August Garden

        August has arrived and along with it the temperatures have gone up. It's also been smoky the last few days, from all the forest fires burning in BC. If nothing else, the smoke keeps it a little bit cooler out there.
    A couple of years ago I bought a few milkweed plants, a pink variety and a white. The pink ones didn't survive the winter but the white ones did. They grew slowly and barely bloomed, so I moved them last fall and this year they have been flourishing. I haven't seen any butterflies around yet but the bees seem to like it too.
     I planted two different packages of cosmos this year. A mix called Cosmos Mini Blend and Capriola. I really like the look of the Capriola but the Cosmos mini blend are more vigorous and have many more blooms.
      One of our local garden stores closed their doors recently and I am sad to see them go. I picked up a few plants on sale, and squeezed them into my yard. One of them was Veronica or Speedwell and the other was a fragrant honeysuckle vine. The vine has been sulking but the veronica is blooming.  Happy Gardening!
   

Milkweed

Cosmos Mini Blend

Cosmos Capriola

Drumstick Allium

Daylily

Daylily Strawberry Candy

Hollyhock

Coral Palace Purple Palace

Veronica

Our cat Oliver

May in My Garden

         Late may has finally brought some warm sunshine to my yard, and here are a few photos I want to share with you. The first photo is a picture of a burning bush shrub, with it's tiny yellow flowers. We usually only see photos of these plants in the fall with their bright red foilage, but they look pretty now too. Next are some feverfew leaves taken after some rain. This plant seeds itself quite aggressively, so I'm not sure if it is a blessing or a curse. Then there's my bleeding heart, new allium that came in a mix (so I don't know the name) and Sicilian honey garlic. This one really needed to be staked, but it's a new one to me so they are flopping all over. Then my new painted daisy plant, one of the few tulips the deer didn't eat, and spiraea buds and leaves.
    I decided to do a foliage container for my patio, so I bought some ornamental sweet potato vines for it. This is the first time I have grown them so I was very surprised to find this flower on one of the plants a week later. I couldn't resist the pink and white verbena, so I cheated on the all foliage container and added this in to the mix.
     I found a cool new plant in the nursery that I have never seen or heard of before, with giant sized pink blooms, almost like fuchsias on steroids. Have any of you ever grown one?
   Last of all is a photo of our cat Oliver who turned one year old this month. Happy Gardening!

Burning Bush

Feverfew with raindrops

Bleeding Heart Luxuriant

Allium

Sicilian Honey Garlic

Painted Daisy

Dream Touch Tulip

Spiraea

Sweet Potato Vine

Verbena

Oliver one years old

Merry Christmas!

   For the first time in two or three years we have snow! So I went outside to see what looked interesting in my December garden. I also took some pictures of my cats helping me wrap Christmas gifts, sometimes wearing their Christmas collar. I think they will need a new one next year because Oliver thinks it's fun to pull the white balls off. Oh yeah, and the cats aren't supposed to be on the table, ha ha. There's also a photo of the patio of one of my miniature gardens. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and a blessed new year!

Skimmia Berries in the snow

Persicaria with snow

Add caption

Red Rose Branches from Therese Bugnet

Mini Garden with real mini autumn leaves 

Anna's hummingbird protecting her supply

Curious Chester

Oliver checking out the box

Oliver 

Chester wearing the dreaded Christmas collar

Oliver and my lovely birthday roses

August Garden

    Last fall my husband finally gave in to my idea of putting a shrub border along our back fence. So over the winter and early spring, I worked on digging out the grass a little at a time. I made it nice and wide, unlike the east border that came with our home. I forgot to take some before pictures but I have some pictures from later on. Unfortunately, by digging up the grass in this area, it sent out an invitation to our neighbor's horsetail collection to just come on over to our side. So between that and the bindweed that's creeping in, this border will keep me busy, ha ha. I've also added some pictures of my Soraya Sunflowers, Zinnias and our new kitten Oliver. I am looking forward to the cooler days of autumn ahead and happy gardening!

New Border

Practice run of laying in the edging

All done

Right corner of the border

Soraya Sunflower

California Giant Zinnias

Zinnia

Oliver our new kitten

Autumn Garden

Here it is, October is nearly done and I still haven't blogged! So here are a few quick photos from this month. The star of my October garden is my burning bush, and here you can see the leaves, strewn across the pathway. I had no idea this would look so nice when I planted this shrub here. My only regret is that I can never see this bush from inside my house. Next up is a little chrysanthemum plant that I bought for 99 cents, well worth the price I think. Then there is the chrysanthemum from last year. It really did well this year for some unknown reason. Next is a solitary bloom from a Malva. I think it is a seedling from the Malva I bought last fall, which never overwintered. I'm still picking the grape tomatoes that are growing under cover, and I have two peppers left on my pepper plant. I'll definitely be growing these prolific peppers again next year. Our cat Tiger celebrated her 16th birthday a few weeks ago. That is about 80 in human years, and for the most part, she acts 80 too, ha ha.

Pathway strewn with Burning Bush Leaves

Burning Bush

Chrysanthemums

Chrysanthemums overwintered from last year

Chrysanthemums

Malva Braveheart

Red Bull's Horn Peppers

Little tomatoes still producing

Tiger on her 16th Birthday

Dew on the grass