June Bloom Day: Roses, daylilies, & salvia

 

Welcome to my little corner of the earth!

I garden in Eastern Washington state, USA, zone 5b.

We have been having an unusually warm summer so far. My flowers haven't seemed to mind!

Now to just keep them watered.

 

I'll start out back:

 

Mockorange is loaded!

I love the height these lilies have added behind it, as well.

I'm pretty sure these are 'Rosellas's Dream.'

This is their 3rd summer, and the tallest they've gotten yet.

 

Continuing the pink and white theme back here at the moment, is this rapidly growing clump of hardy geraniums. I'm impressed how they are holding their own amongst everything else.

 

English rose 'Abraham Darby.'

To say I was excited to see this one blooming would be a vast understatement.

I just put it in a few months ago, and while it's only about 18" high, it has had 6 or 7 blooms on it this year! They smell fantastic. As it continues to grow, I'm planning to train it up a trellis.

 

Moving to the back slope:

I've got a couple of these pink lupines blooming!

I didn't expect them to this first year.

I put them in to help fill in this ugly dirt patch up at the top of the vegetable garden (courtesy of last summer's wall-building project.) May their seeds spread far and wide! 

 

Pink clover and wild lupines

 

2 shades of wild purple lupines.

I wouldn't mind if the whole slope was taken over by lupines.

I let every one grow up that I can.

In fact, there are 2 growing right now in amongst my vegetable garden. I'm going to let them get big, then transplant them up.

 

Front flowerbeds: 

Salvia, English rose 'William Shakespeare' about to bloom, and daylilies in front.

This salvia bush looks like a hybrid, with 2 colors. Actually, the pink in front is a volunteer from the other side of the flowerbed.

Asiatic daylilies and salvia.

Another 'William Shakespeare,' this one blooming already.

More daylilies, salvia, and catmint in the far background.

Oh, and one little miniature rose.

The blue delphiniums in back are new this year.

I hope they survive to grow tall for me next summer.

Up on the top terrace, hardy hydrangea buds are just starting to pop.

I really like how they open a few at a time.

 

As you may have noticed, I really love pinks and purples. :)

I hope you enjoyed this little tour.

Come again soon!

To see more beautiful blooms, visit: May Dreams Gardens.

April End of Month Views

Hello, friends!

I'm linking up to Helen's End of Month view meme, which can be found here:

https://patientgardener.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/end-of-month-view-april-2015/ 

 

Let's get started, shall we?

 

Back Flowerbed

 

Tulips are providing nearly all the color at this point with the mockorange giving some needed height.

 

Looking down toward the deck.

 

L-R: mockorange, 'Mariette' tulips, rose

Oh, and one random iris in front.

Geum is big and bushy.

More tulips surrounding mockorange bush.

Tulip distribution is a bit uneven, so that's something I would like to work on for next spring.

 

Vegetable Garden

overview

The bottom terrace is completely planted with spring veggies.

Obviously, nothing has come up yet.

The bright green on the bottom is oregano.

 Greenery on top are strawberries.

 

Pea sticks!

I planted some "Pole Sugar Snap Peas" this year, so I thought I would give pea sticks a try.

Those are dead aspen branches stuck into the ground for a trellis.

If the aspens come alive again and start growing in my garden, I'm going to be mad!

 (Knowing aspens like I do, I wouldn't put it past them!)

 

Shade Bed

 

It's all columbines and heucheras in the shade bed these days.

I haven't seen any sign of the hostas that used to be in here too.

Maybe they'll still come later...

 



 

 

Raspberries

 

Starting to fill out.

I need to get back over there to compost and weed.

 

 

Front Flowerbeds

 

Overview

 

Front: Middle Terrace (where most of the flowers are)

 



Tulips again giving most of the color.

If I can, I want to dig up the lighter-colored ones to put elsewhere, and get a few more of the vibrantly-colored ones.

The bright green on the left is a new delphinium I put in, to replace the phlox that was mostly dead.

I put in 3 and they're all in this middle terrace.

I'll try to point them out in the pictures.

They are all 'Blue Mirror' variety.

 

The tulips almost seem to glow in this picture, don't they?

On the right is one of my new 'William Shakespeare' English roses that I put in place of the daisies.

This photo should be named "Second Chances."

Those little spots of green in front are the hydrangea from the bottom front terrace, which I thought was completely dead until about 2 weeks ago. This spot gets more shade than the former, so maybe that will help it perk up.

