Around the House

   I haven't grown sunflowers in many seasons.  I used to get volunteer sunflowers in the backyard after one season of growing them from seeds.  They would do really well because nature knows best when it comes to timing things like germination.  One thing I noticed though, was that all subsequent generations of volunteer sunflowers never grew like the original giant, but rather smaller and bushier with lots of side shoots and thus, smaller flowers.  They look much like the wild ones we see along the state highways in Colorado.

   This spring though, I'm in a growing race with a friend in France to see which one of us gets the tallest sunflower and the first bloom. ^^  She had a head start on me with indoor starts.  I was still getting my backyard strip of flower bed ready bit by bit.  It's still not as nice as my SFG boxes with lots of organic substances, but the sunflowers I planted in the past always did well without much attention and fussing from me, so I'm hoping that once they get going, they'll do just fine mostly on their own.  Anyhow, the packet of Mammoth Russian (or is it Russian Mammoth...?) I had was several years old, but I put them in the ground anyway to see if they'd germinate.  I also had a packet of seeds of other sunflowers that are shorter with different colored petals that was a few years old, so I put these seeds in the ground as well.  A week later, I saw some sunflower seedlings.  The one in the photo above is the biggest one I've seen so far.

   These are one of the four large clumps of irises along our garage.  They are pretty much left on their own (You can see the old stalks and dead leaves from previous season in the picture.) and the only water they get is the runoff water from the roof when it rains (And THAT hardly happens here in the desert west of Colorado.).  They do, however, perform very well every spring, protected by the garage and kept warm from the reflected and radiating heat off the siding.

   Here is the photo of one of the roses in my front yard.  This one is in the dappled sun from the wisteria vines.  I can't remember what the variety was, but I think they look a lot like Angel Face. ^^;

   This is one of the hybrid irises I have in our front yard.  The heavily crinkled petals give the ruffled appearance.  The blue is a deliciously rich shade of royal blue.  And the petals glisten in the sunlight.  (So many things the camera fails to capture... ^^; )  I can't remember the name of the variety, though.

   A slightly different angle of the same iris.  It's showing a little more purple than it actually is.  The actual color is closer to the first photo.

   After the irises are done blooming, with the peonies and bachelor's buttons also done blooming about the same time, I will have a lull in the garden until the roses really pick up.  It got me thinking though, because after the first series of blooming by the roses, I will have a period of time where there's no bright color going in my front yard until the canna and cosmos start to flower.  This got me motivated to till the small empty space behind the irises in my front bed where nothing is growing at the moment.  I'll plant some kind of annuals so weed control will be easier from season to season.

Corn Seedlings Plus Other Flowers Around the House

   Their tiny tips poked up two days ago, but it would not have shown in the photo with all the specks of colors in the soil mix, so I waited till this morning to take a picture.  Corn seedlings look like baby canna and so easy to distinguish from the seedlings of elm trees.  I can be pretty casual about pulling the weeds in this box.

 
   My pots on the back steps out of the kitchen.  I think the garden fairies are enjoying a little more color than before now that the pansies and sweet williams are producing more blooms. ^^

   Around the house to the front yard.  The magenta peonies have fully bloomed.  My camera has the hardest time capturing the deep bluish red colors like this flower's.  But you can see the silky shine on the petals and how they pick up the light.

   Another angle of the same peony bushes that are producing the magenta blooms.  They are in the shade of the wisteria vines, protected from the mid-day sun.

   The "Samurai Warrior" irises have started blooming.  They have the wonderfully rich, maroon-brown, brick-red color with beards showing orange and purple.  Blooms are rather large for their overall stature.

   Another angle, looking at the same two blooms.  The colors are delightful against the fresh green of the grass in the morning light.

Day 28

   The spring veggies box on Day 28.  It's hard to believe it has been 4 weeks since we got this box started.  It's also been a lot of fun to keep visual record of growth.  I slept in this morning, so this photo was taken in full sun when the boxes were out of the house's shade.  Everything looks brighter. :D  You can see the radishes are starting to overflow from their squares. And the Alaska peas (farthest back to the left) are about 8 inches tall now.  The corn box (SFG Box 3) is just now starting to see seedlings appear.  They are still too little to show up well in photos, so I'll wait a few days before taking pics of them.  It took them about 11 days to germinate.

   The irises from the front yard.  The pale blue ones do so well in my yard and they have dominated in good years and bad years.  I have not seen the two-tone pink ones in several years, so I'm delighted to see them come back.  I think they look lovely together.

   The white peony I took a picture of on Friday, May 4th, has fully blossomed.  It was already too heavy for the stem to support the weight of the bloom and it was drooping. I had to prop it up with my left hand for this photo. ^^;  So many soft white petals, accented with streaks of magenta.  I love it!

   My camera has a really hard time capturing the deep magenta hue.  Same thing happens when I take a picture of Sweet Williams and the First Prize rose.  The color of this peony is actually bluer and deeper magenta.  It just started opening yesterday, so it still has a little more to go before it looks as stunning as the white one.

   One of the two pots of canna I have in the front porch.  They are one of the giants of summer plants, and therefore, really fun to watch them grow.  Especially now that the daily highs are consistently in the mid 80s, they are really liking it and show their appreciation of the hot sun by growing fast.  The seedlings of dwarf marigolds encircling the pot are also doing well.

