It seems to me that the year 2023 whooshed by in a hurry to 2024. The gardener in me is already plotting out what I’d like to see in my garden in the next growing season. I thought it might be fun to reflect upon some of that beauty of last year as I look forward to the growth and beauty in the year that lies ahead. Won’t you join me?
Continue reading “My 2023 in Flowers”Tag: Sunflowers
A Week of Flowers – Day #7
Here is my Day #7 offering of floral photos for A Week of Flowers hosted by Cathy of Words and Herbs. Sad to see the week come to an end, but will look for an invitation to participate next year–this was fun.
Today I’m sharing a few of the “sunny” colors from my garden. I hope they brighten up your day no matter what season you’re enjoying in this beautiful world.
Willy-Nilly Gardeners
Every year I find sunflowers growing in my garden in places where I wouldn’t have chosen — perhaps planted by the resident squirrels who are a bit willy-nilly in seed placement. Sometimes I pull the volunteer plants out—most of the time I just leave them to grow and enjoy whatever happens.
This beauty was one of my favorites–classic sunflower perfection.
Continue reading “Willy-Nilly Gardeners”Mid-Summer Garden Lovelies
~William Cullen Bryant
Hot Weather Lovers
A September Walk in the Park
Wordless Wednesday
Six on Saturday: Need More Color
My husband Wayne has been trying out a new hobby – flying a drone. So far he has been sticking close to home as he practices maneuvering his new toy. I asked him to take a few aerial photos of my gardens. One thing I noticed was that color is quite lacking in my fall garden. I have a few mums and asters to plant, so maybe that will help.
While the gardens are a bit drab at the moment, I do have a few things which are looking quite pretty. Maybe you’ll remember the pots I planted (with a little help from a squirrel). My theory was correct. He stole the seed from another area and planted a sunflower seed in the middle of one of those pots. It ended up being ‘Teddy Bear’, a short and bushy variety, which sports a long-lasting golden yellow flower. I will probably plant more of them next year.
Mystery sunflower! 
‘Teddy Bear’ Sunflower. Perfect choice!
Here’s an update on Datura ‘Blackberry Swirl’. It’s still blooming in my garden and I’m still undecided as to whether I will keep it. The flower IS pretty spectacular, but it is an evening bloomer, so is rather ‘meh’ during daylight hours. This post explains my thoughts concerning the drawbacks of Datura. I did go ahead and snip off the seed pods so as to not invite more of the plants.
I planted quite a few peacock orchids earlier in the summer. They’re blooming now and quite lovely. The flower is rather demure, but the fragrance is incredibly beautiful, reminding me of jasmine. The flower isn’t an orchid at all – it belongs to the iris family. I plan to dig them up and store the corms for the winter to replant in late spring. Next year I will plant them in larger groupings, as I think they’ll make a bigger impact that way. If I plant more of them in the little flowerbed by the mailbox, the neighbors who pass by on their walks just might get a whiff of their perfume.
My garden does have a few areas which still have color. The clematis on the arbor that leads to the backyard is finished, but the phlox planted at its base is still strutting its stuff. The sedum in the foreground is still hosting parties for the bees and butterflies too.
One last photo of the shaded area beneath our locust tree. The color is courtesy of potted impatiens in my favorite shade of pink. I’m really happy with how this flowerbed turned out this year.
Next year I plan to plant up more pots to help layer my garden with color at various heights. I shared my thoughts about that plan with my husband. Next thing I knew I had a stack of pots and bags of potting soil in the garage. Yep, he totally supports my barefoot gardening endeavors.
That’s it for my Six on Saturday. Many thanks to our host, Jon the Propagator. It’s always a pleasure for me as a gardener to see what fellow gardening enthusiasts all around the world are doing in their respective garden spaces each week. I hope you’ll check it out and perhaps share your own six next week.
Six on Saturday: Flower Partners
Let me invite you to join me for my ‘Six on Saturday’ writing challenge and a glimpse of my late summer flower garden.
“Some say that a garden just grows from seeds, but we think it grows from trying and failing and trying again. A garden is hard work, but so is most of the good, important stuff in life.”
― Joanna Gaines, We Are the Gardeners
Gardening does involve a good bit of trying and failing; I’ve had a bit of both this year. My garden is like a classroom, and I will confess that I am a bit of a YouTube junkie when it comes to learning about gardening. Early this summer I watched several Garden Obsessions videos from Proven Winners and was inspired by this video to grab three empty pots from the garage, fill ’em with soil, add some slow-release fertilizer, and choose three plants for each.
