Garden Chats

And a final fillip from delphinium:

This is the last set of garden tour photos, exploring miscellaneous items. Some gardens had a great blend of textures, shapes, and colors with one garden even including a cat patrol.

Besides the beautiful plants, I always enjoy seeing what personal touches gardeners add to their space to make it their own.

***********

I need more photos, fellow gardeners! Surely there’s new growth coming up, freshly started beds, or new ornaments that you want to share?

What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Garden Tour Part 3: Textures/Shapes and Personal TouchesPost + Comments (31)

More inspirational photos from delphinium:

Some folks on the tour had been reworking and reshaping their gardens for well over 30 years. It made me feel a little better that after 13 years here, I too am still rearranging my gardens.

Included are some close ups of everyone’s hard work.

show full post on front page

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Garden Tour Part 2: Up ClosePost + Comments (32)

Many thanks to commentor delphinium:

The local library sponsored a Garden Tour last June as a fundraiser. It was a great chance to not only support my library but also check out my neighbors’ gardens.

This first part provides an overview of the various gardens. Will then get a closer look in Part 2, and lastly in Part 3, will share some miscellaneous photos of textures/shapes and personalization in these garden spaces.

The tour was a nice mix of larger properties on the outskirts and smaller homes within the city limits. It was amazing what these folks did with their garden spaces, and each one was a beautiful oasis in its own way.

For example, one gardener created koi ponds surrounded by statues and rocks that enhanced their garden views.

Another gardener with a very small yard made the most of it by creating some fairy gardens alongside their regular gardens.

Included on the tour was a community garden where folks were in the process of planting items. These trees were on the way to the entrance.

***********

What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Touring InspirationPost + Comments (13)

This week’s lifeline, courtesy of Scout211:

Top photo: Our daisy bush is in bloom. I’m never sure which type of daisy bush this is. I’ve tried to research it and so far I can’t find one that looks exactly like this one. But I suspect it is one of the California bush daisies.

A field of Blue Dicks, one of our most plentiful early Spring native wildlfowers (Dipterostemon capitatus, also called Wild Hyacinth, Purplehead and Brodiaea (alternate spellings, Brodiea, Brodeia)

We planted these rosemary shrubs about 17 years ago. They seems to thrive and the bees love them (Salvia rosmarinus, synonym Rosmarinus officinalis)

One of our small Western Red Bud Trees (Cercis occidentalis)

The blueberry bushes are blooming.

The navel oranges are also in bloom, and the scent is amazing. The bees are busy today enjoying the nectar.

***********
Serendipitous discovery at our ‘new’ house: The sprawling clump of untidy sticks at the far corner of the pool fencing is forsythia, beloved New England harbinger of Spring. (Why the former occupants put it in that particular spot is unknown, but I do love seeing those bright yellow flares after a hard winter!)

In related news, Schreiner Irises just let me know that the potted dwarf irises we reserved are in the mail… and the Spousal Unit reports he can’t find the planters that were *supposed* to be waiting at the new house. (“They may be in a box”, somewhere among the several hundred boxes in three separate locations.) So, if it doesn’t rain, we’ll be making our first garden shop run of the season later today…

What’s going on in your gardens, this week?

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: California DreamingPost + Comments (24)

 
Thank you, Mike in Oly:

We currently have cyclamen blooming in the garden due to our early onset of spring so I thought I’d send you a selection of photos I’ve taken over the years of them.

Being Mediterranean plants they are ideally suited to our PNW climate and need no care at all. They grow from corms that like to remain undisturbed, and easily cross with each other to make new leaf patterns and flower colors, though all in a shade of pink or white.

I’ve no idea what pollinates them as they bloom before the bees wake up, but I have heard it is ants that spread their seeds about.

show full post on front page

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Cyclamen in the Pacific NorthwestPost + Comments (24)

 
Thank you, master gardener & commentor Pondwoman:

Here are some signs of Spring from a garden in north central Florida.

Top photo: Our first saucer magnolia blossom of the year.

Life is returning to the koi pond. The pickerel weed is leafing out and the iris may bloom in about a month. The braced tree is a cypress that fell over in a windstorm.

Our azaleas began to bloom this week.

These violets look white but are actually the palest purple you can imagine. They are popping up everywhere.

This purple oxalis makes a nice contrast to the surrounding green.

Closeup of a blueberry flower. We’re glad to have these flowers for the emerging bees.

***********
Daylight savings starts today, and here in New England we’re supposed to reach temperatures approaching 60 (a/k/a, False Spring)…

What’s going on in your garden (returning / planning / prep), this week?

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Spring Returns to North Central FloridaPost + Comments (17)

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

In the midst of my interminable winter, I have summoned some invincible summer by ordering a bunch of potted irises from Schreiners’ Iris sale. (I think it was Satby who introduced me to their catalog, which is amazing, and their plants are every bit as wonderful.)

If y’all want garden pics every Sunday, you need to step up & send me photos!

I would like to have a garden like the apartment patio the NYTimes describes here:

… Mr. de Mornay, a horticulturist at Flora Grubb Gardens nursery, has assembled a diverse plant collection and as distinctive a range of containers to showcase them in. He put several large potted palms to work to create a kind of canopy for bromeliads and orchids that appreciate relief from the sun, which the cacti and succulents arranged in the patio’s more open areas relish.

His garden may all be staged on level hardscape, but the sense of terrain Mr. de Mornay has conjured with 300 tightly packed vessels seems anything but flat, thanks to their varied heights, and clever positioning.

“The way he has some staggered at different heights kind of creates a stadium-like look,” said Ms. Woodard, who also noted details like a collection of tiny pots raised on a table for closer inspection, and others hanging on a wall…

… but IRL, I’m what one reviewer gleefully described as a cramscaper.

show full post on front page

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: All Gardening Is LocalPost + Comments (25)