South Bed Replanted

I finally got a new camera, posts with photos again!

So after my shopping expedition on Friday, I replanted the first flower bed on Saturday. I did the South one, and will work my way around counter clockwise to the NW one. You can check out my plan for more info.

It was 2 hours worth of work:

• Step one: ripped out the bishop’s grass from the triangle spots below the planter where it meets the driveway & replanted those spots with a pink flowering yarrow.

 

• Step two: carefully dug out all the plants from the flower bed except one white mum (which was later pruned down). I divided the original 3 shastas into… well a bazillion shastas (actually 19) and put them in plastic totes etc.. for now until I’m ready to move them somewhere else and WeeWren picks hers up. Oleander and the other white mum are also in temporary containers at the moment.

• Step three: once the bed was emptied I hopped over to the fence side to try and rip out all of the grass growing below the planter on that side (under the fence and between the neighbor’s driveway. Very difficult, kept banging my hand against the planter and the fence. I resorted to pouring 3 kettle-fulls of boiling water over this strip to try and kill the damn grass. Next time I'm working outside and I see the neighbor I'm gonna ask her if I can sit in her driveway and try to get at it from there. Eventually I will either plant wooly thyme or seed alyssum here.
• Step four: tilled up the soil to about 9" deep. Then tilled in compost, poultry manure, bone meal, kelp meal, granular gypsum and just a touch of chelated iron (the oleander had a good bit of yellow) to about 4".
• Step five: transplanted all the planned plants except hollyhock. I wanted a purty peach variety Michigan Bulb has on their site, but no nursery has anything like it right now. I substituted a super blue delphinium I found instead.
• Step Six: clean-up. I HATE this step…. took about 10 trips back and forth between the tools, fertilizers, empty nursery containers and full totes of daisies. Not to mention the Felix catus that tried to trip me half a dozen times.

But she is DONE!!! hoorahs! Here's some pics of the plants that went in:

  The white mum that was already here, pruned down.

 A variegated perennial stonecrop

the blue delphinium (and neighbor's Canis lupus familiaris) from International Garden Center

annual stock to fill in space around the perennials that shall grow in

(pink to please mother *blah*)

my Echinacea double decker from Sunflower Farms

Lewis Flax I grew from seed in spring

 the Buddleja from my feeding the Archie Jr's fiasco... 

Gaura grown from seed, I hope this runt grows up quick!

There's a couple other plants I didn't get good picks of. A weird succulent and a pink mum plant.And the overall affect:

Hopefully I have Bloom Day pics tomorrow. The next installment of the 2012 replanting won't be for a couple of week, got a trip this weekend. Happy gardening to all!

Belated Bloom Day May 2011

 I didn't have time or access to a computer yesterday, but damnit I want to share my flowers! So here they go :) First the backyard containers:

cosmo Seashells Blend

common chives & lobelia

I think these may be a creeping Jenny, they came home hiding in fountain grass from the nursery two years ago. I like the peach colored flowers which only open in sunlight (it was cloudy when I took the pic)

And this is a calendula Kablooma,  not quite what I was hoping it would be :/

 annual blue salvia among my tomatos

 common thyme

 heliotrope :)

alyssum

 the new tomatoes are finally blooming!

nasturtium Alaska

I allow some oxalis with lavender/pink flowers to hang around

 I'm highly surprised that my pansies Bewitch'd are still around this late into spring

 lots of alyssum this year, bringing tons of hover flies  :)

MYSTERY PLANT!

Three of these have come up so far. I think they may be volunteers from my guara last year (which have since been transplanted to the rental property). The plants are tall and thin, the flowers miniscule and they keep disappearing (see the stumps?). The blooms don't look like the guara though. Any ideas out there?

strawberry Fragola Quattro Stagioni

The other Sequoia are blooming too, but forgot to photo them

 my peach miniature roses (99 cent store find!) are starting to bloom again :)

I think this is the purtiest onion flower head I've seen :)

and my new yellow milkweed (more on this emergency purchase later)

And now the front  yard:

Da's shastas are going nuts

 the sweet pea Princess Elizabeth

They had been blooming wonderfully, but yesterday they were down to the last and it was time to cut them down. That was the last photo I took, and of course saved some seed pods.

 the geraniums (unknown variety) by the front gate are back in their full glory

 Da's lavender rosebush is happy again

 I've added kalanchoe from the 99 Cent Store along the strip behind the sliding gate

 the blue butterfly bush is coming out nicely again :)

 we've got a profusion of calendula Zeolights by way of a seed trade with Mike - thanks dude!

 Yarrow in the gate strip

 a volunteer nasturtium Alaska that popped up by the yarrow

 Da's new Peace rose just planted a few weeks ago, the snap dragons around it aren't blooming yet :(

 

 this second year scabiosa Isaac's House it finally blooming, I was hoping for a more bluish tint

 and no clue why but the bluebells have been doing terribly this spring, perhaps too wet?

anyway, finally got some going with Da's new Beloved rosebush

 still ridiculously happy the larkspur Shades of Blue which are actually purple :/ re-seeded itself :)

 new sweet lavender in the front

 the statice that refuses to die :)

I finally have borage! and it's a bee magnet as promised :)

 a new geranium I got for Ma, forget the variety...

zinnia Art Deco is finally opening up :)

 another

lobelia Crystal Palace recently transplanted below the white rosebush

 and Da's white roses

and of course you can't leave without admiring my Felis catus "Watching You"

Other things blooming that didn't photograph well are my new spanish lavendar and lavender Lemon Leigh, columbine, morning glory Heavenly Blue and an unknown purple morning glory.

The poppy Mission Bells and Lauren's Grape were already spent and whacked down for the year :'(

I was very frustrated that my bolted lettuces and sunflower for the Community Container Garden project are budding budding budding - and not yet bloomed in time :P

Happy Belated Bloom Day to everyone!