Hi, I am fairly new here in the mid west and it has taken me some time to get established.
This year I was finally able to put in a perennial bed and I wanted to include photos of a first year garden.
Back home it is considered to need 3 years for a perennial garden to be 'nice' and established. Is that the same here? I have noticed everything grows faster and bigger faster so far!!!
a discount limelight hydrangea....5 bucks! Wineberry Candy daylily.
Raz A Ma Taz Echinachea
I keep calling this echinacea Montana but it is Big Sky!!!
Someone told me echinacea and black eyed susan grow like weeds, so I figured I would plant a few different varities of them and see what happens to these type of weeds here.
Besides my name is Susan and I have dark brown eyes!!!
This message was edited Jul 11, 2007 4:26 AM
Not sure of this ones name, a gf gave it to me, and it is pretty, in its second year!
Another Black Eyed Susan
That is the duck feed bowl, I have some runaway ducks swimming up all the time so I decided to feed them. They are one Motley Crew of ducks, I mentioned on anothe rpost...1 White, 1 Black, 1 Light gray 1 Khaki and 1 Khaki Mallard cross. They are just too funny to watch!!
Pretty new daylily!
This tri coloured willow just does not want to grow next to the water, which suprises me. Is it not that hardy here? I put it there thinking it would be a vigourous grower but it has not been. We are zone 5a. Next to resevoir. It is in 3rd summer there. Well planted fall then last summer and this.
I really out to put everthing to spell check first......
This message was edited Jul 11, 2007 4:36 AM
The view from that garden.
An Amish friend made this for me to sit and enjoy the view from.
Wow!! Love your garden!!
Welcome to Dave's your places is lovely .
your plantings are restful to the eye ,
your place is very serene looking .
What is your favorite flower ?
I am Day Lilly, Iris person with other plants thrown in for fill.
Very lovely, it looks so relaxing. You've done a nice job.
Well the Hostetler's will make you one if you want. They sell for around 250! They are treated with a lindseed oil to allow for aging without too much rot but this year I am going to put a coat of Thompson waterseal on it to preserve it.
I am a Hosta lover first and foremost, but I am starting to like perennials too. So far Black Eyed Susan are my favorite and I have had them in every garden since I was 18, I am 44 now! Daylily have become important because they grow so easily here, almost a weed! Then Echinachea! Well then I saw Bee Balm last week and well...so it goes...
LOL
Here is a pic of my 1 of my Hosta gardens.
Thanks for your fun and kind words, a nice warm welcome to this forum in the midwest!
More of Hosta, the garden is slowly filling out as my pocketbook slims down.......
:0
They were just on our local garden walk here. It was nice to see an Amish Farm on a garden tour. The style was so simple and I would say elegant even. The vegetable garden they do up is almost a lost art around English as we are known so it is nice to see it not only thrive there but flourish. She has five generations on her farm living there and they were out in full force. I was over a couple days before the tour to offer help and even the men were out cleaning up....lol. I told the Dad ... I bet this was your first time in the garden, he smiled and said yeah it about be his first. He is in his 50's! Such a lovely family. My gf got some pics I am going to have to get her to post them here. She just lurks online, but has the most amazing garden herself!!!
This is a pic she took in her garden last year.....
Your gardens are beautiful!! They look so weed free too. How do you manage that? Mine can be pretty too when I can manage to control the weeds. But I sure don't have the design creativity you posess. Your Big Sky and the hosta are probably going to be my favorites. You don't want to let Blk. Eyed Susans get started in central MO. Very quickly that is all you will have. Voice of experience. LOL
Where is 'back home' to you?
Back home in British Columbia, and I know they are weed like here as well. But I like everything to grow together and be all full! So I can dream!!!
Now weeds.....I mulch and use preen, round up, and then when I have to I pay the kids......I am not weed free but I try to keep it to a min. so that it does not get away from me. I walk out everyday and do a bit more, it is pathalogical!!!
leaflady: What are your fav. midwest perennials?
tazzy: I love daylily and iris. I have a few of each but no names on any. None of my iris bloomed this year, I did plant them last fall in those beds but nothing this spring, not one bloom. I have been watching for iris borer? and trying to keep them clean looking. Anything else I should do? The daylily seem to be prolific here!
it was bad year for iris .
they just need some low nitrogen fertilizer in fall and spring .
Make sure you have rhizome almost out of-ground they wont bloom if planted deep and they are pron to rot .
it rained for 6 weeks on and off ground is saturated
iris hate this except Louisiana Iris
70% of my iris are dieing from rot
hmm, I have mulch around the iris, so I guess I will demulch them. That is probably the problem. The rhizome is not sticking out. :)
No rain here, they are crying for it for the corn and soybeans but everytime they predict it it just fizzles out before we get any. I myself am ok with that because we have been busy building a rock retainign wall and would be unable to build it if rain starts. Last year we had to leave it cause it was just way too wet and then we lost 4 - 6 ft of the bank to erosion. We have the main part in and could wait another year if we have to but it would be nice to finish it.
This pic is before the bank of rock!
During the main part of the rock......see where the bobcat got stuck!! That was a highlight.
Just waiting on the 4H fair to be done then we will be back at the wall to put smal river pebbles in and around the main wall.....
Here it is done with boulders!!!!
Wow!! Your wall looks great!!! I wish we had walls that looked like that!!
That wall is lovely. I know it took a lot of planning & work. We don't have anything like that near the yarden to put a retaining wall up for.
My favorite perennials would be Spiderwort, Daylilies, Hosta, Mums, Asters & Iris. I also like small shrubs such as Flowering Almond, some larger ones like Forsithia & Spireas, Highbush Cranberry, Mock Orange, Clove Shrub and the old fashion lilacs. Hollyhocks and other altheas are nice but I now have way too many of them. I like quite a few annuals like Cosmos, Cleome, Marigolds, etc. I also love Clematis and hardy Passion Vine. The list could really go on & on. Much to my late DH's disgust, I love the wild Datura called Jimson Weed. He said it was embarassing to have other farmers know his wife was deliberately growing a weed that most people are trying to get rid of. Same with wild morning glories. I just had to learn how to control them so the population didn't get too high or he would go on a massacre sometime when I wasn't home.
LOL. I can see him attacking the garden.
rofl leaflady, I saw a garden in the neighourhood growing milkweed which farmers destroy here. I thought it was very pretty. I also love morning glory but after my experience back home (where it overtook a shed) I will not grow it because of its ability to outwit me!! I am afraid I would be the one out with your dh hacking away at the weeds!!!! (I do still love the flowers tho!)
I was wondering about that cranberry bush? Is it functional cranberry or just a bush?
This message was edited Jul 14, 2007 7:42 AM
Pepper, his weapon of choice was usually the weedeater tho he was known to use the lawnmower.
I can't seem to get enough milkweed to grow in one spot to make a nice grouping. Since it is eatable if you know how to prepare it I would like to grow more of it, but it never seems to work out for me.
The cranberry bush is an American Highbush Cranberry, standard size. I grow it for the birds. I had a dwarf one but it never thrived and I finally removed it.
I can not imagine eating milkweed, it is so, well not tender looking, but then I are artichoke before I saw what it looked like and it is lovely and tender, so what do I know?