Pot #1: My Favorite
The first plant I chose from a local nursery was a beautiful coleus. I had admired some grown in pots at my workplace and just knew I would have to plant some this year. I thought a purple flower would pair up nicely with the chartreuse of the coleus, so chose Proven Winners’ Angelface Blue Angelonia, described on the tag as a summer snapdragon which should achieve a height of 18-30″. I also purchased a Fantasia Pelargonium (geranium) called ‘Summer Sizzle’ to add a punch of hot pink.
Pot #2: Pretty in Pink
This pot features another Proven Winners plant. It’s a Supertunia Mini Vista Pink Star. It looks so sweet spilling over the edges of the pot. This petunia hasn’t gone all leggy on me and is a self-cleaner, not requiring pinching and deadheading. I paired it with an annual Hawaiian Punch hibiscus, which is a truly dreamy shade of pink with a magenta throat. Deadheading (removing faded blooms) the hibiscus does promote new blooms, so it does require a little bit of fuss and bother, but totally worth it.
Pot #3: A Little Help from my Friend
Sticking with my purple, pink and green color scheme, I planted this third pot with a bit of lavender for the purple and Pentas Bee Bright Pink for the pink. Instead of purchasing another plant, I decided to dig up a little something from my garden to use as a filler – some sort of heuchera. It looks like I needn’t have worried about a third plant, as a squirrel chose to plant a sunflower smack-dab in the middle of the pot. The squirrel probably stole the seed from my birdfeeder, but I’m really hoping he procured one of the seeds from the little plot of sunflowers I planted which met their demise earlier this summer (story a bit further down in this post). We shall see. Anyway, this pot makes me smile every day.
A Walk in the Park
It’s not my garden, but I took a walk in a park I found near my work place (I’ll post about that later), and absolutely adored this sweet pairing in the park’s glorious meadow.
The Upside and Downside of Sunflowers
I set out this summer to plant these sunflowers here and there dotted throughout my existing flowerbeds. You can read about my great expectations for that garden here: Year of the Sunflower. Well, none of those seeds made it past the dinner table of my yard’s resident bunnies. I wrote about their late night marauding in an update you’ll find here.
Thankfully, they didn’t get into one of the raised beds where I had planted a packet of Livingston ‘Little Dorrit’ sunflower seeds, planted on the south-facing side of the first raised bed, since it was supposed to attain a height of 2-4′. Its packet declares “Little Dorrit produces a large, rich yellow head with a deep chocolate center. The large, green foliage accents the shorter stems and brilliant blooms.”
It ended up being closer to the 4′ prediction in height and did not disappoint in its beauty.
Well, that’s it for now. My Six on Saturday. Now, let’s see yours!
Year of the Sunflower Update
One walk past my yard this time of year and you would definitely know that
I love daylilies!
To this gardener, a daylily just says “summer is here!”
When the heat of August arrives and most daylilies have finished strutting their summer beauty in Midwest gardens, another flower is poised to shout the news heralding “Summer’s not over just yet!”
The sunflower!
Sunflowers are charming – they make me smile. So, why do I rarely plant them in my gardens? Squirrels will occasionally steal some seed absconded from the birdfeeders and bury them willy-nilly in the yard, so I do get the occasional volunteer.
I am thankful my hubby surprised me earlier this summer with several packages of sunflower seeds, paving the way for 2021 to be the Year of the Sunflower at my house. At the end of that post I wrote:
We have a HUGE bunny population this year, so I won’t be surprised if my smattering of sunflower seedlings become their next snack. However, I hope they will save me at least a few to provide late summer splendor and autumnal color. I’ll keep you posted.
Cindie Winquist, in the “Year of the Sunflower”
So, here I am again, keeping you posted.
I planted those gifted seeds a little later than I should have, but faithfully watered. Heavy spring rains threatened to drown them, and the heat and drought conditions that followed seemed to bring them to their demise. After nearly three weeks, they finally poked their little green heads above the earth! Then, seemingly overnight, those little seedlings made their way skyward. Even the forgetful gardener’s failure to keep them consistently watered didn’t seem to deter their growth.
One fateful night last week, as predicted, the resident bunnies decided they would make a smorgasbord out of the young sunflowers. Even though we had surrounded the raised beds with a plastic grid of garden fencing, they managed to find their way into the midnight buffet line in one of two raised beds of sunflowers.
They filled their bunny bellies and left one solitary sunflower and a few stalks standing.
The garden crashers came back the following night and polished off the remaining bits for dessert. You might notice in the photo below how the bunny leaned in on the fencing to finish it off.
Thankfully, you can also see in the background of the photo above one raised bed of sunflowers they have not yet marauded.
Stay tuned…there’s still hope!
Barefoot Lily Lady 