Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: April, 2014

I wish I'd taken photos for this last weekend.  The tulips and narcissus were in full bloom.  We had a front come through today, and the rain pushed most of them sideways.  Here's a relatively short set of photos for an April Bloom Day:

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The columbines just started blooming.

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 Narcissus and tulips

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The view from the kitchen table

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The dogwoods aren't blooming as profusely this year.  This one has the most blooms of any in the yard.

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The view from the library window

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Some of the happiest flowers, right now, are the ones that have escaped from the flower beds into the grass - like this mazus.

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 This ajuga also is happy in the lawn.

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The leopard's bane is escaping into the yard too.

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Usually, this azalea bush is covered with flowers - but not this year.

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Happy violets in the grass

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 When I open the blinds in the bedroom, this view of the dogwood flowers makes me very happy.

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 View of the viburnum prunifolium (black haw) tree from another window in our bedroom. 


Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: March, 2014

It's been a while since I blogged - the show took all my creative attention and lots of my other attention too.  I finally have most of the downstairs cleaned up after weeks of bringing things in and dumping them somewhere.  Today, we spent lots of time cleaning up outside from the ice storm a week ago.  We were in Charleston right after the ice storm so we're finally getting to take care of the yard.  It was a lovely, warm afternoon!

DSC08068sOur yard is roughly pie shaped, and the point of the pie goes downhill here.  This is what it looked like the day after the storm as the ice started melting (view from older son's bedroom).  Here's a close-up:

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We took care of the two trees on the left and the one that you can't really see well on the right in the shadows.

While we were in Charleston, SC, lots of bulbs started blooming!  Here are some of them:

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Reticulated irises

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I love the stripes on this crocus.

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Scilla

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Daffodils and more reticulated irises in front of a large branch from the cedar tree.  When younger son was a toddler, we had a swing hanging from that branch (the flower bed wasn't there then).  The ropes for the swing were long so the swing made a large arc.  He still remembers how fun it was.   We're trying to figure out something special to do with the branch.

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Daffodils and white crocuses in front of the top half of a tree (the one in the shade in the first two photos)

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A close-up of the crocuses

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More daffodils and another large branch

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Crocuses and small daffodils

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A wonderful patch of crocuses!

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day is hosted by May Dreams Gardens - go there to check out more early bloomers.


N.C. Botanical Garden

It was a beautiful, though chilly, day today.  Very unusually, I didn't have any errands I needed to run on the way home from Zumba so I stopped by the Botanical Garden for a very peaceful walk.  There were almost no other visitors there.  

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L"Homme Vert by Forrest C. Greenslade

The Garden is having their annual Sculpture in the Garden exhibit.

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Blue lobelia

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Dolphin's Leap by Douglas Tilden

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Fragrant gladiolus

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Angel's-trumpet

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How October Mountain Got Its Name or Cock-A-Doodle-Do by Lynn Wartski

This is one of my two favorites.

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Sunflower Gate III by Jim Gallucci

This is my other favorite.

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Leaves on a beautiful tree in the parking lot

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Still blooming!

At some point in the fall, I gradually go from "There's not as much blooming anymore" to "It's so wonderful that there's anything still blooming!"*  I'm always very happy to be living in NC in early November (and late February too)(they make up for July).

We had a frost last week, but we covered up plants and the guys hauled lots of pots into the garage and back out the next morning.  Here are the flowers making me happy:

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Pineapple sage

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Impatiens

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The view from the front porch

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These spider flower plants came up on their own.

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I was glad that this nasturtium made it through the freeze when we covered it up.

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Sage

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The "Lady in Red" salvia is one of my favorite annuals.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find any at the local garden stores this year (I found the pineapple sage in Asheville).  I finally ordered seeds in June or July, and I didn't have a chance to plant them (and pay attention to them) until August (after the summer musical was over).  I didn't think I'd get to see them bloom, but they started blooming three weeks ago.  They're about five inches tall (they usually are 3 to 4 feet tall by the end of the growing season).

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Begonias

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The bright yellow chrysanthemums are the last perennials to start blooming every fall.  Here, there just about to start.

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Most of the black-eyed Susan vines got blasted by the frost.  However, this one came up in a hanging pot (I didn't plant it there) which was moved to the garage.  

* I grew up in Detroit, MI and Poughkeepsie, NY, where the highs tomorrow are going to be, respectively, 45 and 48.  The high here should be 63 (5 degrees colder than today).


Being an outdoor person - and my new blog!

