What was your best garden surprise?

The "you might be a gardener if.." thread got me thinking about other open ended questions that might be fun to share.

I'll start this one off. My most pleasant garden surprise was the first year Dirk and I moved into our house. Our house is an old (1850) farm, and it had been abandoned when we bought it. Burdock and Japanese knotweed grew right up to the windows, the front yard was a tangle of overgrown, hideous cedar shrubs and more burdock, and the fields hadn't been hayed in probably 15 yrs. All goldenrod and you guessed, burdock.

We did little more than brush hog that fall and spent the winter renovating the inside.

So, come spring, I was delighted to discover a field of lupines that would make your heart soar. Purple, white, bi-colored and some pinks. They are lovely, and every year when they bloom, I can think back to that first moment when I actually had hope for my yard and future gardens.

Would have to be almost 1 year ago today - Sept 1, 2002. Labor Day Weekend and I was frantically looking for info via the internet on a certain plant - can't remember. The photo that popped up was from this site called Dave's Garden.

Little did I know........LOL and always lovin it! Ain't Gardenin' Grand? !!

One day this Spring, my older daughter came home announcing she'd found the perfect Mother's Day Gift for me but needed her sister to help buy it. A cookie Jar??? I went to a friend's house and came home to find this lovely "Sunflower Fairy" in my garden! The darn thing must weigh 150 pounds! They assured me they got a good price because the guy was a "pushover" for cute girls! LOL I couldn't have chosen better myself....

My surprise of this season is the amount of Phlox blooming right now. I had totally forgotten all the Phlox I received on trade last fall and this spring. Sure, I have had Phlox carolina 'Miss Lingard' for a while, but the new light to dark pinks I now have can't be compared. Why it has taken so long to have these colors, I don't know. I wonder if they will reseed? Sure hope so!

My best garden surprise was found ten years ago on Father's Day. We had been to a park for lunch, and when we came home and let our dog out, she ran to the gazebo and started whining. Lo and behold - five kittens under the seats ! They turned ten years old this past June.

Kittens & a gazebo?? Wow! Am I envious!!!

My biggest surprise is this red dahlia! It was a seed dahlia about 4" tall that someone gave me last year at the RU. It only grew to about 10" last summer, and I did not dig it for winter storage. It's well over 6' tall and the flowers are about 6-7" in diameter.

My best garden surprise so far has been a purple coneflower that my DD planted from seed in 2002. She planted a lot of herbs in spring, but by summer she was distracted and didn't tend them. She moved to TN this past winter, so I was anticipating re-covering my pots this spring.

When I was cleaning out the pots I noticed this one weed growing in the very center of one of my favorite big pots. It looked familiar, but I didn't know what it was. I decided to wait and see. It turned out to be the echenachia (purple coneflower) that DD had planted the previous year. She was more than thrilled to find out that not only had something she planted survived, but that I didn't pull it.

It's not what I want in that pot, but the butterflies have enjoyed it all summer, and I've enjoyed them. Now I'm inspired to build a hummingbird/butterfly garden. Echenachia will get a new home for next year, and I'll get my pot back, then.

Cheri'

I had tried repeatedly to establish some black-eyed susans in a border; these have always been a favorite, going back to picking them as wildflowers years ago. No luck with plants at all. Then one day there were a group in bloom in the rose bed, like a Gift.

Our best garden surprise was reopening an old storage shed and turning it into a lanai, just in time to enjoy it for the summer. A contractor cleaned it up and greenboarded it, then I painted and decorated it.

My husband thought I was really going over the top -- an area rug outside?? -- but I wanted to cover up the old cracked concrete patio surface inside the lanai. Set up some chairs and side tables, to create a comfortable lounging area on hot days. The shed is always shaded by its roof, and the patio itself is in shade by 4p every day, so it works out well.

The landscaping we did in the backyard was a rush job, compared to the tons of planning and research I did on the frontyard. Nevertheless all the backyard beds came out beautifully, so we look at flowers and beautiful foliage plants all year round when we're sitting outside. We really love it, and can't believe it came out so well for what was relatively little work on our part (compared to the other remodeling projects we've done!).

wandasflowers - Forget the envy. My house sat on a city lot - 90'x45'. My husband built the gazebo - it was made out of wood, sheltered us from the sun, and looked like a weathered bus stop. But we loved it. And we adore the cats.
We lived in that house for 30 years. Moved to the country 5 years ago and the first 4 years I sat on the porch and cried because I wanted to go "home". I'm just beginning to feel like this place is home. I can't explain it, but you gardeners will understand - the dirt finally smells right.
Thanks for listening to my rambling.

When we moved into our badly neglected 1910 home 15 years ago, its "garden" was filled with trash and either overgrown beyond recognition or completely bare earth packed concrete hard. In one of the overgrown corners I hauled away trash and dead or dying shrubs. Underneath it all I found a red rosebush, still in its can. It was lying on its side on a patch of concrete. The roots had grown out of the can and snaked along the concrete until they found some soil and then dug in. Today the rose is in the rose garden in the front. It's small for a CA rose (about 2 1/2 ft), it blooms twice a year, and the roses are an intense red and strongly scented. In full bloom it looks like a film version of the red roses in Alice in Wonderland, too beautiful to be real. I'll always wonder what its name is, and who left it there, and when....

Oh Jenniferch, post a photo of the bloom on the Roses forum. There are some very knowledgeable folks there who will help you identify it. Nice Surprise !!

Wow, Jenniferch, isn't it amazing how we'll nurse plants along and they can hardly stay alive, but certain plants like your wonderful red rose are absolutely determined to live and nothing can stop them?

How wonderful that it's a scented rose, too. What a great story!

my greatest garden surprise is that i have a green thumb. i didnt start gardening until i was 42. i had always killed anything i had tried to do, or they were scrawny and eventually died. so wasn't it a surprise to me, when i decided to try again, when we moved to this house 5 years ago now, that i actually had a green thumb. at the same time i started to garden i found dave's garden. so with a lot of help from friends my home is now surrounded with beautiful flowers and i'm amazed each and every time i see one blossom. :)

jkom51--a year round lanai? Only with a parka in Iowa!!!!

I had a couple of daylilies bloom this year that spun me around and pulled me back for a second look. I tend to talk to myself out in the yard, and I'm sure the neighbors thought I was bonkers when I would lean over to look at a flower and say "Well, hello there!" LOL

The picture is one of them.