Monday, August 11, 2008

My garden

One of my favorite pleasures in life is gardening. It's so rewarding and I have a real passion for digging in the dirt. All winter long I wait for that moment when the ground is warm enough to start planting. I'd like to share a few of the photos of my garden, though it's been very hard to pick just a few photos.

When I first bought my house back in 1974, one of the few flowers that were already planted on the side of the house were Oriental poppies. They've been one of my favorites ever since. Here's a poppy with a Gerbera daisy.



I don't like to buy annuals because I hate to see them die off in the winter. But I couldn't resist this Mandevilla last year. And luckily I was able to winter it in the crawlspace. It survived the winter beautifully so I'll do the same with it this winter.











Cone flowers have spread like crazy in my yard and I have quite a large section of them now. Here's a little bee enjoying them. I let the flowers dry and in the fall, the seeds attract gold finches. They have quite a feast on them!












These day lilies are such a delight. While the blooms only last a day, they are such beauties. And this year the blooms just keep coming and coming, more each day. Such a pretty sight.













I love an English garden look with scattered flowers everywhere. Such a peaceful place to sit and relax. If I can ever find time to do that!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

So beautiful! This is what I hope my garden will look like someday! I just love your poppies! Do you know, can you buy seeds for poppies in a regular garden store? I don't think I've ever seen poppy seeds anywhere...or are they bulbs?

Unknown said...

You know, looking at that photo again, I think what I called an Oriental poppy is actually a red poppy. My Oriental poppies are more orange and have a different leaf.

Red poppies can easily be grown by seed and re-seed themselves year after year Although the plants themselves are annuals, I always have red poppies from the seeds of the year before. They bloom all summer long.

I've also grown Oriental poppies from seed. They're perrenials and the plants themselves come back each year. I've had no luck in them re-seeding or spreading though. They're one of the first bloomers in my garden, blooming in May. They don't last as long as the red poppies but are more impressive. They look just like crepe paper. I'll see if I can find a photo of them. Then by August, the plants die off, only to come bursting through the soil again in the fall (though they only bloom in May).

You can probably find seeds online if your local stores don't carry them. I'll email this answer to you. Thanks for your comment! :-)

ChezChani said...

I have a garden area, can't tell the weeds from the plants. The lovely rose bush that was here when I moved in looks like a giant weed too. Too lazy, no knack for it. I am in awe of you and your lovely flowers.

Jonara Blu Maui said...

what a wonderful place to sit and bead! I love your garden! I really miss mainland flowers..I love the ones here as well..but I miss the light feeling and the color sprinkling of wild flowers. Here our flowers are big and bold and exotic..still really amazing.

I'm sure we can grow a lot of the same flowers we just don't see them around as much as our tropical ones.