Sunday, June 05, 2005

June Bustin' Out...

Ought to have been writing here more regularly, but time in the garden has happily occupied much of my free time, along with some frustration at efforts to upload some terrific new shots from the Green.

Now that we've seen some sunshine, things have really begun to climb. Every day there's another tier of leaves, on the roses, the lilies, daisies, coreopsis. Except for a few African marigolds stricken by some pretty darned big slugs, all of last week's transplants seem pretty happy. Have recently added a few cleome seedlings, in assorted colors.

The irises and foxgloves have begun to send their flower buds toward the sky, and more peony buds are appearing. The tiny white bells of Lily of the valley are really coming on strong and snipping a few to bring inside is irresistable. Looks like we'll have lots of dianthus blooms in short order, in fact, just about everything is beginning to show signs of the flower show to come.

The large rhododendrons are blossoming from the ground up, in red and magenta. Still no sign of what color the ones across the front of the house might be. The ajuga at their feet are sending up their short blue spires of bloom. There's an interesting small yellow rhodo, the flowers hovering on otherwise nearly leafless woody branches. It's been overgrown, as the wisteria is rampant there, and I think will benefit from a more open location and a careful pruning after it's finished blooming.

Container planting was the theme for the approach of this weekend. A pair of whiskey barrels along our side pathway. A third has been long planted with violas and pansies. Now a second sports a great Korean cascading grass...[name to be edited in later: ], surrounded by a red nicotiana, some pale pink petunias and white ivy geraniums. The first barrel holds a sort of Flintstonian candle enclosure of slate, and that's now been lined with white shells for reflectivity, and then planted round with more petunias, blue ageratum, creeping phlox, thyme and ferns.

This morning (yesterday now) I filled a window box (porch box, really) with calendula, yellow bidem, miniature daisies and blue lobelia. It looks quite promising...and, I think (isn't it silly what gardeners think...?) that the color combos and contrasts are a little different than I've played with before. While it's fun to revisit favorites schemes of the past (certain red white and blue combos are great around July fourth), I like trying new things, to see how it turns out.

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