Saturday, June 18, 2011

Nomad flowers

We had a BBQ in our back yard last night - had 50 people over (mostly friends from church or around the neighborhood) enjoying good food, visiting, and walks through the garden. It was a nice night. Several people asked me whether my flowers had all been here when we bought the place or if I had put them in. Some of both...but a lot of the flowers that were here before me were not where they are now.

I've done A LOT of transplanting from place to place.

For example:



Delphiniums / Larkspur

When we first bought our place there were two huge sections of these growing in areas of deep shade. Of course they never bloomed there. I dug them up and moved to a place where they would get some sun and now they are absolutely stunning.



The foxglove / digitalis came from some my across the fence neighbors in back started from seed. It's doing well here, but I'm thinking I may move it to where the delphiniums used to be. Foxglove can thrive in part shade and my sun spots are few and far between, so I'd rather reserve this area for those plants that can't manage anyplace else.

While I like this white one, I'm looking to add to this one with some starts of some others in pinks and lavenders. Since they tend to be short lived biennials I want to plant different ones for a couple years so they can alternate blooming and then reseed themselvs when the originals wear out.



These astilbe htm have been moved FOUR TIMES in the year we've lived here. I think I've finally found a spot where they are very happy and seem to be thriving so I think this is probably where they will stay. I have not yet gotten the big showy plumes of blooms I've seen in photos...we'll see what they do now that they are done moving from place to place.



The petunias I planted in the pot out front were just so-so for a while and the geranium I had growing in the middle never really thrived there. The Morning Glory I planted along with this just up and died. So I yanked the geranium and added one more petunia (the purple) to give the contrasting color the morning glory was supposed to have offered.

Someone at our gathering asked if I considered my yard "done" now that our major projects are finished.

DONE?? Not hardly. I suspect I'll keep moving, shifting, adjusting things from place to place. I'll try new specimens from time to time, giving away some of what I now have. My yard will probably always be in transition.



These Lupine are not mine - I took the picture during my walk along the river. However, I do have three tiny baby lupines I planted out front that were salvaged from a neighbor's seed spill sprouts.

Flowers here, flowers there...I just keep moving them as seems appropriate.
I can't imagine ever really being "done".

3 comments:

Catherine@AGardenerinProgress said...

What pretty flowers you have! I'm jealous of those Delphiniums. I'm trying them again this year, but have never had great luck with them. Slugs or wind or pets seem to break them off before they get a chance. I'm also a big plant mover, it's part of the fun in gardening for me.

Victoria Williams said...

Yes, gardens are never "done" are they?
Your delphinum blooms are lovely. The ones you gave me are still looking good. I think they're saving up energy to bloom beautifully for me next year.
We're often moving plants around, we've moved our Japanese maple at least four or five times. I think we, and it, are happy with its current spot.

Unknown said...

The delphiniums are beautiful, I have a difficult time keeping the plants in my garden. Never sure what happens, maybe I need to read about the plants and what they prefer. Amazing how many times we can move plants and how the live through it every time.

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