Perfect Pansy

Once upon a time, I bought a potted pansy at a nursery. I enjoyed it, and then planted it in one of the front gardens. And every year since then, it has reseeded itself and blossomed. It likes my yard, and it's here to stay.

I have a good friend who comes to visit every so often, and she stays, too. She always says she has somewhere she needs to go and something she needs to do, but we chat and drink Cokes and she lingers. She tells me that she likes it here, but she doesn't need to tell me that. Just staying tells me that. I can't think of a nicer compliment.

Here's to happy plants and friends who stay.

Daylily Day

So I'm thinking maybe if I don't want to start spraying chemicals all over my stargazer lilies, I'll replace them with daylilies instead. I only have one small garden with daylilies but they have filled in over the past few years and I'm planning to separate them soon. And of course I need more of them, because there are so many different cultivars. I have this one, several yellow and several pink. I think these would look nice in the beds next to the house, which are looking pretty sad this year.

Clematis Climbing All Over

Every year this plant gets bigger. I forgot to cut it back last fall, so I ended up doing it this spring and even cut off some of the new growth. Didn't matter--it would still grow right up the side of the house if it could. I kinda want to make a bigger trellis that goes up to the roof. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Lily Land

Even with the lily beetles going to town, the Asiatic lilies have been blooming for the past few days. I am pretty sure I'll spray with something stronger next year. Last year I used Neem oil, but this year it's been raining too much to keep up with it. I pick the beetles off, and remove the eggs and any of the grubs I see, but I can't seem to get rid of all of them before they damage the plants. And it's hard to take pictures of moth-eaten plants.

Potatoes! Potatoes! Boil 'em, Mash 'em...

This is the first time I've ever tried to grow potatoes, and they are going nuts. My personal theory is that they don't have any pests yet because they're "new". I'll never be able to grow them again because next year the bugs will find them. So let's hope for a good potato year.

I started them in the raised beds, which wasn't very smart...it makes them hard to hill up. I'll have to add a lot more soil to the beds. I have 8 plants in two of the raised beds, and a short row with about 5 more plants. Then I put in a few more next to the raspberries. We'll see what happens!

Late Blight in Tomatoes

Boy am I glad I only planted tomato seedlings from Mom. Seeing a lot of late blight in tomatoes on the East Coast this year, and they're asking people to destroy plants if they see it in their gardens. I haven't noticed any...but of course, haven't spent much time out there in the rain in recent weeks.

Wordless Wednesday is Clematis