Saturday, January 31, 2009

Story of 2008's New Flower Bed, Part 3

In the last post, I forgot to mention a couple more people from the cottage garden whose blogs I visited before learning how to create one.  FlowerLady and Sweet Bay answered questions early on, and have blogs I continue to visit.  Sunday Girl was also one of my first blogging friends from the cottage garden forum.  There are others, too, that were in the link from Part 2.  I am putting these in my "Front Yard" labeled posts.

We left off the first week of July.  This next pic is from 7/7.


The snapdragons were supposed to be a larger size than they were, but the blooms were pretty, and the butterflies liked them.  This one was from 7/12.


The bells of Ireland were moved out of my herb garden.  The zebrina mallow is from a friend's garden.  This is from 7/19.


I was tickled to find this larger crocosmia, Lucifer.  The amsonia next to it was 75% off, so I had to find a spot for it.  This was taken 7/19.


The next series were taken 7/27.  That's a purple blooming datura in the front.




The Vancouver dahlia is at its peak here.  The moonflower seedling moved from the back is growing well.


On 8/4, there were more blooms, including delphiniums, which rarely overwinter for me, and some vanilla marigolds, which were hard to get good pictures of, because they reflected the light.


8/6, from the house:


I experimented with making a collage, but was too chicken to make more until putting this up and seeing if I like it.  

This shows the cleome volunteer I moved from the veggie garden.  The dates of the pics are 7/7, 7/14, 7/27, and 8/4.


18 comments:

  1. I love your flower bed, is it full sun?

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  2. Hi Darla,
    Thanks. I thought it was more sun than what it turned out to be. There is a large maple tree on the west side, so it gets some afternoon shade. I think most of the plants I grew appreciated that, except for the sunflowers.

    I forgot that I was using 2 different cameras this summer, neither one very good ones. I think the pics I take this summer won't be so grainy.

    Have a good weekend!

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  3. Hi sue,
    thank you so much for stopping by my blog & leaving such a sweet comment. I love visitors & I love to visist other blogs too. I am a Christian & I am passionately in love with the Lord. I look for & find evidence of Him everywhere. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting your blog. I will definitely stop by from time to time.
    Debbie

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  4. Sue, you have a great variety of plants! How did you make that photo collage? Is that a blogger convenience?

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  5. It looks so good Sue. I love the datura too.

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  6. Hi Sue,

    Thank you for stopping by my blog. I am new to blogging starting aftre the death of my husband. Although I was reading some blogs way before that and had written one post before he died. I was waiting for him to help me get photos off my camera to the computer. That didn't happen. I am not very good with the computer. I too have a love for gardening. I work full time so it is hard to work in them. They got ignored this fall with Pete's death, so they will be a mess. I have a hard time keeping up with blogging. I do love it though as I have meet some great people who have supported me when I so need it. I live in Fremont but I have an hour each way commute to Columbus to work so I don't get home till 6pm. I will miss Pete helping me water the the flower beds and garden this year.

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  7. It sure turned out nice. I love your variety. My Bells of Ireland were about 1/4 the size of yours. Nice butterfly shot.

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  8. Love your flowers. I have a couple of small flower beds and wish I was more creative. When I see a plant I like, I just have to adopt it and find a place for it.

    I followed your blog from Marla's. Norfolk is where I live so am a fellow Nebraskan who is also counting the days until spring.

    Another Sue

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  9. Sue, your pictures are always so nice, they really are making me want spring to get here. The collage turned out great.
    Prayers, Bo

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  10. You are so good at keeping a visual record of your gardens. I always start out well in the spring but peter out during the summer. I am determined to follow thru better this next year.

    BTW: I finally got in here by creating a google account. It seems to work, hence the comment.

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  11. Debbie,
    Thanks for your comments. I like what you said about looking for and finding evidence of God everywhere.

    Shady,
    Yes, I love having a variety of plants. For the collage, I followed a link to Picnik, which was in a comment from Catherine from France on one of my recent posts. Let me know if you don't find it. You may be able to Google it. This is one of the free ones you can make. They also offer a paid membership with increased services. I'd still like to try one that has a choice of background colors, and the background shows. I'm not sure if this site has that.

    Thanks Tina,
    I think I kept the purple datura deadheaded because I didn't think I should grow any this summer, with our grandson being a toddler. Then, I wished I hadn't done that, because he'll never be out there unattended.

    Marla,
    Thanks for stopping by. It sounds like you keep quite busy. I hope you find time for the flowers this summer. If I'm remembering correctly, you work with developmentally disabled people. I forgot to tell you I am a special education paraeducator in a high school.

    My husband, Larry helps water the potted plants, but I prefer to do the beds myself. We have an underground sprinkler system his brother installed when their dad lived here, so that helps. I have to be careful what I plant near the sprinkler heads, though.

    Catherine,
    The bells of Ireland did better here than when they were in my herb garden in full sun. I didn't get them thinned enough there, though. I really got into butterflies last summer, and took lots of pics. I also noticed which plants the caterpillars liked, and was very brave to leave them alone, except to take their pics.

    Sue,
    I'm glad to see you here, too. That's how I found Marla, through her comments on FlowerLady's blog. I am like you in that I like to give a home to different plants. I have learned to find out if they are invasive, though, and if they don't stay out when pulled, I do not plant them.

    Hi Bo,
    Thanks, I am glad you like my pics and the collage, even though they aren't as clear as I hoped they'd be. My new camera's pics post better. I'm so glad it's about to be February!

    Jill,
    It's too bad you had to open a Google account to leave comments. I'm glad to see you here, though. I originally started out printing contact sheets of beds and writing on them to tell me what to do in the spring, but haven't been printing lately. With all this blogging, I've enjoyed looking at my pics while finding what I want to post. That is helping me keep in mind what bloomed when, and where the holes are.

    Thanks again for all the comments. This is such a fun, friendly community. Click on each other's links to find more nice people, because you all are!

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  12. I can't remember who asked me if there was rose campion in the bed. There was some in the veggie garden that had volunteered. I moved some here and there, but can't remember if I put some in here. None of it bloomed this year, though.

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  13. Great , great garden. Love the pansies in the wash tub on your blog header.
    One of my favourite plants is the crocosma , Lucifer puts on such a good show in late summer.

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  14. Beautiful mix of plants, Sue. Loved going through all the photos, the collage is pretty. I don't think I could put together something like that, the collage I mean. Love the butterfly on the snapdragon too!

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  15. Thanks Rosemary and Kanak,
    I just discovered crocosmia Lucifer a few years ago, then found an orange kind last year, I think, called, Columbus. I hope they are still alive.

    Once someone told me where to go to find a collage program, I was able to do it, but I still would like to find one like some I've seen with background colors.

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  16. Sue, I finally posted a Scottish fire hydrant at Occasional Scotland so that you can compare it with your very own Corner Garden one.

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  17. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- I love your new bed. :) The wrought iron fence at the back and trellis at the front really frame it up well too.

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  18. beautiful! I so love flowers and flowers gardens.

    Hope you have a blessed day :)

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I welcome comments and questions from anyone, including those who do it anonymously. Some people find my posts by doing searches, and I like hearing from them. I guess spammers won't even read this message, but I will delete spam as soon as I see it.