in bloom: pale pink daylilies

Apparently 2012 was the Year of the Daylily around here.  I've already done posts on two different varieties this summer.  We'll, they were different colors and they didn't bloom at the same time, so I'm assuming they're different varieties. 

The pale pink ones were my favorite, though.  My fourteen-year-old self, who hated frilliness and being called cute, would probably engage in much eyerolling about that.  That's ok, though.  They're just plain pretty. 

They're also likely to be the last "in bloom" post this year.  Cue relief or disappointment.  I'm pretty sure everything in the garden now that's gearing up for the end of the season was the subject of a post last year already.  (Though, now that I've said that, watch some beautiful dark horse of a weed turn up next week...)

in bloom: front yard daylilies

When we were given several types of daylily plants last summer, I wasn't entirely sure which varieties would bloom with which color flowers, and which should go where.  As they sat, waiting to be planted, for probably more days than was advisable, I realized it was better to just get them in the ground and hope for the best.  So, at the end of the day, we ended up with the funky, exotic maroon daylilies in the backyard, and these salmony-peach ones in the garden along the front of the house.

They're ok.  I mean, they're flowers, so they're pretty.  They're very close to the traditional orange color of daylilies all over the place, but not quite, and I'm not sure if I think that's good in a we-know-they're-different sort of way, or annoying in a they-just-look-boring sort of way.

Either way, they help the front of the house look more interesting, and they're relatively maintenance free, so they get to stay!

in bloom: first daylilies

We were lucky enough to be given several varieties of daylilies from family and friends at the end of last summer.  There were so many plants, in fact, that we had the luxury of doing a little experiment: some went to the front yard, where they get full sun, and the rest were planted in a newly created, make-shift garden along the back of the house (which is to say, we dug up some grass and plopped these guys in). 

The backyard is fairly shaded, but oddly enough these were the daylilies that bloomed first.  They're taking an incremental approach, just a couple flowers each day.  I suppose that's fair considering it's their first year here.

in bloom: hydrangea

I find it so interesting that hydrangeas can be bluer or pinker depending on the soil they're growing in. At our house, we clearly have blue-ifying soil, whatever that is. And I've decided that "bluer" and "pinker" are words for today.

We got this plant from a dear friend when she sold her house and moved across the country. (Psst, M, let me know in the comments if I can link to your blog!) The Little Hydrangea That Could had a tough go of it last year, what with being transplanted and all, but it's rebounded a bit. Apparently it's also one of the more thirsty plants in the front garden; it wilts alarmingly after a dry day of sun and will only perk up with a couple gallons of water. 

 

Forget what I said.

The other day I mentioned that one of my goals this year is to show you pictures of flowers from the garden than I hadn't posted about last year. I still think there'd be enough variety to do that, but... well, the irises are out in force again this year.  And they had rain on them this morning.

They weren't rainy last year.

So it's different.

Right?

In bloom: daffodils

Is that time of year: the garden is starting to look like more than a patch of dirt once again. I'm hoping to be able to post only about different flowers than I did last year. Not that you all keep track of what I've already shown you or would necessarily notice if the photos were very similar, but for me it's more interesting to talk about new things.

To recap, here's what I showed you last year:
sweet peas
chives
irises
anemones
strawberries
marigolds
sedum

Now for the daffodils. Oh, the daffodils. They were in the garden last year, but I never posted about them. They've declined a bit each year (apparently bulbs have a shelf life), so by now it's mostly daffodil shoots with no actual flowers. This year they also migrated so they've sprouted up through the lawn instead of the flower bed. I guess we've got rogue daffodils.

They're in short supply, but they're pretty nonetheless.

Garden Tour: get thee to Two Become One

Hi folks! I'm guest posting for Samantha over at Two Become Onetoday.

Go check out the flower garden tour I wrote up, and then take a look around while you're there. She's actually good at decorating the *inside* of her house. My eyes, they are green with envy.

in bloom: sedum

There's only one item in the front flower garden that's remaining from the days of the house's prior owner. We've been taking out various overgrown shrubs bit by bit as new plants have gone in. The last of the evictees, the azaleas, got the boot a few weeks ago.

The one holdover we've permitted to stay is the sedum. It takes zero effort from us to look good, and it flowers at the end of the summer, when the irises are long gone and even the anemones are petering out. I think it's pretty cool, too, that it's a succulent but still manages to survive as a perennial as far north as we are.

in bloom: marigolds

I bought marigold seeds intending to plant them in and around the vegetable garden because they smell strongly and (supposedly) ward off critters. You know, things like cute little bunnies that seem precious and delightful until they eat all your lettuce in the span of three hours. We put up fencing around the veggies, though, so there hasn't been a need to employ marigolds as an anti-bunny force. Rather than let them go to waste (anything but that!), I planted some in the front flower garden and some in a little patch of questionable dirt -- sand, really -- at the end of our driveway.

