weed is a naturally occurring plant that grows east of the Rockies in North America. It’s preference is for well drained sandy soils.

If you’d like to grow these lovely flowers plant them in full sun to very light shade. Butterfly weed is hardy to USDA zones 4 – 10.

If you’d like to encourage butterflies to visit your garden this flower is a must as the caterpillars of Monarch butterflies feed only on milkweed foliage. Adult butterflies of many species enjoy sipping the nectar from the butterfly weeds blossoms.

I grow a few types of milkweed in my garden and every time I gaze out my kitchen window I see butterflies visiting many of my plants.

The garden is shaping up

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Well, I finally managed to tidy up my garden and my arms have the scratches all over them to prove it!

Every rose I have has been pruned so now there are no more dead twigs standing up, visible over the new growth and blooms.

The garden looks so much better!

Chris and I went out yesterday afternoon and purchased 5 new roses, two clematis vines, three passion flower vines, a hibiscus, a blue Hydrangea and two fuchsia plants. Oh we got some more annuals as well. I guess that with all those vines, our existing cannas and jasmine plants that our garden will have a tropical feel to it this year.

My back ached each evening after I was done working in the garden but luckily felt better each morning. I thought I was going to get away without having any sore muscles but my legs are a bit stiff today. At least it doesn’t seem like I’ll be as achy as I was a month ago when I over did it in the garden!

Now I just need to get all the new plants planted – perennials and annuals, and get some mulch down too.

Does the work ever end?

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