   My Russian Olives in the front yard have started blooming and they smell absolutely wonderful!  It's a refreshing, green scent, not like the other spring flowers like lilac and wisteria, but it wakes up your senses and makes you want to take a deep breath and keep repeating.  I just LOVE the smell of these tiny yellow flowers.  I grew these two trees from one-year-old branches that were rooted in the soil medium.  When I got them from a friend, they were no thicker than a pencil and not much taller than a foot.  They are now about 15 feet tall and equally wide after 15 years.

Day 26

     It's hard to believe it's been 26 days since we put this SFG box started.  These are still baby plants, but the whole thing looks so fun right now, now that each square is getting more filled out with one variety of vegetable to make it distinct.  I thinned out the Swiss Chard this morning so that I have one each of the four colors: pink, red, orange, and yellow.  I pinched off the above-ground portion of seedlings about 1.5 inches.  I washed the little leaves and tasted them right away.  They were mild with the fresh green taste.  Yum! :D

   The "Alaska" peas are now about 6 inches tall.  They are the fastest growing veggies in this box.

   Years ago, I had seeds from the "Blue Flower Garden" packet of mixed seeds.  I scattered them in the backyard and on the side of the front lawn.  We still get volunteer plants of Bachelor's Buttons.  Most of them are blue, but I spotted a deep purple one.  We had very little precipitation this past winter and spring, so the plants are shorter than usual and blooms are smaller.  Still pretty, though. ^_^

   A fluffy peony bud in the front flower bed.  These guys have a few magenta streaks inside of them.

      The first peony bloom of the yard.  It's already too heavy for the stem to support, so it's leaning over. ^^;

   One of my favorite irises in my yard -- pink and magenta.  This was also in the mixed batch of rhizomes that I got from a friend years ago and I don't know the name of the variety.  I generally love the two-tone irises like these.  I have another variety that is peach on top with reddish purple on lower petals, but I haven't seen them in a while...

Rare Rain

Yesterday afternoon was quite unpleasant with strong gusts of wind stirring up dust and debris all through the valley and limiting visibility.  My asthma acted up from all the particles in the air and kept me inside for the afternoon. :(  The good thing was that once the low pressure front that was causing all the gusty winds finally crossed into the area, we got a bit of rain.  It's so dry in our area we are lucky to see moisture on the ground -- usually you see rain clouds in the sky, but rain drops do not reach the ground.

So when we got up this morning, and it was still raining, it felt so nice and cool.  I think everyone loves that smell of rain. :)

I don't get to see this very often in our yard -- rain drops on petals.  There's nothing that feels quite as refreshing as seeing cool dew drops on delicate flower petals.

So lovely! *sigh*

While I was admiring the iris, I saw the first rose of my yard.  This bush is planted really close to the foundation of the house and well protected.  This particular bloom was so low to the ground, I almost missed it.  It definitely cannot be seen from the street at all behind all the pale blue irises.  I think this is called "First Prize".  It produces huge, richly saturated magenta/deep hot pink colored flowers with lots of petals with a nice fragrance.  Here, this one's looking a little bit frost damaged along the tips of the petals.

Our wistera vine was hit by the late frost when it was loaded with bud clusters.  T_T  At least, a few dozen clusters had survived and they are still blooming while the vine started to leaf out.  I love the combination of reddish/brownish green leaves against the purple.

Now that the days are consistently hot, the cannas have started growing vigorously.  I planted some dwarf marigold seeds around the periphery of the pot and you can see the tiny seedlings starting to appear.  Once the canna leaves reach good size, I will remove those cat-deterrent sticks. *can't wait*

Spring Vegetables Box: Day 16

   The spring vegetables box that got started on April 8th (Easter Sunday) is now starting to look fun with seedlings in just about every square.  This is when things start to get exciting.  Their growth is noticeable from one day to the next.

   It's been a fun chore to pick out the seeds from the Chinese Elm trees in the neighborhood that fall in our SFG boxes.  They're so pesky this time of the year.  Years ago, I lived next to an old couple who enjoyed flower gardening in a smaller scale.  The old man would be seen vacuuming the elm seeds with his Electrolux out in their driveway, vacuuming the flower bed.  I thought it was comical back then, but now I think he was brilliant.   I got the paving blocks brought over from the abandoned garden plot to keep my shoes from getting muddy when I water the boxes.  This has been a "build as you go" kind of project all along.

   The "Alaska" peas seedlings.  I planted two to a hole.  Almost all of them successfully germinated, so I'll have to thin them when they get a little bigger.  I just realized that the recommended spacing for peas in the SFG method is 8... not 9. XD  Oh, well. (I guess I can pluck out the center ones from each square?)

   My husband got the frame for the third box ready.  We'll put a weed barrier on the bottom and it will be growing a crop of corn for us this season.  There will be a fourth box of summer vegetables.  I'm still waiting for the local nursery's veggies to grow a little bigger.  I checked their green house yesterday and their tomato, pepper, and eggplant were still tiny baby seedlings.  Technically, our area's average last day of frost is April 29.  There has been some years with killing frosts as late as the first week of May, so I'm going to play it safe with those tender summer veggies and wait a little longer.

   Bridal Veil shrub coming into bloom.  Our cats love to curl up under this shrub, hidden away from others, cool from the hot sun.  Speaking of hot, it was almost 90 degrees yesterday.  The weather man on the news said it's about 20 degrees above the normal average daily high for this time of the year.

   And because it's been so warm, my irises have started blooming about a week ago.  This is a rhizome I got from a friend years ago and I don't know the name of the variety, but I have many around the house. XD   I did a better job of keeping the weed under control in my perennials bed last season, and they seem to be doing much better.