Garden under the pines...

Garden under the pines
Originally uploaded by pjslomer

When we first moved in I had a lot of plants that needed divided. I created a bed under the pines and referred to it as my "refugee bed"... as you can see, the refugee bed has filled in nicely.

Welcome Raindrops

Lavender Iris
Originally uploaded by pjslomer

We had a brief show on Saturday afternoon... and a longer shower on Sunday evening. We really needed the water and the plants are responding well to the moisture.

Annual Day...

After thinning out a bunch of perennials and sharing with a friend... i decided that i needed some annuals to flesh out the garden and patio containers.

I purchased:

• Hanging basket of impatiens and lobelia (hummingbird already tested it out)
• Lobelia
• Salvia (burgundy red)
• Geraniums (salmon)
• Coleaus (4.. planted in twith the tree seedlings)
• Plum tomato
• Dill
• Poteulaca
• Begonia

I also planted the Black Cohosh... and transplanted the verigated hosta...

PINK!

A year ago I purchased a pink iris and pink poppy... neither bloomed for me last year. This year they are blooming simultaneously and looking gorgeous! My wish list for next year is going to be an orange poppy to balance out the purple in the garden.

I've been digging and mulching around tress and beds all week... even between the paver path that i have through a wet spot. It looks so much nicer and so much easier to mow around. I've been going from one shady spot to another and praying for a cloudy day... there hasn't been one this week! Which is unusual for what is known as the "grey triangle"... between Cleveland, Buffalo and Pittsburgh.

dig, dig, dig, mulch, mulch, mulch...

So today i took maddock and shovel and proceeded to trench around a dogwood tree and a crabapple tree. That was this morning when they were still in the shade. This afternoon and evening i cleaned out the flower bed near the back patio. trenched it and mulched... it was really overgrown with weeds. i'm hopeful that i can maintain it better now.

View of the back patio steps

Fuschia
Originally uploaded by pjslomer.

I've had a three day rest from chopping away grass and mulching... Many things a blooming at the moment. All the varieties of Columbine are stunning. The latest bloomer is one of the many clematis, rhodadendron and orange azalea.

I've noticed that the blue hostas out front could use some thinning out. And the zebra grass looks sort of sparse at the moment. It may need thinning out as well.

Pretty Pot

So, i had this scented geranium (coconut) that has a rather gnarly stem to it and it's sort of small... so i decided to plant it in this shallow clay pot. It reminded me of a bonsai, so i added a couple rocks and some shiny pebbles along with some mulch to complete the look. I have no idea how this will look at the end of summer, but i'm happy with it now.