The peony growing in back was transplanted from a friend's yard in the middle of last summer and pretty much looked dead the whole rest of the year. Surprise!

I will be really surprised if it blooms this year.

 

A few different varieties of muscari with phlox in the background.

Still on the middle terrace.

 

Sem False Spirea, with columbine, salvia, and of course tulips.

This lovely little shrub brightens up the shady corner here beautifully.

 

Front: Bottom Terrace

 

Grape holly (Mahonia aquifolium)

This is thriving in a tough spot, which I'm glad to see.

It has tripled in size since I planted it, and even had a few of its signature bright yellow flowers earlier this spring.

 

 

Boxwood, barberry in a pot, plus another barberry.

I need to decide where to plant this extra barberry.

It has not been doing so great down on the bottom terrace, so I replaced it with another one of my new roses.

 

 

Another 'William Shakespeare' rose, replacing the barberry, as mentioned above. I planted it good and deep, and I'm really hoping it takes off and adds a shower of deep crimson roses going up the wall.

 



Looking down the bottom terrace.

 

 Tulips by the mailbox.

I'm actually thinking of taking these out.

It's hard to keep this area weeded, with no real flowerbed here.

Plus, all the real flowerbeds are just a few feet away.

They would transplant nicely, I think, to the back flowerbed.

 



 

If you made it all the way through that, way to go!

This is my favorite time of year, with things changing daily, it seems.

 



Potting Up & Hardening Off

Or, what to do when you don't have a cold-frame built yet!

 My friend Colette gave me this brilliant idea.

So to harden these seedling off (i.e., get them ready for life outdoors full-time), I have them out on the back slope under these clear bins. In the afternoon, I either prop up the bin a bit, or take it off completely, if it's warm enough. Then cover them back up at night to keep them warm and keep the frost off.

So far so good.

Today the bins didn't come off at all, mostly because we were busy with other stuff--church, mother's day--all day. But tomorrow is supposed to be in the 60's (yes!) so I'm planning to give them some sun in the afternoon.

So here's what's out there:

 2 pumpkin plants, borage, several marigolds and cosmos, and a few basil.

Oh yeah, and some hollyhocks.

I took about 2.5 hours Saturday night and got the rest of the seedlings potted up that were still in the very small starting trays. Violas, petunias, more marigolds and cosmos, a few more basil and hollyhocks, and some delphiniums.

They all needed it pretty desperately, but I had been waiting, because I just didn't have any more window-sill space. Then I talked to Colette about starting to harden some off outside.  So that freed up my window-sill space.  Basically, I put all the bigger stuff outside, and kept the little ones in.

I figure in a couple of weeks, all these will be ready to be planted outside, and I can start hardening off the ones that are in my windowsill now.

p.s. I have no idea what to do with those beans! They are all flowering in the basement windowsill, even though it's about 15 degrees colder than the main level, and I only water them about once a week!

Go beans! I just...am not sure what to do with them. They are so tall that I think this bin method of hardening them off would smash them down too much.  I'll have to talk to Colette again and see if she has any ideas! I give her a hard time about being my personal extension agent! :)

Transplanting the beans

 As you can see, the beans had outgrown these little trays.

The roots were already coming out the bottom holes.

Luckily, we've been eating a lot of yogurt lately!

I poked holes in the bottoms of the yogurt cups with a nail, then filled them with a mixture of the seed-starting soil plus regular potting soil.

They are fighting for windowsill space now, but all seem to be growing taller.

Beans grow fast enough that I'm sure I could have just waited and planted them outside this summer, but it has been fun for the kiddos to see them growing so big and tall. Fun for me too, especially with this cooler spring than we're used to.

Once we got the beans moved, we filled up the spaces again with more seed-starting mix.
This time we did: 2 'Baby Boo' miniature white pumpkins, 2 'Jack Be Little' miniature orange pumpkins, (one of each type in Jacob's and in mine), 1 delphinium in Jacob's, some delphiniums in mine (don't remember how many). I also put some borage in mine. Didn't write down which was which this time, so I guess we'll get a surprise.  So far the pumpkins in mine are just starting to poke through.

It has been a little harder this time to keep the dirt moist for the seedlings, since I can't cover the whole tray. This might be another reason to do all of one type of seed in the same tray. That way, they would all be ready to pot up at once, and then the whole tray could be used again.