View from the Corner

I sometimes do posts that show the view from our front porch.  As I was standing in the street, starting to take photos of the curb bed, I got the idea to take photos from that spot, and use my zoom like I do when on the porch to see what I can see.  After taking these photos, I decided to cut the liatris aspera plants that were way taller than the other plants in that part of the bed.  The purple poppy mallow plants are blooming away, and I've trimmed them to keep them from going too far out into the street.

Zooming toward the lovely fire hydrant, we see a good number of what look to be purple coneflowers.

Zooming across the sidewalk, to the west curb bed, there are more purple coneflowers, some baby's breath, and common milkweed, which is just starting to bloom.

Can you see down the sidewalk, that we have a neighbor who has no lawn at all?

I see phlox, switchgrass, I'm thinking, 'heavy metal', Mexican hats, New Jersey tea, liatris, little bluestem grass, and a common milkweed.

Zooming to the west, and into the back yard, the giant coneflower is blooming.  The baptisia is sporting seed pods, and the pale purple coneflower and yellow coneflowers are mingling.

Coming back to the east side, there are fewer purple coneflowers in this bed, because I pulled quite a few.  I have to watch for aster yellows, and so far, the pale ones have not had it.  The orange is a cultivar of sneeze weed.

Closer to the house, in the same bed, I think that's a gray headed coneflower getting ready to bloom.  I get it mixed up with another plant, that I'm not remembering the name of, but the blooms are very similar.  The orange blooms here are a daylily I've had for awhile.

Sweet black eyed susans should be blooming in a few weeks. The rattlesnake master is blooming shorter than usual.   

I backed off of the zoom to show a fuller view of the front bed, and the side of the house.

Here's a closer view of the east side of the house.  I like my zoom!  The spiderworts are getting a bit ragged.  The alliums will be soon.

False sunflower and coreopsis provide some yellow.  The huge green plant is an amsonia.  I think this is the best year the garden phlox have had.  I think all the rain we had this spring may be the reason.

The phlox are on the south side of the driveway.  The other plants are across to the north side.  I am not remembering what the huge, white blooming plant is, but we decided to take out the gas plant after I got burned from trimming this plant, even though I thought I had been careful not to touch it.  Larry was also worried the grandkids would get hurt by it.

I hope you are having a good start to your July.  Spring went by way too quickly for me.  I hope we get enough rain, but not as much as we did in the spring.  It's been hot enough, that the soil has gotten dry, though.  I saw some pretty big cracks last night, so the little bit of rain we got in the night was very appreciated.  (I wasn't consistent in providing links, because it is getting late, but the Lady Bird Johnson site is a good resource, and if you are curious about any native plant, you can do a search there.

Let the 2015 Garden Season Begin!

After such a cold spell in February, with more snow than usual, I am so excited that the weather has warmed up into the 60s and 70s the last couple of weeks.  Next week, I heard something about highs in the 50s, but that's better than the 20s.  Spring is almost here, and I have lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, potatoes, and a row of asparagus planted.  If it does well across the street, I'll plant more next year.

I took some photos of the yard Saturday evening to make note of what's going on.  I have taken the top layer of leaves off the flower beds, and taken down most of last year's plants.  I have some piles across the street where I put them in case there are insects inside the stems overwintering, and so the birds can continue to eat the seeds.

It's so good to see some green on the plants that come up this time of year.  This is prairie smoke geum.

I decided to leave these coneflowers for the birds for awhile.

I like the fuzziness of the newly emerging pasque flowers.

The golden alexanders are up.

A couple clumps of pasqueflower in a different spot are blooming.

As I was cutting plants back, I chopped some of the stems and threw them around for mulch. In this area, the mulch we had was chips from the silver maple that had to be cut down a few years ago.  They are pretty much decomposed.  I put the grasses I cut back in the path.  I wonder if it will be slick when it's wet.

Phlox pilosa:

Zig-zag goldenrod:

This is the east side of the house.

I think this is an agastache or catmint, but I'm not sure because of the color.

Phlox divaricata

I don't know the names of the hellebores that I have, but I discovered them from others' blogs.  They are such a welcome early spring bloomer!

Short-toothed mountain mint:

I actually have been doing the garden clean up over a few days.   At first, I was propping some of the seedheads here and there for the birds, until I decided not to take down the ones in the curb area quite yet.

Looking toward the south, I am so excited to see what things will look like in a month!

The weather sure has been off lately, with us in SE Nebraska having warmer temps than some of you in the south.  Still, the spring season will still probably come for you sooner, and we will get to see the progression of it heading our way and north, as we find the time to look at others' blogs instead of spending so much time on Facebook.  (Maybe I should be speaking for myself.  Am I the only one who has been spending less time blogging?)  Oh, and there will be more time spent outdoors as the season progresses!  Yippee for spring!

