Back to the Garden

It's hard to see in this photo, but these zinnias are covered with butterflies flitting about in the sunshine. :-)

It's been ages since I posted anything about my gardens. I've been so preoccupied about my sunroom project (it can be seen behind the zinnias in the photo above), plus it's been so hot, the weeds had taken over, and several areas need major changes. For all those reasons, I haven't posted any garden photos since June....

But now that the weather has been cooling off a bit, I've been able to resume battling the weeds and tackling a few projects outside, as well as to enjoy being outside among the many pretty annual flowers that I have planted this year. This is truly the time for annuals to shine in the garden.

Here are a few photos from the past few weeks:

Our East Patio, with humongous coleus in front. I had no idea they got so big, as it's the first time I've ever planted these. They were such baby things in their six-packs in May, but now the bigger ones are crowding out the ones that didn't grow as quickly. I like the colors in this mix, and I think I''ll use these in other garden areas in the future (those limey-yellow ones would look great in my Yellow Garden...).

Another annual I had never planted before were these Star Gladiolus. I found the corms at
Lowe's this spring and I'll definitely be digging and saving these over winter. They have a lovely
scent and a delicate habit unlike the more common kind of gladiolus (which I also have
grown with success for magnificent cutting flowers this summer ).

Here's the cutting garden in mid-summer, with the bed I made for growing the normal sort of gladiolus for cutting. I wired a piece of hog panel to some stakes to keep them from flopping over like they did last year and it worked quite well. I think I'll plant even more of these next year, perhaps a whole other bed of them, as they were truly magnificent inside the house.

The Yellow Garden gets more gold as summer progresses. Earlier in the year the yellows tend to be a bit lighter in color. I think I'm going to make a few changes in this garden area next spring.

The North Border, with Zinnias, cosmos and phlox, plus some short dahlias
that I started from seed this spring (which I had never done before). 

Water lilies in the pond. They've bloomed quite a bit this summer.

It's been a good year for impatiens, unlike some years lately with the impatiens blight going around. These seem pretty happy in the window box on my garage.

Another annual that I tried for the first time this year were these Gomphrena, which I started from seed. I love their little ball-shaped heads. I think I'll use more of these next year. 

And one more new annual for me this year were these Balsam, which are related to impatiens, but much taller (you can't tell in this photo, but they are about three feet tall). Apparently these used to be very popular in Victorian times, but fell out of favor during the 20th century. I like them and will certainly save seeds to plant them again next year.

One resolution for this year was to try more annuals that I hadn't planted before, especially ones that are less common. I'm so glad that I did -- many of them have been wonderful flowers. Next year I think I'll try growing even more new annuals. I'm sure there are so many I'll never run out of new kinds to try!

Hope your own gardens are still flowering strongly as we go into autumn. Thanks for reading! -Beth