Coming up....roses and other things!

Good afternoon. I have been busy today. Taught Art and Music at the school. Glad to be home! It was a bit tough going back after 2 weeks off...lol. But I sat down to check my email and decided to finish this post before supper.

As most of you know, I love roses. It is "my thing". And when I talk to other gardeners in my area, they are just scared to death to do anything more than a knock-out shrub. And do not get me wrong, I have several landscape roses and love them too. But they just cannot compare to an English Rose or an Hybrid Tea.... no contest!

But I hear over and over, "where do you put them?"

You don't need a fence or an arbor, although they are lovely.

Mine are right in the border mixing in with all my other things. I do not ever want a "Rose Garden". They are lovely in their place, but so much of the time, they are just green. (Or brown in our winters)

Roses love a little company. And they look beautiful mixed in with full, deep borders. You get so much interest that way. And when your roses are not in bloom, you still have something there. Don't forget some evergreens like boxwoods too, I am still adding them to my borders. I just bought 2 last Saturday. It helps keep the soil moist and hides a bit of the bottoms, making them look bigger and fuller too.

But it does not just need to be small plants, they look great with large, full neighbors too. Isn't this lovely? It is an Iceburg with a hydrangea. Wow.

I always end with my favorite. This border is to die for, all the pics today are from gardening site on the web and bh&g. I could spend hours just looking at this border alone. Makes me want to get my hands dirty!

As for my garden, it is still very new, but the roses are growing, and most are in their 3rd year now. I will post pics just as soon as I have blooms.... Oh....three months or so!

But here is my favorite from last year, my David Austin Tamara Rose....

And here it is today....




With it's new friends (4 white pesterman, several evergreen pachysandra -that has white blooms right now, and 2 Euonymus ). In front of that is a row of peach daylilys, sweet alyssum seedlings, a row of hostas mixed with lilyturf. So even though it is my "main attraction", it is not alone by any means.

This is my one surviving tiny baby (start) I have this spring. Isn't it cute! I had three, but this is the only one leafed out.... they are from the rose above. "Keeping fingers crossed"

Here is some columbine coming up between my rocks that make up my front steps....

I had one little start last year, and it is coming up everywhere. Which will be pretty where it is.... Aren't they cute?



And I found a Bachelor Button Bud! Maybe we will make it to warm weather after all.



Here is a bit more blooms.... I call this Bridal Spirea... But I don't think that is right. Anyone know what link of shrub that is? It was a freebie from a friend. It is pretty in bloom, just once in the spring.

Happy Gardening!

-Brooke-

Front porch ideas!

Fall is offically here and I wanted to show you a bit of what I have going on.

The front borders certainly look like the season.

I leave my spent hydrangea blooms on the shrubs for interest.

And scatter a few orange leaves....

And pumpkins.....

Grapevine with orange lights...

And a silly metal Jack-o-Lantern.

Click to view full size

Click to view full size

Oh, big news.... if you click on the last picture here....

You can see that Bella kitty is almost ready to have her kittens! 

(Updated 9/24/2011 from original post on March 29, 2009)

Favorite Flowers..... Larkspur

Tonight I thought I would talk about another favorite flower.

Okay, I love the country-cottage look. If you have seen this site at all, you can figure that out. So it is no surprise that I love larkspur (Delphinium consolida).

I must admit, I am a bit new to this flower. I saw it in a friends border last summer and just had to have some. Hers was a shorter purple-blue variety. I have a bit of that (maybe a bunch if it seeded last fall) and I also planted the "Giant Imperial Mix" for this year.

As you can see, it is a tall one. I have it near the back of the border next to the house in full sun.

I think the blue is so pretty, but I have my eye out for pink too.





So if my seed mix has pink, I will sort them out for another bed.

And it can easily be dried. I have not tried it myself, but I may this fall.

Aaaahhhhh, sweet anticipation!

Happy Gardening....Brooke

Garden Tour---Leu Gardens, Orlando, FL

I wanted to share some pics from a garden the girls and I visited while in Orlando.

http://www.leugardens.org/

The link is for their website. I was happy to see all the azaleas and Camella's in bloom. In Indiana our azaleas bloom in Mid-May (about Mothers Day).




This is the main building and you can see the lake.



I fell in love with this old tree covered in Spanish Moss.



It was just so nice to see things in BLOOM!



This makes me look forward to all the snapdragon seeds I have coming up!



Isn't this pretty, I will look for that color this year!



Blanket flower, I took a close up to remember the name. They had a bunch of this and it was striking.



The rose garden, it was a bit early yet for them, but is was lovely.



I love little statues, I need to stop "looking" and buy a few.



Cleome or spider flower. I have this and love it.



A big old Camella tree, the next shot is a close up of its blooms.



So beautiful.



A pink one...wow.



A path with blooming azaleas.



Another of the main welcome center. It was near downtown Orlando, $7.00 for adults, $2.00 for kids and took about 2 hours to walk thru. If you are in the area, I would definitely try to visit to see all the zone 9 things they have there.

Happy gardening.....Brooke

Favorite Flowers....Hollyhocks

I saw about a billion kinds of flowers in Florida, but I gotta tell ya, the ones I "ooo'd and awe'd" we're the hollyhocks at Epcot. I love old fashioned flowers, and the longer I work on my beds the more daring I get with heights. I think the large spikes are so pretty. My house sets up fairly high and this year I am hoping to be able to look out and see flowers higher than my windows. And one of the main ones I want more of is hollyhocks.



Last year I bought a bag of bare-root hh's and only three of the six came up and they never bloomed. But this year they popped up and have several leafs already. I have no idea what kind or color they even are, I have long since lost the info.



But in about 6 weeks or so we will have our spring flowers sale at the county garden club and I am hoping there will be some hh's brought in. I look so forward to it every year....it is like a yard sale, but plants! Heaven!!



There are several new varieties of them out now, this is one I had never seen, but if you know the name... let me know.



This is Zebrina, the one hollyhock I have a ton of, and love it. It does not require any staking and reseeds HEAVILY, but I don't mind. It is a pretty striped purple and good foilage. Plus it moves easily and is a good pass along plant.



Anyway, I thought you might like to think about adding a few hollyhocks to your garden this year too.



You can usually find them fairly cheap and I have seen seed online. I will go another round this week to my garden center, then I may order it. It will be next year till it would bloom, but I can wait...lol. This last picture is my favorite... I'd take it all...just as it is... I have just the spot!!!! Lol...



Happy gardening! ~Brooke