…in the Garden?

Cabbage for the garden but not for my dinner plate!

This was my first year to try ornamental cabbage for the winter and I have loved seeing something in my flower pots right by the door when I come home! They are very pretty and beat empty or dead flowers in the winter! I think they will be a regular for me every winter, just not on my dinner plate!

Southern Hot Summers?
Crape Myrtles!

They’re one of the things I can totally love during 100° weather with heat indexes at 105° or greater… the beauty of all the crape myrtles! I can’t decide which color I love the most but I have decided they are the most beautiful show in the landscape during the hot, hot summer right before we start preparing for fall. For tips on a problem I had with my crapes, check out my page “Houston, we have a problem!” The crapes are looking good today, thanks to some dish detergent and a handy dandy scrub brush. Well, I got my first pumpkin candle today. It’s a pumpkin donut mix, who doesn’t love both?! Not wishing you away crape myrtles but I always look forward to fall!

It’s finally time for the hardy hibiscus to bloom! They are so huge and the buds are so numerous that I’m not sure how all the flowers will fit on the plant! Just want to point out in case you’re not aware, there are a couple of different types of Hibiscus. One being hardy and comes back on its own every year and the other being tropical and doesn’t survive the winters, at least not in Oklahoma anyway and it looks better in a pot. The red one above is hardy and the coral one is a tropical. Tropical blooms are about the size of a woman’s hand opened with fingers out, the blooms on hardy hibiscus are more like a mans hand opened and fingers out, much bigger. I will post another picture when the red one is in full bloom! Their greenery and growth habits are much different as well. From my experience, my tropical one does fine in full sun with somewhat dryer conditions but the hardy one requires more water and I have it on the east side so it doesn’t get the evening sun and it does great! Neither of them have very fertile soil to speak of. The third one is a hardy one with a variation in the foliage color and I am excited to see it bloom because I don’t remember what color the bloom is but I’m guessing red because I was on a red kick for a while and that’s probably what I picked at that time, we’ll see! Check back for more pics of their progress…update:

Joes Farm for instant fresh Zinnias!

Joe’s Farm in Bixby Oklahoma has a zinnia garden that will have you going back for more! It’s gorgeous and has such a huge variety! It has me planning my own zinnia garden for next summer. Seriously, it is my biggest goal for next years gardening. I did another post on my Oklahoma page about Joe’s, as well. I suggest checking it out for a tip or two and for the link to their Facebook page. Here are a few close up highlights from my trip but for the vases I created from two visits to Joe’s, check out the Oklahoma page.

Rose of Sharon

Whew! It’s hot! No, it’s humid! Both, it’s both! 106 heat index will definitely tell you what survives the heat and humidity in your garden. It’s still too early for the crepe myrtles to make their show and the roses just finished their first big splash in spring, some are struggling in this heat, but don’t despair, the Rose of Sharon that you don’t hear much about, is putting on an amazing show! Funny thing is, I have one that is shaded by a tree so it’s budded but not bloomed yet. The one above, in sun, is going great guns. So many buds, I couldn’t begin to count them all! I even cut some for a vase or two, check them out in the photo gallery, just gorgeous, but know, if you cut them, they don’t last long in a vase!

There’s not a star in the show like these, the Stargazer Lily!

My anchor holds!

The thing I love the most about a Columbine plant is that they are one of the most delicate looking flowers and yet they can withstand Oklahoma’s storms in April and May. Sometimes they seem to be dangling on just a tiny little thread. Now that is amazing! When I am walking through the garden and look at them they are a true reminder to me that though life may be rough at times, or you may seem weak or frail at times, you have an anchor that holds, so hang on, for the storms of life may come but, thank God, my anchor holds!

