I am glad for this weekend to have arrived.   Yay!  The baby garden is shaping up now.  The first couple of years will be bare, but that is okay.  This is the year for annuals while I decide on perennials.

We need a ton of mulch for the beds in the front and back, but I figured that would wait until next year since any money spent was going towards the plantings.  Well, one of our neighbors stopped by and said she had extra mulch in her driveway and that we could have it.  We offered to pay for it, but she didn’t want to take any because it was good to see the neglected house being taken care of.  How nice is that?  All of our neighbors seem really nice.

Anyway, we hauled that mulch over 1 wheelbarrow at at time.  It was a lot of mulch, too.  She would have had to pay to have someone haul it all away.  We filled up the big front bed and have a bunch left to put probably in the back or on the other side of the front.

 

A lot less weeding will be happening now.  Up here, anyway.

The mulch makes everything pop, like my mushroom:

The cleome have some blooms on them.  These are supposed to be 3 to 4 feet tall by later in the summer to help fill in this spot.

 

This is my baby calycanthus shrub.

It has a ways to go to get to 5 feet tall 😀

This is the cosmos:

 

I have never had cosmos or cleome in my gardens before. 

The other side of the front is the wild and wooly side. 

I will be really glad when those bushes are gone.

The back garden is coming along.  We have this tree/shrub thing that is blooming.

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It provides a shady canopy and now that I got the ground cover cleared out from beneath it, I put in some of Debby’s fairy impatiens that she sent to me.

My sad little back garden.  My roses are doing well, though, and have some buds on them!  This bed is going to take a long time to get going, but that is the fun part.

 

I want to buy allllllll the plants for here 😀

The back yard is great for gathering, too.  We had cake and firepit enjoyment!

 

 

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Have a great weekend!

Progress being made in the garden bed.  No more plant ‘acquiring’ by me from the old house anymore.  Oh well.  The buyer wants to keep the garden beds, so that is good. I am giving her a schematic of the old garden so she knows what is what along with my email if she has any questions.  Still a little sad to see that go.

Anyway, I had hacked off some iris rhizomes along with the root clusters and brought them here. One chunk had buds, which I probably should have taken off to help the plant establish, but I just couldn’t do it.  It had full root system, so I thought it would be fine and here it is today:

This clump probably could be divided again this year and I might do that.

I had also lopped off a couple of the Boysenberry buttercup, which did not have any buds, but darned if they didn’t bloom anyway!  This flower loves me   

We also started working on the slate path.  This involved setting out the stones where we wanted them, then digging up the grass and digging out a trench.  Then we laid down a weed barrier:

We used this edging material, which is kind of spendy, but is better than sharp edged metal and looks better than the rolled edge stuff. It shouldn’t heave in freeze/thaw cycles either.

Then paver base:

 

Of course, when we laid stones in, we couldn’t quite get them in the same spots because of the connecting points of the trim and then sometimes the stones were too thick to go back into the same spot. So that meant rearranging again and trying to find the right pieces.  Good thing we have a bunch to choose from.  After we got them in, we then realized that keeping the stones level with each other ended up have them end not level with the perpendicular sidewalk, which slopes downward. Sigh.  So, about one-third came back up along with the sand and the barrier to add dirt back in to raise a slight slope.  Now we need to put the stones back in place before I show the final picture.

A few more blooms – I found a patch of forget-me-nots in the back yard:

 

And my Zephrine actually got a baby rose bloom on it 😀

 

These seem to be going well in the partially shaded area and have new growth on them.  I wasn’t expecting any blooms at all or at least not for a while. so that was fun.

Hopefully we will get the path finished up this weekend. Looks like biking only Saturday and we will have to stick closer to home because of afternoon storms. I am thinking we might check out the Elvis festival in Lake George just for fun 😀

Not a ton blooming now, but that is what happens with a new garden bed.  I have been buying a lot of small plants.  It’s hard having the patience to wait for the small perennials to get big, but I would rather buy 10 small plants for $30 than 1 big plant for $30.  It just takes time and patience.

We were at the old house mowing the other day and I ‘acquired’ more plants.  There are blooms over there.

Alium:

 

And the Amethyst in Snow Centaurea:

 

I took some rootlings of that one. I love it so much and if these don’t take, I will certainly be purchasing more – but crossing fingers for free 😀

On to Radiance Manor:

We do have a rhododendron in front.  Or rather I think there are 2 or 3. They are wild and half dead, but it looks like a few bases in there:

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I would like to keep these if I can. I have never had a rhody before, so I don’t know much about them. I was reading that for shrubs in this state, you are to do what is called a rejuvenation pruning, which is cutting it waaaay down and hope it comes back. Eeek!  So, if I lose the plants, no biggie, and if it works – great!

