I seem to have very little interest in planting much of anything this year, so I pushed myself to get it all done. That's really weird because I usually love getting out in the yard and putting flowers in every available space. I even planned stuff for this spring. Things change. I cleaned the flower beds yesterday and put out a dozen salmon geraniums and pinkish wax leaf begonias in the bed just off the front porch.
I had started with red geraniums and moved them three times before I decided where I wanted them... around the side of the house in a little alcove. I put yellow zinnia seeds behind them and small yellow spreading something in front. It will look good.
The other side of the front porch has some unknown flower coming up that my neighbor tells me is purple. I've been pulling them out for seven years and some are still there, thriving and thickening so I'm going to quit messing with them and find out what they are. I added Burpee's Scabiosa (ugly name) Summer Berries seed, hoping to complement the unknown. I scattered a few pink and purple gomphrea seeds because there were very few seeds in the Burpee package. There are two little metal garden people that stand at the back of that small bed. They are painted in soft pastels and add to, rather than detract from, the flowers that bloom there. They have arms extended to hold small pails that I will fill with pink wax begonias, I think.
On the north side of the house are two beds, each with two spreading hostas. I added salmon impatiens around the hostas. Nice. They will fill out and cover the space around the hostas. I don't like bare spots.
Along the south side of the house are two beds, one on each side of the steps... it's not really a porch, just a way to get in the back door. The right side goes around to join the alcove part toward the front of the house. Red and yellow gladiolas are coming up there and some purple yarrow that I wish I had never planted... it just takes over. Day lilies are full just near the steps. The bed on the left has a lone rose bush that hasn't grown in three years. I paid $12 for that thing and it was a two year plant. My neighbors pay $3 at Walmart or Big Lots and have gorgeous roses all summer. There are two buds on mine and that's probably all I'll get. I've moved it to find the best spot and I've decided that there isn't one. Behind that pitiful thing are half a dozen glads, red, yellow, or both. The rest of the bed is seeded with rose, purple, and yellow zinnias. There is a very nice lemon balm down toward the end of the bed. It's a nice looking bushy plant and smells wonderful when the leaves are rubbed. One orange hybrid lily is in there and at the end, daisies are beginning to come up. The corner has a white azalea that is just starting to open, rather late.
The bed across the back of the house has a wild mix of vinca, daylilies, some purple obedient plant that tends to crowd everything else out, a bit of wild strawberry, and a scattering of purple zinnia seeds to fill in any bare spares.
There is a nice peony bush just beyond that flower bed that has a lot of buds. I can hardly wait. Next to the peony are those stupid suprise lilies. I don't want to discuss them. The two peonies at the far back of the yard don't have ants on them yet so I may not get any flowers from them this year. I put them in last year after taking them from the house my grandparents had lived in. It's empty so no one knows, except Mom.
Two sides of the garage have flower beds, one with wild violets and lily of the valley stolen from Grandma's house and the other side that's not really visible is full of violets, wild strawberry and seeded with pink, purple, and white cosmos and gomphrea. I planted morning glories along the back of the garage, hoping they will cover the damage my neighbor did when he took down the dog run that was back there.
At the very far corner of the yard is the hardy hibiscus. It needs a lot of room but I wish I hadn't put it so far back and so close to the trash cans. I don't think ahead.
I put the few left over impatiens under two trees and hung a begonia in the tree at the edge of the front yard. I have a pot of bright pink geraniums on a table on the front porch and one of salmon geraniums and mixed petunias on the floor nearby.
I got a new bird bath for my birthday and, with the help of a neighbor kid, it's now out front near the feeders and the morning glories that I put around a small shepherd's hook that I can not get out of the ground. It's too flimsy to hold a pot so I just plant morning glories around it every year. The old bird bath, the $6 plastic one from Menard's, is in the back under the tree that has several feeders.
I just pushed myself yesterday and today to get it all done. I also cut the grass. I passed exhausted a long time ago but I want you to know how much work I've done on my days off.
It's all good.
Thanks to Burpee for the photos of their Scabiosa Summer Berries.
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