Crank Up the Heat on Garden Tour Number One

Rachel and I have been chomping at the bit to get where it is warm and sunny and colorful; and that would be Connie's Cottage Garden. Oh my were we blessed. Here was the scene that greeted us. It is just beginning, mostly with bulbs, but we have only yellow daffodils and leopard's bane blooming where I live. So this was a treat. Not only was it colorful, it was warm, and I got a sunburn on my exposed arms!! Connie always fills interesting containers with flowers placed perfectly.

I want to bury my face in these neon lavender flowers!

Connie is growing a myriad of pansies for a wedding in a few weeks in which

the bride has a tie-dye theme. These are just a few of the varieties Connie will take.

And how about these sunrise/sunset tulips?

I enjoyed the afternoon so very much, its slowness, the sweet conversation, the darling little girls accompanying us with their grandmother, Hildi, too, that it felt like I'd been to a spa.

Thank you, Connie. And thank you for the hydrangea too!

I spent some time in my garden this morning putting up the tomato pavillion.

More pictures will follow on that subject.

It has been another very wet spring; in fact, we continue to have snow for at least five minutes regularly, so I may be dreaming of having a garden rather than really having one!

...to be revealed!

Baby Sister's Garden

This is my Baby Sister, Babs.

She is exceedingly creative, as you can see from the shawl she is wearing,

and she is a gardener extraordinaire!

Babs grows Cardoon (a relative of artichokes) in the narrow strip of her driveway,

and we were fascinated by the activity going on.

Aphids have set up colonies all over the plants,

and ladybugs are generating many eggs which, when hatched, will feast on the aphids.

This is something all gardeners love to see...nature working its best without us to interfere.

Below you can see in the middle of the picture some pale orange ladybug eggs on the underside of the leaf.

The ladybug larvae is lavender-to-purple with orange spots and kind of a 'lizard' look, and about 1/4 inch long.


I once had the opportunity to watch a Tricogamma wasp lay eggs into the body of a Tomato Horn worm which the lady whose garden this was occurring gave us for our own garden so that we would have the benefits of this fabulous wasp to the horn worms inhabiting our own garden.
The process was fascinating to watch!

Above and below you can see the wonderful display of flowers reminding me of Chicory, a daisy-like pale blue.

When traced to the ground we found they were a lettuce blooming all in the tomatoes and peas of my Sisty's garden.

This garden is located in Bellingham, Washington where the marine air cools things a bit for gardening. My sister is able to grow a great crop of blueberries, raspberries, lettuce, chard, peas, tomatoes, squash, eggplant, and beans.

Babs is an extraordinary woman!

Thanks for the good time with you and Mom last week.

Now, I must go out and string up some support for my own beans...pole beans, which I've never grown before. It has come to me that I'm too old for bush beans now; the bending and stooping are too much, so this is my new endeavor.

The tomatoes are still 'just surviving", but the squashes are really thriving.

More on my own garden later.

Hollyhocks...and more

Names

by Dorothy Aldis

Larkspur and Hollyhock,

Pink Rose and Purple Stock,

Lovely smelling Mignonette

Lilies not quite opened yet,

Phlox the favorite of bees,

Bleeding Heart and Peonies -

Just their names are nice to say,

softly,

On a summer's day.

The above are not the named flowers in the poem, but just as exquisite.

My sister, Margy, recited this poem for us about a year ago on a garden tour as we left Connie's on a VERY hot day.

Below, this hollyhock is tiny in stock only; its flowers are normal size!

Is this the Drama Queen, Connie?
The unfolding and opening of one my bold pink favorites.

The face of this hollyhock is everybit as complicated as ours, and surprisingly lovely with no make-up or new hairdo!

I may have had to buy a lug of tomatoes to put up yesterday,

but my flowers flouish.

July's Garden Tour, Part 1

This is where the tour really begins, at a place the locals call the Harpster Mall. The Southfork of the Clearwater River flows fast today near a big truck turn-around where there are dumpsters for the many ruralites to rid themselves of garbage and other valuable (to someone else, they hope) possessions. This is where we park to pool up in Hildi's 'Tour Van'.

I had to take this of the dumpsters. If you click on the picture below you can see a close-up of a bicycle parked for someone to take. Many good freebies are picked up by anyone who goes there regularly for bargains. Isn't that a hoot?

Below we are meeting Connie at her steps for an abbreviated tour. She has been very ill all winter, spring and summer, and her garden doesn't look up to her usual persnicketyness. We enjoyed it all the same. After all, SHE is the prettiest posy in the garden as far as we are concerned. We learn much from her, and we love her dearly!!

Her is one of Connie's heirloom Pansies. The 'faces' on them remind me of sweet animals of some sort.

Garden Tour, Part 2

Isn't this just the cutest buggy planter you've ever seen? I found this at a garage sale for almost nothing. My husband wondered with disdain what I could possibly want it for, which made it easy to give up, knowing that Connie would treasure it. I love to see what she does with it each year.

Oh, my, Rachel and I think Love-in-a-Mist, above, is simply divine!

Although Connie cannot get out and do much in her garden this year, her devotion to perennials is paying off. Aren't these Echinacea (Purple Coneflower) stately?

Connie loves bird houses and Clematis. This is just one of the houses for Swallows that return with their offspring to nest again and again.

These soft pastel Pansies are a favorite of Connie's too. I cannot stop taking pictures of them each time I go.

NOT! a Garden Tour

The disappointment of our disappearing harvest potential in the garden has displaced any joy in it right now. SO! The focus here today features,

" What's up, Doc?", in the yard:

Above, the tiny cherry trees are producing a great harvest for the birds who didn't even leave off singing or eating while I hovered underneath to take this picture. The robin and quail juveniles are having a field day in the tree as well as on the ground.

Below the cherries, this Feverfew blooms in profusion. Aren't those sweet little pincushion flowers?



This Coreopsis is the only yellow bloomer at the moment. And, below, the Lobelia blooms continuiously from seed out of heaven, I guess. It began in the sunroom under the Laura Bush petunia that blooms all winter. I've never planted Lobelia, so it is truly a gift.

Somehow I've lost a picture of unknown purple flowers growing under one of the apple trees. Another disappointment in my lack of understanding how this all works. I tried to highlight some words, but deleted a picture instead.

I'm working on contentment in the beauty surrounding me rather than the lack thereof in the garden. Do you have these issues ever?