Tuesday, July 23, 2013

The Garden Progress!

Well, summer is definitely here!  The garden has been going in fits and spurts and I've been too busy to report.  But here it is, in all the I'm-still-an-intermediate-at-this-aren't-I glory.

My favorite development so far is that my fabulous husband hung the vintage fountain that I lugged home from my vacay in North Carolina.  This this a beaut and it looks just exactly as wonderful as I hoped it would!  I had fantasies of using it as an ice bucket for parties, so of course the hubby made all my dreams come true.

Squee!  So happy.

The roses actually grew!  I planted four bare root roses and they all grew.  The Nicole rose got the worst spot in the yard, but is somehow flourishing!
They look beautiful as cut flowers too, my favorite way to arrange them is just a couple in a tea cup!
The Peace rose was the last to bloom, but it made some gorgeous blooms and is now in its second set of blossoms of the year.
Look at that color.  I feel like such a pro.  I don't have any great pics of the Joseph's Coat or the Dreams Come True yet, but they have each made some blooms.  The Joseph's Coat seems to wimp out against the heat, but the Dreams Come True reminds me of my grandmother.  Petite, controlled and well-organized blossoms only!

The front bed had some ups and downs.  The snapdragons grew HUGE and luscious:
Huge.  Everyone said they were the largest snapdragons they had ever seen.  The front bed shaped up nicely in spring.  The snapdragons did exactly what I had hoped the hollyhock seeds would do (#fail, not a single one came up), and covered up the fence nicely.  Edging closer to my english-garden-cottage ideal, non? 
Nicole rose back there in the corner, snapdragons, purple love-in-a-mist, blue delphinium and white alyssum.  But as summer wore on, I wanted to let the snapdragons self-seed, but they got yellowish and reedy.  What to do??  I'm now attempting some mid-summer additions to help camoflage.
Added a dahlia in front of Nicole, and I don't know what these colorful annuals are, but they're gorgeous.  Got them at the QFC while shopping for dinner and I could only carry two, but clearly I need more!  Go mystery plants, go! 
Also, the hollyhock that I made my husband drag back from Whidbey Island for me is looking beautiful.  Double hollyhocks in the palest peach.  So pretty!
Yum.  Don't stop now, hollyhocks.
They're like ballerinas made into flowers!

I've really been crossing my fingers for some dahlias and so far we have two!
We have two more starting to bloom, a pompom style purple one and one that I hope will turn into a giant peachy-yellow one.  I'm practically getting out my pompoms to cheer them on.

Lastly, but most importantly, we grew some of the absolute harbingers of summer:
I KNOW.  Shut up.  I grew that in dirt.  It grew while I was away on business and when I came home my husband brought it to me in one of our sterling silver nut dishes.  (Because we are the oldest young people I know and we own stuff like that.)  But look at that photo.  Yay for July and all the good things that come out of gardens.  Including moments like this:
 Thanks garden!!