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I'm not bragging, I'm just good at non-vegetable gardening. There are a few pictures of this year's work (so far - it's early yet) in the extended entry.
This is a little area I've been putting together for a few years. The clematis is two years old and finally starting to really take off as it climbs the pole and iron bird feeder, You can see the big blue flowers on the clematis, they're spectacular when they really get going. Flanking the clamatis are a pair of dahlias, one pink and one yellow, and the hanging basket has pink petunias that'll grow and spill over. The big orange-liquid feeder is for orioles, not hummingbirds. I got Liz a nice glass hummingbird feeder for Christmas, but she wants to put that in the backyard because she's afraid some kid will break it out front.
These two hostas were transplanted from another bed less than a month ago when they first started surfacing. They're three years old now, and I've moved them each spring looking for the perfect spot.
Here's my holding bed in the backyard where I keep extra hostas of various kinds. Over the last few years I've stashed sedums, hostas, black-eyed susans, shasta daisies, heather, dusty millers and lavender in this bed while I relocated some beds in the front yard. I may as well just put a border around this one and incorporate it into the landscape.
Nice hostas. (...which is a sentence I NEVER thought I'd write)
My wife and I are landscaping our yard soon, and we're looking at hostas. Glad to see they look so good.
Posted by: Jon Henke at May 11, 2004 06:54 AMI love Clematis. We had five before we moved. Three were about five years old. I hope in the new house we find some spot to put new ones.
Posted by: Blogeline at May 11, 2004 08:13 AMI just planted my own lovely blue Clematis, next to the railing of my front steps. Hopefully it'll trail up the side and put forth gorgeous flowers that I can look outside my window and admire.
I've always wanted Hostas, but I just don't have enough shade for them yet--and Texas sun can be very intense, even for plants that thrive in full sun.
--TwoDragons
Posted by: Denita TwoDragons at May 11, 2004 02:25 PMOur hostas do great in the shaded backyard, and I was really surprised at how well they did in the sunny front. Actually, they *loved* the extra sun they were getting.
The newest spot (in the picture) is pretty much full sun all morning. we'll see how they do. It already looks like I'll need to take divisions out of them come fall.
Anyone in the DC metro area want some hosta, sedums or black-eyed susans?
Posted by: Ted at May 11, 2004 02:46 PMI might take you up on that - I've a part-shade area around the side of the house where I've been planning to put some hostas for a while but haven't got round to it yet. As for the susans - I tried to start some from seed this year and got absolutely zilch. (The seeds were from Burpee, so they should have been okay.) So I broke down and bought some from Meadow Farms. I've never liked sedum, although I don't really know why.
Posted by: Robert the Llama Butcher at May 11, 2004 03:46 PMHey,Ted!That all looks great.I like the hostas.I would love to see the Dusty Millers,also.It's garden time here,too.Most of my stuff is of the veggie variety.I used to garden a little every summer(mostly containers) but got away from it for a while.I'm trying to get back at it this year now that I have a wide open space at my granny's.This will just to be doing it as next year will be completly different.Plans for then are already being made.I'm gonna rent either a mini-excavator or a backhoe this fall to dig 1-2 ft. deep pits with it.The soil will then be hand sifted back into the pits with plenty of ammendments and no rocks.There's gonna be a new house on the property by next year so I gotta wait to see where it's gonna go exactly.
Eventually I hope to have quite a few 4X12 raised beds.If all goes well it will look like the garden on the DIY channels Fresh From The Garden show.Either way it's gonna be a helluva project with both the garden and the landscape.
Also,let me say that it is great to see others workin' the dirt and if you ever have anything extra I will take it off yer hands,Ted.However,if someone else wants it then by all means let them have it.Maybe i'll have plenty of `maters and such to pass along this summer and fall.I have a feeling that within the next couple of years i'm gonna have stuff out the wahzoo.You don't even wanna know about some of the clone projects i'm hoping to achieve over the next couple of years.Let's just say that there's a whole bunch of bushes,shrubs and trees that have gotten way to big for their britches.
Oh and BTW you all where luck to not get any more weather than that last night.We got hit by four nasty back-to-back thunder storms yesterday.I had just driven through and then out of one in Front Royal.It followed me home.Just as I got out of the car it started to pour.I left all of my plants out because I din't think it was gonna do anything much.WRONG!The lightening came in waves but the rain never let up for a second over about two hours.When it finally did I ran out to grab the plants and bring them inside.They are in three-paks sitting in disposable Food Lion cake pan tops so that I can water them from below.They where floating.That alone was about four or five inches of rain.
No sooner than I got them in I looked north back over the mountain to see yet another huge cell coming over.This was unlike anything I had ever seen before.This thing was shooting up about 500+ feet per second or so and was growing blacker by the moment.It finally got to the point where it developed that greenish tint and started whipping everywhere.There was one part of it that ran from clear back over the mountain to a point several miles down in the valley.This was a funnel that almost made it.If it had it would have been at least and f-4,perhaps and f-5 and it would have been well over a mile wide.It just didn't have enough time.It did manage scare the hell out of our gun shy dogs as well dump several more inches of rain.Funny that I had just told someone that afternoon that I would like to see a nice thunderboomer.Be careful of what you wish for,huh?