Not so Blue Girl Rose

This is the first bloom that came up on my newly purchased Blue Girl Rose. Blue? I think not! It has a bit of a lavender-ish color but this isn't even close to what I thought it would be. It does smell absolutely heavenly though. It has a rose scent but with an underlying scent of lemon - sitting on the back porch I can smell it even without a breeze blowing.

Now this beauty here is growing in the back! What a vibrant pink. Now if everything else I plated would pick up the pace.

The Salvia Plumosa is doing well and has started to spread. The dragon flower is growing like crazy - I just hope it flowers. I have blooms on the double decker and green envy coneflowers and a gajillion morning glories growing all over the place!!! Talk about an annual re-seeding.

The veggie garden is doing well. I have flowers on the cukes and zukes. Of course the zukes are all male right now, but I do see some females coming up shortly. I have four very small cherry tomatoes and two roma plum already coming up and even more blooms. They don't seem to bloom heavy, so I am hoping that I am going to get more as they grow. Right now they are only about 2 feet high - and still plenty of growing time!

The planting continues

A little behind in my blogging here so I will keep it short and sweet. Basically planting, planting, and more planting. The weekend of the 13th I planted upwards of 200 bulbs – primarily Katherine Hodgkin irises and Little Princess and Little Beauty tulips – both only 4” high so none of that unsightly vegetation growth waiting to die back! I had a handful of giant Hyacinths added to the mix as well as Kalidescope and Jimmy tulips (20” and 24” respectively) and the last 6 of the tradescantia. It’s been two weeks and I must say I think I have succeeded in keeping the squirrels away. I planted the bulbs at the required depth and once in the trench I added a bit of soil and then on top of that I placed chicken wire then I covered with the rest of the soil! I have seen some holes around where I planed but as soon as the chicken wire showed up the digging stopped. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it keeps them away for good. I also added some all-natural bulb fertilizer called Bulbs Alive that I ordered from Garden’s Alive. A little extra love never hurt anything! And as an added bonus I had some extra chicken wire so I cut that and placed it on top of the irises and tulips. It is very trashy to see this all on my front lawn but it is only temporary until I know the squirrels have stopped their efforts to populate the word with oak trees!
This past weekend I planted 6 tall phlox in ice blue and 6 astrantia plants. Those all went in the back along the deck. The astrantia were rather sickly looking when they arrived but hopefully they will bounce back.
The rock garden got a few extra additions too – three magic carpet thyme that (hopefully) will have pretty pink flowers and a nice scent throughout the summer and I also dropped in 3 fescue blue grasses. They were sooooo cute when they got delivered – only about 1” high but they are expected to grow to 18”.
I am still waiting on a few more things – 1 gardenia bush, 9 hardy pansies and 3 snow in summer. After that I will be officially done with the fall planting. The winter months are going to be long….what am I going to spend my weekends doing now?