Still Blooming

     September is one of my favorite times of the year and while there are a lot less flowers blooming in my yard, I still found quite a few. The dahlias and zinnias are especially blooming well now. I decided to dig up my beloved Hansa roses, which makes me a little sad. The leaves have been plagued with a mysterious problem for three years in a row, and this year they had black-spot as well so they were looking less than lovely, to say the least. They had also outgrown their space. I am trying to save a small section of it that looked healthy and will see if that carries over the leaf problem or not.

     Last year I grew two tomato plants from seed that I had saved from store bought grape tomatoes, and they all grew and tasted like the original tomatoes. Since I still had a few seeds left, I grew them again this year. While one of the plants produced grape tomatoes, the other one produced larger tomatoes. They are pretty tasteless so I am saving them for recipes instead of fresh eating. I knew that I was taking a chance on that hybrid seed coming true but it is fun to experiment. 

Dahlia 'Blue Boy"

Dahlia Crazy Love

Figaro Dahlia grown from seed

Grape tomatoes

Balloon flower

Bleeding Heart 'luxuriant'

Chrysanthemum

Cosmos and Sedum

Feverfew

Hibiscus 

Hollyhock

Soraya Sunflower, the blooms are all small now

Morning Glory

Perennial Sunflower

Persicaria

Russian Sage, not sure what's in the back

Sedum

Spirea

Zinnia

Oliver with Chester in the background

Spring Blooms

    I'm a little late with posting some of my April photos so I'm adding them now, better late than never. I'm also sharing a few pictures of my poor, poor black-lace elderberry. I first noticed some dying branches on it late last summer, but I thought it was related to the drought and my poor watering skills. Then this Spring after the leaves started to grow, I noticed that almost all of them started to wilt. So I started to investigate only to discover holes in the trunk, and holes in the stems probably made by elderberry borers. I was told that if I cut it way back, it would likely re-grow from the roots, so I am really hoping that will happen. On the brighter side, I found a cute little spirea for one of my containers, and I have been working on a brand new border by my back fence. Happy gardening!

Angelique Tulips

Tulips Angelique

Foxtrot Tulip

Tulip Copex

Chinodoxa

Anemone Blanda

Dicentra Luxurient (bleeding heart)

Iris

More Anemones with Ivy and allium greens

Phlox

Iris and hardy gladiolas

Leucojum 

Spiraea japonica 'Walbuma'

Elderberry

Most of the branches looked like this

Poor Elderberry

What it looked like a couple of years ago

Ladybugs on driftwood

A rugosa rose called Hansa

Many rose petals just from one day of deadheading two rugosa rose bushes

An Early Spring

Our winter was basically nonexistent this year, so we are experiencing an early Spring. Some plants are a few weeks early, while the geraniums started blooming a whole month earlier than normal. I don't think anyone is complaining though. I don't know if this happens to you, but I found some bulbs blooming in my yard that I have no recollection of buying or planting, ha ha. They are called Spring Snowflake or Galanthus. I had one growing beside my house and another underneath our hazelnut tree. The house makes a poor backdrop for flowers, so I experimented with holding coloured page dividers behind the blooms. You can't have spring without tulips, so I added some photos of those along with some others. The Scillas were here when we moved in and they just keep multiplying and spreading. I'm not sure which variety they are but once you have them you HAVE them.  

Geranium Sanguineum 

Spring Snowflake

Spring Snowflake

Spring Snowflake

Glory of the Snow or Chinodoxa

Choisya ternata

Elderberry

Tulip Blue Diamond

Tulips Purple Flag

Scilla

Bleeding Heart Luxuriant