June Garden Tour - Mom's Garden

Mom's Garden (formerly the Front Garden) is doing well with its transformation.  Here is a walk about with narrative.

Heading out the front door.  The black eyed susans are fully green.  Notice the dead branches?  The winter was very hard on shrubs and this butterfly bush didn't make it.  Hydrangeas died back to roots.

Looking towards the front door the liriope, Autumn Joy sedum and new lavender are a lovely contrast.  Two of the five new pink muhly grasses are visible there in the foreground on the left.

Zooming in on the lambs ear in bloom.

Lavender is lovely.  I even harvested some to dry.

Here's one of the butterfly bushes that did survive and grew from its roots. The orange flags wyou see there mark trees from Arbor Day Foundation.  I plant them here to see if they live then will move them to their final location in a year or more.  Did that with the crepe myrtles behind the wall.

This hydrangea is looking good only because of the treatment of a systemic insecticide.  I do need to spray it with Liquid Fence to keep the deer away.

These crepe myrtle had die back too this winter and need trimming at the base.

I've given up on annual flowers in these pots.  They need so much watering and then get eaten.  The creeping jenny wintered over and I added the fountain grass.  I like the color contrast.

The hydrangea will not have as many blooms as previous years but here is one forming.

The tour of the gardens will continue in future posts.  Stop back by.

Scenes from Here

The morning light was yellow as I recorded what was blooming on this day in May.

The first of the irises with others showing promise of future lovely blooms in the weeks ahead,

These Johnny Jump-ups are volunteers growing next to the perennial garden compost bin.  I even transplanted some of them to other spots.  I hate to pull up something flowering at this time of year so there are other flowers not where they were ever planted.

The largest of the bleeding heart.

Forget Me Not under the tuteur for the clematis.

The first columbine.

Lilies of the valley outside Dan's study door.  After I took this photo I picked all that were blooming and brought them in (see below).  They have such a heavenly scent.  The ones that grow outside the front door won't bloom for another week or more because of the northern exposure there.  These get the warmth of the sun on the stone wall.

Ajuga blooms.

More Forget Me Nots among the creeping phlox which is really pink but not particularly in this photo.

More ajuga pond side.

Violets are scattered every where.

New fiddleheads.

The Japanese maple is such a lovely shade of red with its new leaves.

Here is the sign I ordered from Etsy DotTwoDotDesigns to commemorate the front garden in my Mom's memory.  It came out lovely.  We had a thunder storm come through at noon time so that's why there are beads of water all over it.

And I'm enjoying these flowers inside now too.

My Mom's Garden

 My mom is a gardener and has been for many, many years.  For the last 15 years she has lived in a retirement community in Pennsylvania, 11 of those years with my dad who is no longer with us.  She gardens in the front and back of her single level cottage planting an assortment of flowers and perennials.  For vegetable gardening she has a portion of the community garden a short walk from her home.  Mom is 93 and she's still gardening!

Today my sister and I joined her to get the vegetable garden going.  Fortunately for us the grounds crew had rototilled most of her garden otherwise I'd still be there digging it up.  They couldn't do it all because of the strawberries, spinach and peas she'd already planted.

The photo below is the before.  Her portion extends to the right to where the soil seems to be tilled in a perpendicular direction and to the left where you can see some spinach growing.  It's a long rectangle.  At the far end are some raspberries that I think she inherited.  This year her plot is double the size it was last year.

The major accomplishment today was to lay out defined beds and walkways wide enough for her to get around in the garden. She uses a cane most of the time for balance so it was important to make it easy for her to walk about.  Last year she had such narrow paths which made it difficult to walk about.

Below are three narrow beds.  From left to right we have spinach (planted earlier this spring and in the fall) and beets planted today, then in the middle a long narrow row of peas planted today in a wide trench, and to the right some peas she planted earlier with strawberries planted who knows when.  The paths are wide enough for her here.  Beyond these we made mounds for her to plant hills of squash.  The soil there had been tilled so it was easy to rake it into mounds.

In this newly tilled part below I made some raised beds for tomatoes, squash, beans and potatoes in the back.  She had some compost from the horse stables which we dumped on the beds for now.  Again I left space between the beds for her to manuever easily

Unfortunately the water spigot had not been turned on for the season by the grounds crew so we couldn't water.  The soil is very dry and the peas and beets we planted will need watering soon.  Mom and my sister may have toted water from the cottage after I went home. I hope so.  It was a good day in the garden and I know we were a big help to her.