Garden Updates

Unofficially in New England area, Memorial Day is the beginning of summer. So what is happening in my garden right now in early summer?

Lots of yummy Strawberries

We have been picking a bowl of delicious strawberries everyday

My Peony "Gardenia" finally opened up. We have been checking the buds daily for a couple of weeks.

 

Love the amazing colors and details of these Iris.

My Chinese Dogwood "Wolf's Eyes" is blooming as well. Although the color of the flower is almost the same as the leaves, so you can only see them up close. But they are truely beautiful.

I grew these Columbine from seeds years ago. You gotta love these amazing flowers, they are so elegant and can survive almost all light conditions. I have them in full sun, partial shade, and full shade, and they are all doing great.


I have 3 types of hostas in the garden. Right now all the leaves are out and the plants reached their full size. No flowers yet. This first one self seeds every year. I read the babies will only show their true colors after 3 years. Most hostas are hybrids, so their babies can look like any ancestors. So far I only got the green babies, no blue ones.

This miniature one was gift from my friend AK. It's so small, I worried it will disappear in the garden. So I planted it in a bottomless pot. It has multiplied over the years like all hostas do. AK said it's quite rare and valuable.
 

These guys makes me so happy. The green and white are so sharp and bright, they make me happy every time.


My lilies and daylilies are almost ready to bloom, so does my purple cone flowers. More beautiful pictures coming soon. Hope you are enjoying your garden too.

Garden Update

Lots of plants have been blooming in the yard, but because of our culture, I am not supposed to get outside in the first month. As my strength coming back more and more everyday, and the weather being record warm (hot, 87F yesterday), I cannot control myself any more. I sneaked out and took some pictures.

Garden Updates

This might sound strange to some people, but if you read my other garden posts, you knew I have lots of orchids, and lots of them bloom in winter. Right now, I have 3 den., 1 catt., 1 hawaii blooming, and two more others ready to open any day now.
These two are about to open.

This is a strange one to me. For several weeks now, I have noticed a weird seedpod looking thingy growing out after a flower faded on my pink jasmine plant! I didn't know jasmine does this! Anyone has any idea what this is?

This last one is beautiful also, just totally out of season. My forthysia and winter jasmine normally bloom in Feb or Mar, when the winter is ending. But this time they got fooled by mother nature. We had our cold weather and first snow before Halloween, then two months of unbelievable warm weather. Lots of plants got fooled, some daffodils and plum flowers have been reported. Poor things may die next time we have a snow storm. I don't care so much of the forthysia, but I do hope my winter jasmine can survive!

Fall Garden Updates

Although I haven't really been taking care of my garden these couple of years, most plants are doing just fine. My purple cone flowers stopped blooming way earlier than normal, now they are just whole bunch of seedheads on dried stems. I normally keep them till spring, so the hungry birds will have some food in the cold snow covered winter.

Some other of my summer flowers are still doing great, I am pretty sure they will continue giving me bundle of colors till first frost. Here are my Balsam and Four O'clock Flower.

My little Chinese dogwood "Wolf's Eye" grew a lot this year, well, compared to the previous 4 years, not comparing to other type of trees. I finally decided to help it out a little bit by tying it to a couple of stakes. It was leaning to one side just a little bit, but after hurricane Irene, it was at a 45 degree angle. NOT GOOD! Now look at it, so proudly standing straight, and showing off the curvy leaves and just a hint of that pink edges. Oh BTW, it is not that tall, only about 4 ft, I took this picture from the ground.

Most of the mums in my yard are blooming. Haven't seen the purple ones yet. But don't you just love that warm autumn color? Even my little girl knows to stop once a while to smell the flowers. When was the last time you enjoyed your garden?

Curious Girl

I found this tiny baby grasshopper on the bench on our front porch the other morning, it's so green and very fragile looking. Little caterpillar was facinated by it. Even though she really wanted to grab it, she listened to mommy and was very gentle. She put her hand up close, hoped it would climb up to her hand. Unfortunately, I think the little guy was dead already, so it fell off the bench. This is my curious little girl went down to check on it. Before she realised it was dead, I picked it up and throw it into the yard, and told her that little guy went back home. Little white lie to make sure she won't feel the sadness. It's too early to teach her life and death.

Since I had my camera in hand, I walked around the yard quickly and snapped some new pictures of my flowers. You got to love perennial garden, not much work needed, and the plants just bloom one after another. It's quite a show in my backyard now. Oh, actually this first one is annual (Balsam), but it self seeds, so I didn't do a thing to get these pretty flowers. That's totally welcome in my low maintenance garden.