I once heard of a family who described themselves as "being indoor people."  With all the hiking and gardening I do, I've long considered myself an outdoor person, but I lost that this year.  With all the exhaustion from the CPAP, I didn't get into gardening last spring the way I normally do.  I didn't even get around to planting all my annuals.  Since I felt exhausted for months (so exhausted that I couldn't safely drive in the evenings and taking walks was challenging), I didn't do much outside.  I started feeling better about three weeks before opening night of the summer musical so I was too busy (and it was too hot) to do much outside, and then I spent the next two months (futilely) trying to catch up on all the things I didn't do when I was exhausted.

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We were on vacation for the first two weeks of October, and it was wonderful!  We hiked twice most days, morning and late afternoon/evening - rain, fog, or shine.  The house had a beautiful view (panorama from the deck above) so we ate outside or I read outside as often as possible.  There was a sheltered spot on the deck that I could sit in even during chilly afternoons (view from that spot of Grandfather Mountain)  I got used to being outside a lot again.  

I feel so much better when I get outside a lot!

DSC05735sThe last three days, I've spent the afternoons working out in the yard.  Yesterday, we spent the morning at the Durham farmer's market, and the garden store, and, this morning, dear husband and I walked at Ayr Mount (right).  

I'm not in choir right now because I'm trying to get my blood pressure down again (it started drifting up over the summer.  The choir chairs are close together, and the choir sits sideways to the altar. I've known this isn't good for my body because I tense up in order not to bump into anyone in the close chairs, and I end up with a tension headache because of keeping my head constantly turned to the side for over an hour.  Every Sunday, I'd get home from choir, change out of my church clothes, and take Advil for the tension headache/backache/Achilles tendenitis/whatever was tense that day.  Unfortunately, the thing I do regularly which makes me the most tense is choir.

Since both my regular doctor and the hypertension specialist have recently recommended relaxation exercises/yoga/etc. to help get my bp down, regularly doing something that leaves my body tense (in a way that exercise, interestingly, doesn't do), undoes what I work at doing for the rest of the week.  I was sad to have to drop choir, but, hopefully, I can return eventually.  

Over the summer (when there's no choir anyway, and even the service I go to is cancelled), dear husband and I got into the habit of hiking on Sunday mornings.  The last few weeks, we've changed that to walks at Ayr Mount, a historic home in Hillsborough.  I decided, both for a new photography challenge and to get myself outside in all kinds of weather, that I would start a new blog.  Last week, I put it together.  It's a new photo blog platform and format, and I'm really enjoying it.  I love the way it displays the photos.

My new blog is 52 Weeks at Ayr Mount.  Ayr Mount is only about 8 minutes away from my house so it should be easier to keep up with the photos than it's been for our Duke Gardens blog, which I've started posting on again also (but which will probably be more intermittent). 


Hope

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DSC04090sThis is my picture of hope for today.  They're the peat pots that you start seeds in.  These were the pots in which seeds didn't germinate or plants died.  I finally cleared the rest out this morning.  They're now in the woods - in the spot where I put things that are waiting to go in the compost bins.  While they wait, they can release their nutrients into the ground to nurture the trees.   The trees above this spot are very happy (right).  

I've grown lots of annuals and many perennials from seed since I started gardening (about 23 years ago).  I started doing it because I couldn't afford to buy the plants. DSC04087s I've kept doing it because it's less expensive, but also because I enjoy it.  Not everything germinates, but I love watching the things that do.  I also love looking at an eight foot plant and knowing that I started it from seed - like the tithonia to the right.  

This year, I did really badly with the seedlings.  I was so tired and unfocused from lack of sleep with the CPAP that I forgot to water or to put the seedlings out in the sunshine.  I had little sunflowers that bloomed four inches tall in their peat pots in the shade on the front porch because I never got around to planting them in flower beds.  They were rather pathetic, I suppose, but I still enjoyed them.  

I started three trays of seeds - spring, early summer, and mid summer.  Fortunately, seeds aren't too expensive because out of the 150 peat pots worth of seeds, I actually transplanted maybe two dozen plants in the flower beds and deck pots.  The rest didn't germinate or didn't survive, and the pots got moldy from being in the shade - which, apparently, doesn't bother "Lady in Red" salvia - my biggest success this summer.  Tithonia also survives neglect pretty well and then takes off when put in the dirt.  

Even the tithonia in the shade did well.  The bed next to the garage only gets direct sun in June and a bit of May and July.  I've never planted anything in there as late as partway into July so, even though these plants came from the same batch as the one above to the right, they only are about three feet tall instead of seven because they haven't gotten enough direct sunlight.  They're still blooming, though:

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If I'd been more practical, or if I'd known how wiped out I'd be for months on the CPAP, I would have known not to start seeds.  I'm glad I didn't and that I had the hope of more plants, even if it didn't pan out.  

I spent $18 for three trays of peat pots, maybe another $15 for the potting soil, and $15 for the seeds.  Actually, it was still a pretty good deal - coming out to about $2 per useable plant.  Even without that, it would have been worth it for the hope of gardening.  