The slate that we got the other day will be used likely for a path from the driveway to the front walk – right along here:

We aren’t even worried about the lawn yet. It’s in terrible shape, but at least the weeds are green.

When we were digging out the bed here and in the back, we uncovered more slate tiles.  How convenient!  I laid some of them down in the big bed for a walking path:

Now I need to bury them a bit. I need to place other pieces here and there so I can walk into the garden bed without compressing the soil much.

I also got a butterfly bush.  Doesn’t look like much here:

This is going to be the jewel, though.  It’s the big boy – Black Knight.  This will get 6 to 8 feet tall. I have the room in this garden for it.  These grow pretty fast and this should be a nice size this year and produce flowers.

I also found a place for my broken pot.  A snow and ice slide this winter busted the bottom off this, but it still will stand on a flat surface, so I just plunked it on a rock in the bed with a sweet potato vine in it.

 

I am trying a new plant this year.  Lupines.  I have always wanted to give them a shot.

Lupines can be really finicky, but the nursery had these on sale for 5 plants for $10.  How could I resist? These are in a partial sun spot, so fingers crossed.

I also have one of my favorite flower combos started.  Globe thistle together with coneflowers:

A mixed of ‘acquired’ and purchased.  Also, note I chopped some iris rhizomes from the old house as well.  You can also see one of the stumps in the background there. We dug up 3 from this garden bed and there are 2 left, but they are not in an area imminent for planting, so I am leaving them for now. The walking path actually will go there.

Nothing like a bare baby garden bed.

 

It will be fun taking a picture in a few months and seeing how much these grow.

Spring is fully here now. We did have frost warnings the last couple nights, though. Temps got in the 30s, but it didn’t seem to affect anything.  There are some late tulips in town. Saw these on a walk this week:

 

 

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This week brought actual planting going on in the garden beds. We were at the old house and I dug up a few plants and saw this:

I definitely want to get some of these at some point for the new gardens.  

I got a bunch of annuals for the front bed since I honestly wasn’t expecting to make this much progress with it and didn’t have much planned yet.  The annuals will give some life to the bed while I start adding the baby perennials.

I grabbed some irises from the old house, coneflowers, liatris and some centaurea.  Not sure if they will survive the transplant or not, but no harm, no foul if they don’t.   For annuals, I got some cosmos:

 

They will get about 2 feet tall.  I also got some cleome for height, which will look like this (hopefully)

 

And some tall snapdragons.

My lily of the valleys are in full bloom.

 

 

I am over run with them!

This is what happens when you don’t keep control over a spreading plant.

There is a mix of LOTV and daylilies all down the side here. Some of that is on the neighbor’s property as well.

I was so happy to see this in the back yard:

 

My razzmatazz coneflower that I brought with me from IL about 10 years ago and moved last fall to this house. My old friend. So happy to see it survived the winter.  It’s funny – this plant has been the same size for 10 years. It is sterile, so it doesn’t make seedlings and it doesn’t get big enough to divide. It is a very strange plant.

Pixie was watching me from the dining room window:

 

My hostas popped up in the last week from nubs to this:

 

I was going to dig these up and put astilbes in their place, but then decided to leave them this year since I am lacking in plants right now. I am not the biggest fan of hostas, but they are green and growing. Not to mention this bed is full of those white rocks and it will take a long time to get the bed clear of those.

I got more plants today, too!

 

All of those plants I purchased over the winter at sale prices. The wait is worth it, though!  These are from Bluestone Perennials, which is my favorite online company.  Their service is very good and I especially like the ecofriendly coco pots the plants are packed in:

 

These pots go right in the ground so there are no little plastic pots to recycle. Less waste.  

So guess what the agenda is for Friday night? Planting!!  I know how to partay.

I finally have blooms for What’s Blooming, how about that?  This year’s posts are going to be sparse on blooms as I am building a new garden bed. Maybe I should change the title of this post for the future. 😀

We stopped by the old house and I took some pictures of what is blooming there.  That garden bed had a lot of winter damage. Looks like 2 of the 3 rose bushes there are gone.  I will pull them up in a couple weeks -just to make sure they are dead- if we haven’t sold the house yet. I need to also grab some irises (irides??) since we aren’t closing until who knows when.  Anyhoo – some flowers:

Beautiful hyacinth!

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These are the Apricot Dreams tulips that are so old. Tulips usually aren’t super long-lived as the original clumps, but these are going on 5 years, I think?