Now, I'll give marigolds this: they're not kiddin' around. They germinated in that patch of sand and grew themselves a foot and a half tall. Everyone has their limits, though, and actually flowering when grown in sand is apparently too much to ask of marigolds. We have a rather bizarre looking plant all by its lonesome at the end of the driveway now. No pictures. Trust me, you're not missing much.

Not surprisingly, the ones I planted in actual soil with compost have done much better.

In bloom: anemones

... or as The Awesome Husband says, "ah... an enenemy... ah men ah... the pink ones."

We planted these in the fall of 2009, because they had a lot going for them:
- perennial! plant once and you're good for years to come.
- tolerant of partial shade
- blooms at the end of the summer (a key consideration when we were planting wedding flowers)
- oh so pretty

Last year they did ok. We got enough blooms to use them in the centerpieces for our wedding reception. I was a teensy bit concerned when they didn't all bloom the week before the wedding, but as it turns out, a mix of blooms and buds looked fantastic.

This year, they're apparently more comfortable in the garden, because they've really stepped it up. More flowers, and blooming earlier. So cheerful to see when I get home at the end of the day.

In bloom: sweetpeas

The first time I grew sweetpeas was completely by accident. I thought I was buying pea plants at the farmer's market (have we gone over how much I love fresh peas? I think we have...), and I was really bummed when I realized I'd only bought flowers. (Yeah, they were pretty. Whatever.)

I planted sweetpea seeds intentionally early last spring, even though they're technically supposed to be planted in the fall so they bloom in early spring. My intent was to trick mother nature into having them bloom in time for our wedding. Take a guess how that went. They grew leaves and more leaves and then -- wait! -- more leaves, but of course no flowers last year. This year they bypassed "early spring" and decided to break out the flowers in July. Alright then.

In bloom: irises

Last year in the spring we had tulips, daffodils, and one lonely iris cheering up the front of our house. The tulips and daffodils took a nosedive this year (I've since learned that you apparently do need to replant them each year if they're to look impressive), but thankfully the irises are picking up the slack. The other day I counted eighteen (EIGHTEEN) buds, and now they're starting to open.



Man, I do hate those house shingles (which is a story for another day and a project for another year). To avoid them, I walked in behind the plants and took some photos facing away from the house.



Annnd, this angle shows off our lovely sandy beach. I mean lawn. Awesome!







I thought I'd go out on a high note with the power lines there. At least the irises are pretty!

It's a start.

Have I mentioned that we (along with a team of helpers) are growing our own wedding flowers?  Maybe once or twice?  Yeah.  I think I've also talked about how much slower flowers are to grow than vegetables, yes?

Well.  We finally have some things in bloom.  There's some time remaining for the others to catch up -- thank goodness -- but the zinnias, at least, won't let us down entirely.  And in the meantime, the fact that they're annuals leaves us no choice but to spur additional growth by cutting the blooms we have now.   The stove top is graciously taking one for the team.

... and a sixth!

Grateful for blooming irises (and for figuring out how to post photos from my phone that don't appear in miniature).

Go, team!

So let's talk about how major life events can be happy and exciting in their own right, but also as opportunities for self improvement. Specifically (yes, I'm going somewhere here) I think wedding planning will be a good exercise in learning how to collaborate.

I always hated group assignments in school. Being at the mercy of randomly selected classmates and their level of effort to determine my level of academic success? Yeah, I wasn't a fan. I've mellowed a bit, but my tendency is still to prefer to maintain responsibility (er, "control") for projects myself. That's all well and good, but there are times when it's nice to work with others as a team. Especially when you can choose to work with people you like and respect, and when your eighth grade GPA isn't at stake. (Stop laughing. It felt important at the time.)

Enter: wedding planning. The Awesome Fiance and I want to make the day about more than just the two of us getting married. The way we see it, the day is also a celebration of all the people who love and support him, and all the people who love and support me, and the fact that those groups are converging to become a great big bunch of people who love and support us.

So, with that in mind, I'm fighting the urge to do everything ourselves, and we're asking people for help (*gasp*). One of the things we're doing in this regard that I'm most excited about is assembling a team of gardeners to grow wedding flowers. My mom, his mom, and a few other friends and family members who like to garden (and don't have other Big Life Stuff filling up their proverbial plates) will be allocating space in their yards for seeds and plants I'll be handing out, then we'll all cross our fingers for things to bloom when they should. And if they don't, well, that's what the farmers market is for.

Like I said, I'm super excited to work with these folks and be able to point to the resulting floral loveliness as a successful team effort. I'm hoping they're excited to be involved, too. Bring on the planting!

I, for one, would be a smidge more excited if I hadn't had to scrape frost off my car this morning. Maybe this whole wedding planning thing will teach me about patience, too...

Spring has sprung!

Kind of a trite title, but I don't care. It was a gorgeous 57 degrees today (apparently the norm is 42). To celebrate, I have a photographic update of the tulips in our yard. As of five minutes ago, they looked like this:

Impatient much?

