Garden of Shame

I've been on vacation. When I returned home, my garden was a mess (and still is).  I have A LOT of weeding to do. I also need to tie my blackberry canes to the fence and stake up various perennials. This morning, I managed to mow the lawn and weed the front part of my front lawn shade bed. The temperature is 95 degrees in the shade. When sweat was running into my eyes, I decided that I would weed my garden in short bursts of 20-30 minutes and only weed those sections of the garden that have some shade. Maybe I'll have it all weeded in a couple of days.

Favorite Combination: Caladium, Coral Bells, and Hostas

My front porch faces east and I have a large oak tree in my front yard. Consequently, my front porch is shady. The area next to my front door gets no direct sun and it's fairly shady. I struggle to find colorful plants that will grow in this space. I have finally found a great combination: caladium, southern comfort coral bells, and thunderbolt hosta.

Wordless Wednesday

Favorite Combinations: Variegated Red Twig Dogwood and Pink Asiatic Lilies

I bought these Asiatic lilies at a big box store and found them on the clearance rack for $1 a pot. I love the clearance racks.  Once the plants are past their prime, they are heavily discounted. I bought three pots and they have established a large healthy stand. I'm sorry that I can't remember the name of the cultivar. My computer crashed last year and I lost my plant name database. 

Asiatic lilies are easy to grow.  When I dig the hole to plant the lilies, I throw a handful of compost in the hole and mix it into the dirt in the bottom of the hole. In the spring, I top dress the soil around the lilies with some extra compost.  After the flowers bloom, I remove the deadheads to encourage more flowers.

The read twig dogwood bushes are one of my favorite shrubs.  They provide a lovely backdrop for perennials in the spring, summer and fall.  In the winter, the bright red color of their new growth branches provide some winter garden interest. Red twig dogwood thrive in full sun but will tolerate some shade.  In the spring, I prune out the old and dead branches and trim the bush into a rounded shape. I also spread a shovel of compost around the base of each bush and mulch the bushes with chopped up leaves.

First Tomatoes : )

When I was weeding the vegetable garden today, I noticed my first tomatoes on my Supersweet 100 tomatoes.

Garden Fairy

I have the BEST sister, ever. Liz is a true garden fairy. She just spent the day with me weeding my backyard vegetable and flower beds. They were a weedy mess, but now they (almost) weed-free. I just didn't have time to weed the past two weeks and we've gotten a lot of rain.  

The weather was oppressive-hot and humid.  We were both soaking wet with sweat by the time we were finished. We had to take several cool down breaks to escape into the air-conditioned house and drink some iced tea to rehydrate. I wanted to post a photo of my sister weeding on this blog, but she threatened to beat me bloody if I posted a picture of her looking so dirty and sweaty [and let's just say that you all are lucky that there's no such thing as smell-o-vision!]

I still have about 8 feet of my perennial bed to weed and I need to weed between the plants in my vegetable garden.  I should have the all finished by the middle of next week if it doesn't rain too much.

Daylilies Blooming Now

Ruby Spider

Double Sweets

Siloam Double Classic

Lemon Custard

Strawberry Frappe