Geraniums Are My Favorite Annual

As much as I love perennials, I always have to buy some annuals. One of my favorite annuals to buy is Geraniums. I can never make up my mind which color to get. I usually end up with red for the front bed because it matches the house and makes the blue on the porch just pop! I also pick up a pink and a salmon just because I love them so much. A girl can’t have too many flowers. Hey, I live on an acre and it can hold a lot of plants. My husband will vouch for that. Geraniums can withstand the heat of my patio with the west sun bearing down in the evening, they can withstand the times I get sidetracked and don’t get them watered (because I’m not the perfect gardener), and they can withstand too much water during all of the April showers. They are great about giving me a signal that they need more water or less water and they allow me the time to correct it before dying. I love their ability to make such a showy appearance, too. The plants in the garden below are new and when I bought them they had gotten a little too much water but they’re starting to bounce back. (I think, but it’s raining as I type so we’ll see.) If you haven’t tried geraniums before then I hope you will. While they don’t have the color options that some plants do, they have come out with more variations of their leaves and greenery colors, which is exciting. I have noticed the hummingbirds come around with the red geraniums and I really like that. We put out new hummingbird and finch feeders trying to attract them this year so any comments and ideas to help us out would be welcome.

Who doesn’t love a rose?

Well, I can tell you who doesn’t, men who have to mow around them! I try to make sure I don’t put them in a spot where they will encroach on the mower space. This is something my husband has never had to complain about but I have heard many do, so, find your roses a cozy place in an area that the mower doesn’t go, because I look forward to seeing the roses bloom every summer and they are so worth it. I just can’t wait to cut some and bring them in for the table, the smell is so amazing! Who needs a wall plug-in or scentsy when you have these babies? (despite the fact, I own both) I decided to count my roses this year and I thought I had eight, then discovered another one while sitting on the patio one sunny morning. I looked up from my nice warm cup of peach tea and over along the fence, there it was, boom baby! It was saying, “here I am!” It was a great greeting from an old friend that day! Not only that but it meanders in ivy which is really pretty however, there is also poison sumac in that area so, unfortunately, it never gets tended to. Now, let’s get back to that count. I thought I had eight but discovered nine, and today I decided that I needed a few additions to the family so I put on my covid mask and went to a nice, small locally owned nursery we have here in Tulsa. As I went In to carefully select the perfect ones, I thought about the colors that I didn’t have and which ones I would choose. I approached the row of roses and immediately I saw pink, red, some more pink, some more red, a white, an orange, a dark pink, but no yellow, no purple, no exciting new color. Bummer, could I have picked a better time? It was the Wednesday before Mother’s Day, duh! Did I really expect to find a multitude of colors? Wait! In the back, there they were! No yellow, but I managed to nab a raspberry colored Celestial Nights(it’s a floribunda) and a dark purple colored Twilight Zone(it’s a grandiflora). Yay! It made my day! (You know, I am home on medical leave so it doesn’t take much to please this girl.) I’d like to say that I have plenty but I have quickly learned that a girl can never have enough flowers, so, let’s make that eleven roses and I still don’t have a yellow! Its definitely on the want list though. I look forward to sharing my pics of the new ones when they bloom! Happy rose gardening!

Oh my! my! Iris Surprise!

I just discovered this hidden beauty in a corner, growing through the fence. It was from a previous garden and I decided I just had to have some more! I ordered an Iris mix from a catalog I like and planned on this project for late summer to early fall! I had transplanted a few Iris many years ago from a family vacation property in Branson and this beauty was one of them! The corner that it was in became a place to store firewood one winter and by spring when I looked out the kitchen window to see if my bulbs were up, well, it was too late! I saw the pile of firewood and my jaw dropped! Amazingly enough, some of the Iris and grape hyacinths survived but no tulips were left to be found and very few of the other bulbs, as well! Lesson learned. Now, I had no sooner placed my order from that catalog this year when my brother and his wife called and said they were pulling up a bunch of their Iris and I could have them if I wanted them so I hightailed it out to his place in the country with my husband and a shovel (for him). He obliged and started digging them up but we discovered very quickly that the soil they were in made it possible for us to just pull them right up with our hands very easy. The four of us had three heaping laundry baskets full in no time. Easy Peesy. I had a lot of reservation about trimming them back to 6 inches since it was so early in the growing season so I decided to cut back half of them and not the other half and see what happened. I transplanted some of them along a fence that is a little more of a shaded area and some against the house which is more of a full sun area. The ones in sun all have some brown but the ones in a little shade are fairing pretty well. They are leaning but not much brown on them. It’s probably best to cut them back so the energy can go to the roots but I am that person that likes to experiment and compare options so I went for it because I wanted to know if I transplanted them right away and early in the growing season if they would still turn all brown. Wheni get my new bulbs in the fall, I will put them in amongst the others I have transplanted. I am looking forward to next spring and seeing how these iris do and hoping they will be as fun as the tulips were this year! Isn’t she a beauty?

