Congrats on your first sweet pea Candee! All the flowers are looking lovely.
Flowers in the Garden #2
Candee, your garden is lovely. It has some of the Japanese elements there. I just love it. I tried a small annual flower bed this year, I'm not totally satisfied with it. Next year I'll modify it to a low growing mass of uniform/complimentary color and see how it turns out. This is spot picture of some of the annuals that turned out this year.
Kim your annuals look very nice and so healthy. Mine always get a bit eaten. Thanks for your compliments to both. I don't work at it much anymore and the colors are just thrown together w/o much thought, if I have a bare spot something goes in!
Hi candee, I notice you have Japanese blood grass in front of your tall grass. I WANT SOME! LOL I saw some once at a chain hardeware store out of town, but didn't get it because I thought it would be in our town. NOT! Doh! I loved your macro shot. It's so satisfying when you get a good one eh?
Hi Lily-love. Nice pic. What is the purple flower?
Sue
Thanks Sue, let me tell you I have been trying to get bloodgrass to grow here for years and either I kept killing it or it didn't like the locations. Every year would be the same thing, I'd see one blade of red come up and then about nothing else and then I would try to move it and then it would be gone. So finally last year I decided to just give it another try and put it in the isle and voile' it took off like crazy. Guess I found it's niche. Hope you find more in your vicinity.
Now did you notice the vigna caracalla to the right of it with all the leaves on the trellis, wait till you see it in bloom. It is that snail vine with the curly snail flowers! And behind and left of the bloodgrass is the pineapple and just to the right is the passiflora.
Sue, due to the difference b/w lighting and sometime our pc's screens varies. Are you inquiring about this porterweed? Or was it the other (red) flowers? lol. Both are tender perennials, one is the porterweed, and the other is cuphea 'lavea'.
Both are butterfly magnet in the garden. :-)
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/101800/
Candee, a friend shared the vigna caracalla vine with me this early spring. I planted it in a dappled shady area, it hasn't done much for me. I gathered it needs more sun? Thanks.
Kim
Looking forward to that curly snail flower Candee, sounds amaising!
Your flowerbed looks fine Kim. what are you not satisfied with? I grew cuphea one year, sadly it didn't survive the winter but it was very nice when flowering.
Hi Terri, I did emphasize that was but a 'spot' of the garden. The rest of the bed is sorta chaotic in heights and structure that kind of clash with one another. The flower bed is small, those tall flowering plant in the garden gotta go next season, will take some pix to show its real appearance in the morning for you to see. I need some postive critiques so I can improve it next year. :-)
Hey Candee and terri, I too have the snail creeper, (thanks to chriisy in Aussie garden) and have planted four, but not in terribly good soil, so haven't had much success yet. But I still have one in a pot, and if and when the tank arrives, I have plans to grow it over that!
Here is a nice Euphorbia, I think E. wulfenii. It fell over, but still has nice blooms on it, so I planted another two behind it to fill in the spot eventually
Hey lily , thanks for the info on your purple flowers.
Heres some purple pansies, a little bit neglected, but surviving none-the-less
These are an Australian Native, Brachycome multifida, or swan river daisy. It does NOT like humidity, and looks pretty ordinary for me in summer. It is a ground cover and should cover a much larger area than this. This plant is over 7 years old!
The Kalanchoes are out now, but I need to do something with the ground to make it neater. A layer of sugarcane mulch perhaps?
My garden guard!
Kim as you can see I am not much for uniformity in my gardens, I like the different heights and contrasts, so why not keep with what you have, I like that combo you posted.
Sue, are those barbells in your garden or what? Interesting garden art, I like it, you have the most unique eye catching surprises in your beds. BTW wait till you see the broms from the Longwood trip, you will be drooling for sure. I love your guard dog, he is keeping such a watchful eye for you, perhaps you need to loan him to Terri to get rid of those nasty rabbits.
Whether it has spread or not that swan daisy is just cute as can be. And what is sugarcane mulch, over here we have different bark mulches but never heard of sugarcan mulch.
LOL, Candee! Not barbells, but the bottom of an old push hand mower. Yes, I have lots of interesting objects in the garden. I will have to photograph them all and start a new thread for that!
Oh, Leo would love some rabbits! Is Terri having trouble with them at the lottie?
Sugarcane mulch, is the leftover leaves from the sugar cane when it's been harvested. I think in the USA you call it sugarcane trash. It is sold here, plastic wrapped, at all the garden centres, but we get it straight from the cane growers, baled up like stockfeed. It has the odd large stem in it, which the dogs absolutely love to chew on! Its great because it has no weeds or seeds in it, and is quite soft compared to meadow hay or straw. I also think it must have a high sugar content, which I'm sure is beneficial to the plants. And along the way, it is also recycling! I try to encourage all my customers to use it, aswell we sell it from the gate to most of our neighbours. DH picks up over 100 bales on his big truck about every 6 months. I use about 15 of each load to top up old beds and start new ones. Its a very cheap and not-to-strenuous way to mulch the garden.
And here ends the lesson on sugar cane mulch! do you have much in the way of cane growers over there? Over here its grown in the warm to tropial climates.
Sue
I love your cactus, I got some great cactus shots at the conservatory at longwood, still working on getting them posted.
I appreciate the lesson on the mulch. Not aware of anything like that in our area, will have to research. Sounds like it is easier and lighter than the traditional pine bark mulch that we get. BTW ours is not cheap either, small bags are $3 each. We don't have access to a truck anymore to get it by the scoop so am rather stingy with it in my beds.
Been practicing on my macros and got a bee shot on bee balm.
Mittsy, here is your zinnia, lovely!
Hardy hibiscus in red, the white is not in bloom yet.
The dahlias are coming slow but sure
Ever seen ruffled glads like this one?
Sue I have a cactus dahlia.
Elephant ears are getting bigger every day along with some caladium.
Glad for the glads
More glads
And more glads
Just a few more
Hi Sue, Your guard dog gets everywhere LoL!
Your flowerbeds are looking great, yes sugar cane mulch, I love it, from seeing it in your garden. I'm still looking out for some over here!
I thought it was the bottom of a mower! I saw someone using one of those the other day at the lottie. With no electricity supply, those old fashioned mowers are very handy!
Hi Candee, Your red hibiscus is beautiful, I've been trying to get a red one! Your glads are great, so many different ones, I think they are worth a little stick! Mine are growing, no buds yet though.
Love the catus dahlia, gorgeous colour. Who needs Longwood when we've got Candee's?!!
Enjoy seeing your beautiful garden.
My hibiscus........
Dahlia
pink hollyhock and white mallow
This sunflower survived the rabbit! No troulbe with rabbits at the lottie Sue, just Treacle munching on the sunflower stalks in the garden at home.
Hi Kim, Dianne and anyone else, lets see your flowers!
Hi everyone,
Sorry I've been away and busy. Here is one from the garden today. Love all those flowers, I just scanned through, will return for more later.
Kim
p.s. This is an Angel trumpet.
Beautiful Bee shot Candee. Its quite a dark bee isn't it? Ours are much more yellow!
"Nice Angel" Lily_love. Chrissy in the Aussie forums turns inside out for those!
Hey Terri, the whole mower. Pics are a bit 'yuk' because it was on dusk and the flas kept going off
I don't know if you've seen these or not, but these are some of the 'artifacts' in my yard.
The kitchen
the bathroom
the lounge
the laundry
the powder room
the bike shed
the garden shed
and the barn
