Happy What’s Blooming Day everyone!  I have some before and after shots I’ll post at the end, but first the new stuff.

Petunias in the tippy pots:

I really love the color of these. I took this picture near dusk, which really accentuates the color of them.

Snapdragons a poppin’:

Again, those are all babies from what I planted in 2015. I’m actually going to have to thin some.  Maybe I will try transplanting them. I don’t know how well they take to transplanting. I guess I have enough to give it a try 😀

My agastache are blooming:

These were ones I bought in the spring. I don’t know why I have such bad luck with these. They are supposed to be perennials through zone 5, so they should live, but I’ve tried twice now and they won’t over winter. I’m just going to have to treat them as annuals. I do love them.

Another allium:

I can’t remember the name of this one and I’m too lazy to look in my garden folder to see what it is. It’s about 6 inches tall. I planted about 10 of these, but only 2 bloomed. They were itty bitty bulbs, too.

The Star of Persia allium:

The dried heads look like 4th of July sparklers, don’t they?

My shade bed is plunking along slowly. I bought some $2 clearance astilbe last year and they look pretty good now:

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I have some other astilbe as well. I don’t seem to have the luck with them that I had at our old house, where they put on quite a show. I’ll give all of them more time. Patience is hard…

My spilled bucket plants:

I hope these fill in more. Last year I did impatiens, but I wanted to try something different. These won’t flower. They are just foliage annuals, which again I can’t remember the name of. What kind of gardener am I?

I’m pleased that my baby Joe pye weed is coming on strong:

It woke really late and I actually thought it might have died, but it is pretty happy now. It’s almost 4 feet tall and it shouldn’t get much taller like the wild Joe pye does.

Remember Audrey from last week? She has bigger teeth:

I’m just so amused by this bud. Doesn’t take much, really.

Now for some before and afters of the front beds. This was taken in the summer of 2014 when we got the house:

Can you say overgrown? I can and remember digging all that out (John, too).  We kept nothing from that bed. This is that section now:

Just a little different. I would say in 2 years this will be nice and mature.

This is the other side:

We didn’t do anything with this until last year, so it is pretty bare now, but certainly a lot cleaner looking!

We kept one rhododendron out of all of that. Then put in the path. This side will take another 3 or 4 years to really be mature, but it’s coming along very well.

The house went from abandoned to loved — and loved very much!