I had a dream last night, most of which I don't remember. I do know, though, that it included -- and I remember this part vividly -- me looking out a window and noticing that our daffodils were in bloom.

Apparently all the talking and thinking I've done lately about this year's garden has permeated the entirety of my brain. The only remotely related thing I've actually done this year is set up a batch of microgreens that should be ready in a few weeks. Seeing as how that currently just looks like a bunch of dirt and lettuce seeds in the cut-off bottom of an empty milk jug, I think my subconscious made the right choice in dreaming about still non-existent flowers.

We're supposed to get some snow this week, so for now I'll have to be content with planning and scheming some more.

No roses or orchids for now. Let's not push it.

Senor Wonderful and I have been engaged for just shy of four months now (wow! seriously? holy speeding passage of time, batman!), and I've noticed one unexpected way in which my outlook on a (slightly) related topic has shifted.

[Still value sustainability and conservation and frugality and being considerate to everyone around me. Still love food too much to eat less of it. Mmmm, food.]

Anyway, the new point of view relates to gardening, in which category my approach has thus far been almost exclusively utilitarian. If I'm going to put in the time and effort to plant and grow something, I've always thought, it'd better be for a purpose. Our vegetable garden is full of plants we like to eat frequently, with a focus on items that are difficult to find or are typically pricey at the grocery store. Voila, kohlrabi. Hello, leeks. What's up, baby spinach? I can't wait to have asparagus ready for harvesting (um, in about two years) in our backyard.

Flowers and landscaping have always been an afterthought for me. Several years ago, a balcony container garden of mine was adorned with delicate pink flowers only because I mistakenly thought the sweet pea plants I bought would produce, well, peas (lesson learned). Most of the perennials I've enjoyed have been holdovers from previous gardeners. The few I've planted have been gifts from family and friends. There was a small purchase of tulip bulbs last year, but, while I do love me some tulips, my motivation was partially to make my house look extra cute for future sale. For the most part the rule has been as follows: if the flowers are in place and they don't need any attention from me, they can stay.

In trying to figure out what role flowers will play in The Nuptials, there was a window of time during which I'd hoped to procure a wedding's worth of flowers (however many that is...) right from our very! own! yard! Or, because there's not a heck of a lot of floral beauteousness in season at the right time of year, from our very! own! house! in the form of forced tulips (Future Mister has adroitly steered us away from this particular plan). In trying to figure out what we could plant around the property and -- fingers crossed -- harvest the morning of our wedding, I looked at an awful lot of pictures of flowers. And ya know what? They're really, really pretty. Pretty enough, even, to perhaps justify some time and effort solely for the purpose of aesthetics.

I still want to focus on those that work well as cut flowers, though. Can't take the practicality out of the girl, I guess.

Various and Sundry for Thursday

1. I've made some more progress on Thermal. One sleeve is knit to the separation for the sleeve cap shaping; I stopped at that point to get the second sleeve to the same length before knitting said shaping. This is the first project for which I've ever used two circular needles to knit in the round, and I love-love-love it. When patterns call for sleeves knit in the round, I've always just knit them flat because of my utter and severe distaste for double-pointed needles, and it's taken me until now to bite the bullet and learn the two-circs technique. So glad I did, as I also have a healthy distaste for seaming.



2. It snowed again. For some reason, this is shaping up to be the winter of ridiculous snowstorms. Last year, there were a lot of snow events of varying levels of accumulations. This year? A foot of snow each time, it seems. While watching the news this morning, I learned that our current snowfall for the season so far is only ten inches less than the average for an entire winter. And we still have a solid two months of the snow season left to go. Have fun, skiers...

3. I should say, though, that I was lucky enough to shovel none of yesterday's snowy, slushy mess. I cooked dinner (spaghetti squash with chicken/tomato/red wine sauce - yum) while Monsieur Fantastic cleared out the driveway. Seriously, how lucky am I?

4. He's also fantastic for knowing exactly what type of flowers I'd appreciate (pretty, simple, not extravagant) and surprising me with the same:



Yay.

Successes (complete and partial)

1. Complete: Thanks to the inspiration and guidance of a recent smitten kitchen post, I figured out how to make a really good batch of home fries (a key element of breakfast-for-dinner, which one really must incorporate into one's life at least quarterly to ensure a proper level of contentment and whimsy). Helpful tips were the pre-cooking of the potatoes, so as to equalize their cooking time with that of the onions, and the use of butter, so as to create a crispy potato exterior. Addition from my own mind: a dash of cumin. Complete success.

2. Partial: The sleeves on the lace cardigan are done. Only one of them, however, has been sewn in place. Copious ends need to be woven in. Blocking must occur.

3. Partial: Tulip bulbs have been purchased (and have subsequently ridden around with me in my car for about a week). Hopefully there'll be a day with neither rain nor work in the near future so I can plant them. Relatedly, I've obtained the materials for weatherizing my windows. Unlike planting, this process doesn't require a rain-free day, or even daylight, but it does have a much higher motivation hurdle to address. Oh, motivation, how elusive you are...