Side Yard Update

When I first started blogging a lot of my posts involved updates on different parts of the yard.  I have made some changes over time, but it still sometimes feel like I am posting "reruns".  Still, I will post so I can refer back to it over time.  I started this post a few days ago.  The other day, I decided to pull out the volunteer moonflower that was growing over the grass, either Little bluestem or Prairie dropseed, which is in front of the pot of mint.

Love lies bleeding volunteers are doing pretty well.  I'm glad to see the Phlox are pretty healthy this year.  I have Purple coneflowers all over the yard.  A couple monarch butterflies have been flying around the yard the last few days.  I have seen them land on the Liatris that has the top cut off in the photo a few times.

I recently told people in the Facebook group, Gardening with Nature in Mind, that the Buttonbush I planted here last year has different colors on its foliage, but, I see the leaves are green now.

I've been cutting back the Goldenrod, but see they are blooming what seems early to me, but maybe it's just because it's been a whirlwind of a summer.  It's hard to see the Leadplant to the right of the Globe thistle, next to the fence.

I have several types of  Rudbeckia laciniatas.  This one is Outhouse flower, 'hortensia'.

This is very similar to the one a couple ago, but I am including it because it is a wider view.

Globe thistle is one of the non-native plants that the bees feed from frequently.

The yellow blooms in the middle are False sunflowers.  I deadheaded them today, careful to leave the new buds on.  The bushy plant in front of it is Amsonia, I'm thinking, tabernaemontana.  I trim it back a couple or three times a season.  I can't remember what the feathery plant is that is similar to Amsonia hubrichtii.  It looks like it will be blooming soon.

Oh, here's a close up of the False sunflowers, the first plant that Larry was willing to have planted instead of grass in the area dug out for the egress window when we first moved here.

Continuing to the south, toward the front yard, are some of the same plants as down the way.  I seem to have lots of yellow!  When the aster to the right of the bird bath blooms, it will add some purple or blue.

I moved some of the Short-tooth mountain mint to the area in front of the fence just to the left of the bird bath this spring, and it is doing well, but the plants in front of it, such as a volunteer yellow coneflower of some kind are taller.  I'll have to decide whether I want to keep them as is, or switch them around.

I'm glad I trimmed back the Rudbeckia laciniata cultivars back in the spring so they wouldn't flop as much.  Still, I do have them tied up at the base.  This one is 'Golden glow'.  Now that I'm looking things up, this could be the same as Outhouse plant, but I'm not sure.

I think the Black eyed Susans are volunteers here.

The pollinators sure love Liatris!

I try to remember to cut back the Quaking grass back before the seeds ripen, because they self sow too aggressively for my garden.

This Campanula spreads too far for here, too, and I am currently behind in thinning it out.  I sure like the blooms, though.

I can remember this is Rudbeckia laciniata 'Herbstsonne' because the blooms are different from the others down the way.

The Catmint blooms for a long time.   It's probably time to deadhead it, though.  Asters and Goldenrods will be blooming yet this season.

I just planted this Liatris and Amsonia this season.  I hope they are larger next year.  I place watering cans in bare spaces, but then, sometimes the plants fill in around them.

So far, I haven't seen any Genista broom moth caterpillars on the baptisias.  (I copied and pasted the name of the caterpillars, and now, can't figure out how to get the normal font back.)

We made it to the end of the bed, and are now facing back to the north. The plant loaded with blooms may be a salvia of some kind.

Yes, there is lots of yellow right now!

It's been a very busy summer. Our yard was on that neighborhood garden tour, our daughter and daughter in law and I looked at LOTS of houses, and finally found one for our daughter to move into, which we were involved in helping with.  We had a baby shower, and Ruby was born June 22.  I was spending as much time as I could hanging out with Ruby until my 83 year old dad became ill and had his gall bladder taken out, was it 3 or 4 weeks ago?  It's been such a blur.  The day after he got home, he had a major stroke, which we knew he was not going to be able to recover from.  It was very difficult seeing him lie there, unable to move his left side, swallow, or speak.  He passed away less than 2 weeks after having the stroke, a few days after being moved to hospice care.  We were pleased with the care he received.  I am sad, and miss my dad, but I'm glad he is no longer lying there like he was.  Now, I hope to catch up with things a bit before our daughter goes back to work August 12, as I will be watching Ruby 4 days a week from around 12:45 to 9:15 pm.  I will have mornings to garden, so that will be good.  I hope things are going well for you.