June Garden Tour - The Pond Garden

Here's the pond full to the brim because of the inches of rain we have had.  Love that the cattails are gone (for now).  The water iris have mostly finished blooming.

The fish and frogs are active.

A water lily that has never done much is now showing some life.  It's confined to a pot in the pond.

Joe Pye weed is adding height.  I have pulled some volunteers from spots around the pond but I know there are still some from self seeding.  They don't seem to transplant very well.

On the house side of the pond the stella d'oro day lily is just opening blooms.  The hosta behind is a nice contrast to it.

Look at this color combination.

Close up it's even lovelier.  The orange is the butterfly weed that is food for monarchs.  The blue is ?  I can't recall what it is called.  It blooms in the morning.

Pots of sedum on the pond deck.

A view of the pond from the deck.

The garden tour will continue in future posts.

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.

Harvests in Early June

Bok choy.

spinach

snow peas and garlic scapes

more snow peas

lettuce

Painting Project Completed

Dan built the swing that sits on the edge of the glen maybe 8 years ago.  (Photo from early this spring.)Just in the last couple of weeks we were sitting on it and I proposed painting it to match the cladding on our windows

So I did this week.  I started it yesterday with sanding, priming and the first coat.  Couldn't put on the second coat because rain was in the forecast.  Second coat completed this afternoon.


Now my watercolor teacher said that with a color like this you need it repeated an odd number of times.  So I painted a birdhouse and the roofs on some small garden art birdhouses. 

Now I see that I had this color already on the deck in a pot.  Well, still an odd number of times: swing, birdhouse, pot, roof 1 and roof 2.

I'm liking the transformation and to top it off Dan says its more comfortable to sit on.