As the Garden Grows

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My garden is one of the things I hold important to me

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This weeks theme is Important

This weeks photo hunter theme is important and I decided to show you what’s important to me as far as gardening goes.

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It’s no secret to anyone that reads this blog or any of my other blogs that my garden is important to me. Gardening is a great hobby and activity. I’m passionate about gardening.

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The act of planting new plants each year and maintaining my garden helps keep me fit and gets me outdoors for some much needed fresh air. My garden is also a source of comfort and peace. It’s where I go to relax.

I’m off work due to Crohn’s Disease, but when I’d come home from a hectic shift in the ER, no matter how tired I was, I’d often head straight to the garden. Either to simple enjoy my plants and flowers or perhaps not so surprisingly to do some work! Just a few minutes in my garden would erase the stress of an ER shift.

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lucious strawberry I’m an organic gardener. I don’t use any chemicals in my garden beds or on my plants at all. Everything is natural and my garden is fertilized with manure, leaf mulch, and alfalfa tea.

cherrytomatos I mainly post photos of my flowers on this site and others that I maintain, but I also grow a fair amount of veggies and fruit. Some of the veggies, particularly the leafy greens, are grown in large balcony planters beside my back porch.

Other fruit and vegetables such as Tiny Tom tomatoes and beans are grown in planters on the patio, while plants such as peppers, carrots, raspberries and strawberries are grown right in the garden beds among the flowers.

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Now wouldn’t a nice bowl of fresh raspberries be great right now?






Datura is smelly in a few ways

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This weeks theme is Smelly

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So the photo hunter theme this week is smelly.

With gardening as a hobby I know both good smelly and bad smelly.

Those of you who read this site or any of my others probably came here expecting a photo of something that smells good. I certainly have plenty of photos of lovely scented plants and flowers.

As one of my internet friends says “If only the internet had scratch and sniff capabilities”. You know I’d apply that technology to some of my photos.

The picture that I posted above is of a Datura plant seed pod. The seed pod doesn’t smell, but the leaves of the datura plant sure do when you touch or rub them between your fingers. The smell is a mix of skunk and coffee grounds. At least that’s the way it smells to me. It’s very repugnant.

It’s flowers on the other hand have quite a pleasant strong fragrance. As you can see it’s large seed pod is also quite ornamental.

All round it’s a very interesting smelly plant.

Rows and Rows of Liatris flowers

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This weeks theme is Rows

Liatris

When you take a close look at many flowers or leaves you can see that there’s often a pattern to how it’s been formed.

I mean, take this Liatris stalk. When it’s in full bloom it just looks like a puffy floral stalk in the garden, but when you look a little more closely you’ll notice that the stalk is composed of many flower buds in tight rows. Each stalk must have at least 50 flowers on it.

I can’t remember if this Liatris was about to bloom or if it’s blooms were fading when I took this photo, I believe it was finishing up it’s bloom.

I have several clumps of Liatris throughout the garden. I plant five to 15 bulbs or corms (I can’t remember which they are at the moment) in a circular pattern so that when the individual plants grow they form a natural looking clump.

I’ve only been growing Liatris (Gay Feather) for a few years and I haven’t yet noticed if any of the bulbs have naturalized to produce more plants. Does anyone know if they naturalize?

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