The star of the garden right now is my rose bush! It has 5 blossoms on it right now and the first opened today. This is my third year with it and it still takes my breath away like it did when I first got it. I absolutely love the color of the roses and the smell is so intoxicating! I've been surprised by how easy it's been to grow too! I have it planted in a fairly big and deep pot and I prune it often and dead head the roses once they die, but aside from that, I don't do much!
My blueberries on the other hand have been less than stellar. This is my second year with the bush and I was hoping to have a big harvest this year, but alas, I only have about 30 berries on the whole bush :( It may be my own fault. I pruned it back really heavily last year and I don't know if I should've done that. Does anyone know if you're supposed to prune blueberry bushes? I think maybe it focused on regrowing it's branches rather than putting out berries this year? Oh well, that just means I'll get to go berry picking this year :)
Next up are my sunflowers! I love these. They're actually some type of sunflower bulb. They come back every year! And they put out these little mini sunflowers :) It'll be a couple of months before they start putting out flowers. I'll train them up that trellis once they start reaching up there. I got them from Gurneys three years ago. They have some really cool plants!
My little succulent garden is doing really good except for the centerpiece which you can barely make out in the picture :( It used to be a cactus with a big red top but it got killed during a freeze when I forgot to bring it in. Apparently the bottom of it is still alive though so I'm leaving it in there in the hopes that maybe it will put out a new top? Who knows. The rest of it is beautiful as ever though and continuing to grow well!!
The mums and the echinacea or coneflowers continue to just keep coming back every year on their own!! I love plants that reseed themselves :) I can't wait until the two of these plants flower because they're both some of my favorite flowers! Especially the coneflowers!!! I absolutely adore coneflowers. In fact, I may go get myself some more this year in some different colors. I really like the white/pale yellow ones too. The ones in the picture above will be the classic purple coneflowers once they come up.
On the right is my vegetable garden which I swear has doubled it's size in just two days with all of the rain we've had down here!!! I know I just posted this the other day, but I have a japanese eggplant, which is the long skinny eggplant; a mammoth jalapeño (hooray giant jalapeños!); a big bertha bell pepper because bell peppers should be giant :p; and a better boy tomato because my pawpaw always swore that better boys were the best tomatoes :p So that's the kind that I always buy.
My citrus trees.....*sigh* I have a love hate relationship with them. Last year I just wanted to cry. They were ALL attacked by grasshoppers and I thought they were dead. The grasshoppers literally ate ALL of the leaves off of all of my citrus trees T_T I'd pick them off whenever I'd find them but they'd always come back. And I don't like using pesticides on my plants, so I was at a loss aside from just battling them by hand. My orange tree which is the one in the big pot closest to the camera was the tree that was attacked the worst and it actually looks beautiful this year!! Lots of new foliage but of course, it didn't put out any fruit blossoms :( It had to put all it's energy into just regrowing. I'm just thankful it came back!! It would've put out so much fruit this year too!! It's about 5 years old now. The other trees look pretty bad. There's four of them in the back all in pots. The leaves look really really pale. Two are from seed that I've grown myself and two I bought from Gurney's. I think they all need to be repotted with better soil and probably fertilized as well. Anyone have any advice on growing citrus?
The only herb I've planted so far this year is mint! But I need to remedy that. I had to have some mint though :) I use it for so much....iced tea, hot tea, salads, just to smell! If you want a plant that you can be guaranteed to NOT kill and that you can use the hell out of, get yourself some mint! It grows like a weed and it's so useful! Just don't plant it in the ground or you will have a lawn full of mint. Unless you want that of course which wouldn't be so bad :p
After my roses, the other stars of my garden are the tiger lilies I think!! That's them on the left! I also got these from Gurney's. These are so damn beautiful and they take my breath away when they bloom. They only last about a week once they bloom and they grow for about 5-6 months before they bloom, but the wait and the energy is so worth it!! And they are literally care free. I do nothing with these two pots. I don't water them, I don't feed them, and they're planted under a tree so they don't get much sun...just rain water and partial sun! You need these in your garden :p
And finally, some surprise volunteer marigolds!! I pulled up my marigolds last year when they died and these just started coming up...so they must have reseeded themselves as well :) I love marigolds. The color makes me smile. I know a lot of people hate them, but they've always been happy plants to me!!
What's going on in your garden right now?
5 comments:
Love seeing your garden! I keep track of mine this way, too. Sorry don't have any advice on citrus or blueberries. Why do people hate marigolds? Yeah they're old-fashioned looking maybe, and they smell funky, but they're supposed to keep some bad bugs away too.
Loved taking a walk through your garden. We are just starting to get blooms ... hurray for warm weather.
I'm always so impressed with your gardens. We planted quite a few bulbs in the front, this year. At the moment we have a single white iris blooming and a mixed pot of flowers - not even sure what all is in it but there are some moss roses, something purple, tons of red stuff - that we bought and plunked directly into a bigger planter without repotting. So, we have some color out front. In the back, the tiger lilies are growing nicely and I was stunned that my lavender came back because we had such a cold winter. I didn't bother protecting it from the cold but it looks fine. We also have parsley. The squirrels are totally disinterested in parsley, so it looks lovely. I don't think we'll bother growing vegetables, this year, since the squirrels managed to get through every barrier we attempted to erect to keep them out.
Happy gardening!
I've sadly made the decision not to plant anything this year because my tomatoes have done so poorly the past few years, so I'm glad you're sharing YOUR pictures!! I did plant some perennials in the front, but I'm not sure they'll actually come up or not--may have planted them too late. Keep on sharing!!
I am not a gardener, but I love seeing others' efforts at it! I am all about those plants that require almost no care, and it sounds like you have a great balance. Please keep sharing your gorgeous garden so I can live vicariously!
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