I have always loved the spring time.

It brings such beauty to the yard with the blooming flowers and fresh cut green grass and trees budding everywhere. I never knew just how much I enjoyed it all, until this year. I had been trudging through work with pain in my hip, off and on, for a few years. I had always had little issues with it but it really seemed to have gotten worse the last few years so one day in February I just said, “I can’t do it anymore!” and I stayed home and decided it was time to deal with it. I have been a surgical technologist for fifteen years. It’s a lot of standing and a lot of walking, neither of which I mind, as long as I’m not in pain. Well, long story short, I am still dealing with the issues and not back to work, we had a death in the family, and then there is this Covid-19 thing, all of which can really drag a person down so lets go back to why I enjoy the garden and yard so much. It has been such a blessing, the highlight of my days, it really takes me away. For instance, last year was my first year to plant tulips so I was already anxious to see what would come up this spring but with all this other depressing stuff going on, I have never had so much more enjoyment as I did when I would go out each day to see which color of tulips has bloomed. With tulips, not only do you get surprising colors popping open but you also get surprising types of tulips. Here are some of my tulip pics to share with you. I hope you can enjoy them even just half as much as I did!

Tulips? Are you sure? What happened to the crocus?

I have never seen any tulips like these before. Last year back in the fall, I purchased a mix of tulips. Bulbs are hard for me to do because I have a tendency to want instant gratification when I plant something, so to plant a bulb seems very unfulfilling. However, I always enjoy the spring flowers that arrive from a bulb having been planted and I knew if I wanted those spring flowers, I was going to have to buck up and plant some bulbs! The mix I ordered was 100 mixed tulips, 100 King Alfred Daffodils (which I remembered having at another home), 100 grape hyacinths, and 100 crocus which would start popping up out of the snow in late winter. With about 400 bulbs planted in the ground and winter coming on, it was one of the least satisfying gardens I had ever planted. The football season, Thanksgiving, and Christmas was keeping me busy though, so, I soon forgot about the boring bulb garden. Winter went without a hitch and we had some unseasonably early spring days so it was great to see the bulb garden start turning full of green early on. When the bed became full of bulbs waiting to burst open my excitement grew. I quickly realized that it was going to be one of the most satisfying gardens I had ever done and possibly ever would do! Due to all that was going on around us at the time, I don’t know if a garden could have ever been appreciated as much as this one was! I had intended to have a blanket of yellow daffodils with splashes of tulips amongst them and a circle of grape hyacinths around the whole bed and the crocus in front of the grape hyacinths. That’s not exactly how it played out. It was more like a bed of yellow came and went, then the grape hyacinths encircled the bed and tulip buds were everywhere! Each day it was a surprise what color the opened tulips would be. When I went out and saw these tulips, I had to do a double take. Did I plant another bulb within this bed that I had forgotten about? Did I buy peonies and plant them here by mistake? How could I not remember? All of that going through my head so fast, I looked at the greenery on them and thought, tulips?! I have never seen a tulip like this before! They were gorgeous and I knew I had to bring some in to enjoy. I cut these to give our living room a nice, fresh, spring, welcoming look and I knew my days of bulb gardening had just begun but what happened to the crocus?!