Biltmore Garden Video

When we were in Asheville for our early anniversary trip last weekend, we spent Sunday at the Biltmore Estate.  The gardens are beautiful right now - there's so much blooming and so much color that it was like walking through a box of crayons.  Here's the video I took (I'm still getting used to the camera so it took a few seconds to stop recording at the end):

 

 


Enjoying the gardens

The day I had to leave Zumba because of dizziness, I realized that I had to slow down.  Younger son was encouraging me at lunch that day.  He told me that I should just sit and look at the gardens.  I responded that all I could see were the weeds and things that needed to be deadheaded or fixed.  He said that I should just sit and soak up the sun like a sponge.  I said that that reminded me that the sponge I used washing dishes needed to go through the dishwasher.  He said my mind was kind of broken, wasn't it?!

We had a very quiet Labor Day weekend.  I was really trying to slow down.  Today, I got back from my walk this morning and realized that I could just look at the gardens and enjoy them.  Slowing down is working!

Of course, I got the camera too.  I love all the colors we still have in the gardens this September!

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 This is the view from where I sit for breakfast.  The spider lilies are doing wonderfully this year.  


Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: August 2013

Usually, our mid-August hights are in the upper 80s to mid-90s. Today, the high was somewhere in the low 70's.  

I felt ALIVE!

That's why I'm doing my first Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day post since... oh dear, sometime last year.  I was CPAP-zonked for most of the spring - really, up until I got busy with the summer, community theater musical which just recently ended.  

Taking pictures, though was a perfect excuse reason for being outside even more today.  

Please check out more summer blooms at May Dreams Gardens' Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day!

Here's what was blooming today:

DSC02370sI've never planted dahlias at our current house in Hillsborough because they didn't do well in our back yard in Durham.  I'm glad I finally decided to plant these last fall (I was tempted by them at the Biltmore Garden shop) because these have done well.

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A lot of the color in the flower beds right now comes from the phlox.

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Usually, the cosmos come up from seed in the mailbox bed.  Very few came up there this year, but a number of them came up in the gravel next to the driveway.  Dear husband transplated them, and now the mailbox bed is as beautiful as usual.

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August is the spider month!  This orange garden spider made its web in the side bed, which has the most flowers in bloom (and therefore the most insects).

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The cone flowers and black-eyed Susans are happy in the new bed.

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Rain lily (it's really only about 2 inches tall)(I love how well this new camera focuses)

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Marigolds, nasturtiums, and purple tourenia.  The nasturtiums are a bit too vivid - I'm still getting used to my new camera.

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Because of being exhausted from getting used to the CPAP this spring, I didn't plant as many annuals as I usually do.  This begonia came up from seed on its own.

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The deck has been wonderful to look at from inside on hot days.  I love the colorful African impatiens.  Above it, on the right, is a hyacinth bean with its first blooms.  The tall plant to the left of it is the tithonia.  This one hasn't bloomed yet.

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This cardinal flower also came up from seed on its own.  It's about 5 feet tall, though the top part finished blooming last week.  The hummingbirds love it, and we love to watch them at lunch.  There's a tithonia to the left, and the hummingbirds frequent that too, but there were no tithonia blooms today.

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Black-eyed Susan vine

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This native azalea looked totally dead two years ago.  It was brown, didn't get any leaves or blooms, and the stems snapped.  It greened up last year, and, this year, it's blooming off-season.  I don't understand it, but it makes me happy (the camera didn't want to focus in the shade, though).

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Cleome (spider flower) blooms all summer and reseeds itself.  What more could you want?!

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This spider lily will bloom tomorrow or the day after.  They're some of my favorite flowers of the late summer garden.

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The Japanese anemones are more of the current stars of the garden.

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The rose mallow just started blooming today.  Usually, they bloom in July, but I think they didn't like all the cloudy, rainy weather we had then.

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The hibiscus flowers are all at the end of this post because they didn't bloom until this afternoon.

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This hibiscus was eaten by caterpillars in the spring, but it came back from the roots.  I was glad to see it come back and bloom.

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We used to have a few different Formosa lily plants in our yard, but they eventually all died.  They had little, tiny, 2-3 inch tall plants for only a few dollars at the Duke Gardens sale last fall.  Now, the plants are 5 to 6 feet tall.  This is the first one to bloom.

Happy

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I've been on a hibiscus kick the last few years.  We planted this one two years ago.  It makes me smile. 

Oops!  I almost forgot these photos I took after our evening walk at Ayr Mont.

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By the time I took this photo, there was only one butterfly left on the Joe Pye Weed.  Yesterday afternoon, there were 17.

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More of my hibiscus fascination - this one is only about 2 1/2 feet tall.

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This salvia is another hummingbird favorite.