2009 gardens revisited: here are updated pictures

It was difficult composing the garden post the other day without having pictures to go along with it. So ... today, I rectified that little oversight. Took quite a few pictures with my Pentax Optio Z10 compact, and I present them here now. If you need additional background, just refer to my post from the other day -- the one headlined: 2009 garden(s).


ABOVE: A side view of the front garden, largely perennials accented in front by a day lily. My last front garden hosta (most have been transplanted) is in the back right. All the bare spots you see were seeded two days ago with two annuals -- orange/bronze marigold and yellow and burgundy wildflower. I don't expect to see blooms probably till mid- to late July.


ABOVE: The third year of an Endless Summer hydrangea. I'm not expecting to see buds or blooms yet. Maybe next year? This is in the front side garden.


ABOVE: I didn't mention this the other day because I hadn't seen it, but this is the sole survivor of three calla lilies I planted (near where the hydrangea now is) in the front side garden. The callas were planted three summers ago, and this one has come back every year.


ABOVE: The much-ballyhooed broccoli patch, which is on the east end of the genus garden. I seeded some cucumbers in this patch garden the other day, hoping that by the time the broccolo is harvest, the cukes might begin to emerge.


ABOVE: A closeup of one of the broccoli plants. Still no edible florets, though.


ABOVE: One of the loose-leaf lettuce plants; this one is just right of the tomato plant (below).


ABOVE: The tomato plant, going strong. In the foreground, just the other day, I seeded some carrots and cucumbers.


ABOVE: The circular garden in the back yard, where bachelor's buttons (blue) are on the outer rim and raspberry zinis are in the middle. If you see a different color foliage between them, it's the remnants of the spring tulip leaves, which soon will brown and dry. The buttons and zinia were seeded in mid-April. I hope to see blooms by the end of this month.


ABOVE: A closeup of a bachelor's button.



ABOVE: Closeups of the zinias.


ABOVE: Some of the buttons and zinias were transplated to the genus garden, at the end where spring bulbs crocus, daffodil and hyacinth have long ago withered.


ABOVE: The asiatic lilies, in their second season. Look at all the buds. Last year, each plant sprouted only ONE bud each!


ABOVE AND BELOW: Closer views one of the asiatic lilies.




ABOVE: The small plant to the left of the garage apron is an asiatic lily planted last year. A neighbor, who maintains the yard (and cuts grass) immediately left of this view, accidentally mowed over the sprouting lily foliage last year, thinking it was weed, so the lily didn't have a chance to root properly like the others in the back yard. See closeup below.


ABOVE: This is what the asiatic lily next to the garage looks like today; this also is what all the others asiatic lilies looked like last year, although perhaps slightly taller: just the single bud on the crown.


ABOVE: This is the one lament of the gardening season -- the transplating of hostas to the south garden. Bad move; they get far more sun than I had thought. You can see in the foreground how the foliage on that plant is drying up. In the bare spots between the hostas, I seeded more of the marigold and wildflower two days ago.

The 2009 garden(s)

Quite a few things are different about the gardens in my yards this summer. For one, I planted, with seed, the first vegetables I've ever tried to grow -- broccoli and lettuce. Both look like they're doing fine right now, and I even clipped some lettuce leaves two days ago and ate a salad with lettuce from the garden that night. The lettuce did taste like it had a little something to it, though I can't put my finger on just what.

I also split my three types of hostas and mass planted a bunch of the cuts along the south side of the house. That probably was a bad move; I had thought that even though that side of the house was on the south end, which supposedly gets a lot of sun in summer (along with the west), the house on that side is so close to my neighbor that I figured it got a lot of shade, too. Obviously, I didn't study that sun situation close enough. Several of the hostas are struggling, leaves drying up. I feel pretty bad. I'm going to try to water them extra the remainder of the summer in hopes that most of them can survive, and then perhaps replant them elsewhere next spring and use the south garden for more sun-craving perennials or annuals.

In the interim, I did seed the vacant spots between the hostas with orange marigolds and yellow and burgundy wild flower. Also used those seeds in the bare spots of the front and front-side gardens and a few in the front row of the back yard fenceline garden. All of those seeds went in on Tuesday, so I won't be seeing anything from those anytime soon.

Also new this year, in the back yard circular garden (as seen on May 3 above), are raspberry zinia and blue bachleor's buttons. I expanded the circumference of the garden slightly (accounting for the area outside the circle of tulips), planted the buttons along the new territory in the outside rim and put the zinias in the center area, on the inside of where the tulips are. So the tulip foliage you see in the above picture, again, taken a little more than a month ago, separates the zinias from the buttons and should not be an issue by the time the two annuals start to bloom. I did seed the zinias and buttons in late April, and there is nice foliage on both flowers right now, so I ought to be seeing blooms relatively soon.

The Asiastic lilies along the north privacy fence came back, in their second year, very full and tall and are showing LOTS of buds right now. Last year, they didn't get up very far at all, and each plant produced only one bloom each! What a difference a year made. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking they'd come back this well so soon, so I put some Russian lily bubls between the Asiatics, and only three of the seven Russians produced buds and showed blooms. The Russians were pretty (pictured), but small.

Finally, I put in two heather perennial bushes in the front. They didn't look like they did very well, and I'm hoping it's just the first-year jitters. I'll be patient and give them a chance to do well.

Finally, back again for their fifth year in a row, are tomatoes. The foliage is growing splendidly, and I'm guessing to see some fruit in three weeks. I see some green buds already near the bottom, so perhaps I'll get lucky and get some in two and a half weeks!