This is the Monte Carlos tulip that doesn’t even look like a tulip 🙂

Now back to Radiance Manor and the work that is being done.  We finally got the left half of the front bed de-bushed.

 

Digging out stumps is major work. It looks like a blast zone:

Check out this mammoth stump!

It is really too heavy to just pick up, so it got dragged over to the side. It needs to dry up and then we will cut it up. The city takes brush and stuff up to 4 inches in diameter, so this obviously can’t be put at the curb. 😀 We dug up 4 stumps with more to go out back.

It was looking so bare that I just stuck some tippy pots in the ground.

Not their permanent place, but good for now.  I put in some dahlias and yanked some vinca ground cover out of the the bed on the other side for trailing.  Not sure what that metal thing is to the right. Some sort of utlity item – maybe water?

I think it looks like a little mushroom and I just might paint it red with white spots for fun.

My few tulips out back are blooming and look nice.

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On lonely little daffodil bloom:

Guess who is going to be planting platoons of bulbs this fall?  Think it will be me??

The magnolia tree also has bloomed and is lovely!

I was pretty excited because I got plants in the mail this week.  Debby sent me some babies from her garden and I have them potted up to try to recover from a cross country journey:

Hopefully some of them will make it.

I also got my Zephrine climbers today.

I tried a new company for these roses, called Great Garden Plants. They sent me a free plant with the order, too.  A sunsparkler sedum.  Free gifts are always nice.  They also included a gift for Pixie in the form of rubberbands. She goes crazy over rubberbands – although I try to keep them away from her because she eats them.

I was thinking I got bareroot roses, but I guess I ordered the potted ones. I already received my other bareroot rose from Jackson and Perkins and *they* sent me a free rose bush as well!  Maybe everyone knows I need plants. Here is hoping they do well and I will update – obviously :D. 

Thank you for all the comments on the bathroom update.  We are enjoying it – and enjoying it being done!  

Now for some garden news…finally…I was really pleased to see some things out in the garden this week!

 

Can you see those? Tulip shoots!  I should have more coming up, but those might be later tulips.  I also see a ton of daylilies, which I knew were there, and some daffodils mixed in there.

 

If anyone wants daylilies, let me know. I have platoons of them. These are the really tall old fashioned orange ones. A lot of these will be moving from this bed as it is the full sun bed and I have other plans for it.

Our magnolia tree survived that wretched winter:

 

Unfortunately, we have to cut a big branch off of it because it is pushing the fence over. Or we need to cut away part of the fence.  However, this tree has buds!

 

I am pretty excited about having a magnolia.  I know next to nothing about trees and not much about shrubs, so I have some learnin’ to do.  We need shrubbery as we are pulling out a bunch this year.

Some things that didn’t fare so well? Those of you that read the post about the snow slide off the roof – well, the snow from that slide is almost gone except this part:

What it left in its wake was damaged ornaments.

That’s not supposed to be in 2 pieces.  Neither is my sundial:

The snow and ice is heavy when it comes rushing off a roof. It snapped the metal clean in half. This is why you wouldn’t want to be standing under it.  😯

Now I know where *not* to have stuff come next winter.

At least spring is finally starting.

I also have to show off my new colorful shoes!

 

We were out shopping the other day and John was looking for shoes. I was not, but isn’t that when you always find something?  These are a brand like Dansko and they are so, so comfortable. I couldn’t believe how comfy they were and so I impulse bought them.

 

They aren’t leather, but cloth. They don’t match any of my clothes, but I don’t care 😀  I wonder if I can get away with wearing them with shorts?

It nearing the end the the garden season. Time to start planning for planting and what happens next year.  I still have a lot of long bloomers going, though.

You know I had that problem with lily beetles earlier in the year?  Now it is Japanese beetles and they totally decimated one of my rose bushes:

Of course, it is the one right in the front.  🙄  And note the black plastic bag in there.  That got blown in from somewhere.  Being on the main street, there are lots of interesting things that have popped up in the yard and garden like homework, receipts, bottles, cans, even an x-ray of someone’s teeth of all things.  Today’s strange item?  An egg:

Isn’t that weird?  I don’t know if someone was trying to egg the house and missed or if some critter had the egg to eat and left it there.

I have a volunteer petunia. This has never happened before.  It has to be from last year because it is pink (which I had last year) and this year I have purple ones.

 

My 100-pound rose is blooming:

 

Once this is done blooming, I will dig it up and find it a home in the new garden.

Scentimental:

 

More delphiniums. I had no idea these were rebloomers!

These make me happy!

Annual salvia:

 

Purple liriope:

Black-eyed Susan going strong:

 

Also some Gaillarda:

 

There is one more day of hot and humid weather with storms on Saturday and then we will have beautiful weather!  That means Saturday will be spent rehabbing (like we would be doing anything else HA!) We have an open house scheduled on Sunday for our current house, so hopefully people will show up.  It’s a sloooow time of year to sell with school starting this week.

Yay – a blooming post!!  I haven’t been out in the garden as much this week with all the new house stuff.  I need to do a what’s blooming post at the new place, but I have to admit that I have not really  explored a whole lot in the back yard in depth.  There isn’t much in bloom there, but there are some keeper plants.  However, this is my current flower bed:

 

The sedum are starting to color up a little more.  

 

I have had a large swallowtail visiting the butterfly bush this week.

 

That’s  the neighborhood waste management flower in bloom in the background, too 😀   

The birds at my feeder throw seed everywhere.  They are messy buggers.  A surprise sunflower popped up by the butterfly bush several feet away.

Surprise flowers are fun!  I also have more blooms on the delphiniums this week:

 

I know someone who is going to have a lot of these in her new gardens 😀

My rose bushes are going through a small flush of blooms now:

You can tell the end of summer is approaching because now my lirope are blooming:

 

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As busy as I am right now, I still take the time to smell the roses! My stress relief.

Well, things certainly turned on a dime this week.   I can’t believe how much we have to do now.  The great thing is that it is on *my* schedule.  No waiting for other people to move their asses.

Lots of blooms, so let’s get a little closer!  The butterfly bush has lots of blooms now, even though the bush is a little misshapen.

There have been some monarchs and the little sphinx moth is back!  I need to try to get a picture of him/her.

My burning bush is showing a blush of color – what is up with that???  It’s not even close to fall.

I have lots of volunteer coneflowers this year.  Here is one that popped up near my delphinium:

This one is at the base of the butterfly bush:

And there are some volunteer black-eyed Susans along with more volunteer coneflowers  in by my Tiki Torch:

Closeup:

What is not blooming? Pixie’s catnip.

The kitty that used to eat her catnip was hit by a car earlier this year and no kitty had been bothering this since then until the other day.   I came out and found her catnip decimated.   I have it sitting on top of the Saturn and hopefully the kitty won’t bother it up there so it has a chance to try to come back to life.

Campanula:

 

More globe thistles:

 

The rose bushes are gearing up for another flush – Yay!!  

 

And finish out with some closeup of geraniums:

 

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The weather should be great this weekend.  There is a lot to do.  I want a long ride since the new house will be eating up a lot of time, but we also have to get the current house decluttered and ready for showing!  Eeek!

 

It’s been good weather this summer for the garden.  It’s deserved after such a horrible winter.  We have had a lot of rain, but it has come in chunks and not periods of days where it rains and is gloomy.   I have had to hand water the garden once or twice this whole summer, other than the potted plants, which obviously dry out faster.

Here is one of the potted plants.  This is the firecracker:

 

It’s a cute plant, for sure!  I think some people call it a cigar plant, but I hate smoking, so firecracker it is! 😀

A new flower has opened up this week:

 

My globe thistle!  These did not bloom last year and I had only seedlings, which I let grow and now I have blooms again.  This has always been a tricky plant for me and I don’t know why. I have a few seedlings that I will try to take to the new house and see what happens with them.

Garden art:

 

Kitty is getting a bit faded now.

My butterfly weed is doing pretty well:

 

I planted some annual salvia to the right of this to make up for the hot papaya coneflower which is still weirdly small.

Something I find interesting this year is that normally I get a bajillion aphids on the butterfly weed and not a one so far.  Seems that the red lily beetles are the pest du jour instead.

Speaking of lilies!

 

I will never get tired of these!!

As we get into August,  the fall blooming flowers are starting to set themselves up.  Here is my autumn joy sedum:

That’s going to be pretty showy this year.   See the campanla in the foreground?  Still blooming!  It got knocked over with heavy rain earlier this summer and I have just been trimming it down as the blooms die in the hopes that it will become upright again, and it might actually be working.

Tiki torch:

 

The sundrops are throwing out a couple blooms, too.  That’s a surprise.

Remember that huge butterfly bush bloom from last week? Still going!

 

Here is some white alyssum with the coleus up close from the shade garden tippy pots:

 

I am picturing that cranberry color in our dining room.

I was trying to do some August goals for today’s post, but my brain is pretty fried from this week.  I have some in mind, but I need to sit down and think about them.   Not sure how much biking will be done this weekend as the weather is iffy.  John will be away tomorrow and that means he cannot put the kibosh on me buying stuff LOL!  Maybe I will find a trunk or another piece of furniture to do 😀