Category Archives: loki bed

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – September 2016

backyard bed, bloom day, containers, fence bed, front bed, gate bed, loki bed, perennials

As I review last year’s Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, I notice the Lot’s blooms are a bit behind the point they were in September of 2015 or 2013. I snuck out earlier this morning before logging on for work to catch some pictures in the morning light. The weather has been absolutely beautiful since this past weekend; it is sunny and tops out in the mid seventies degree Fahrenheit with no humidity. Woo-hoo! Here are some of the blooms currently rocking the Lot.

In the South bed, the plumbago and rudbeckia have been showing their colors for a few weeks now. The sedum is beginning to get its cotton candy-colored blooms.

091516_sedumbes

The shrubby cinquefoil is still going strong since Spring. I really love this little shrub for the small, sunny space next to a rose in the South bed. Collapsing onto it are some echinacea. Unfortunately there was some overcrowding in the coneflowers this year, so they battled a bit of disease. If the weather stays cooler, I think I’ll be thinning them out.

091516_cinqufoilcone

The Route 66 coreopsis has been blooming all summer in front of the echinacea.

091516_coreopsisroute66

Here is the crazy mess of color blooming in front of the smoke bush. I think some of the coreopsis cultivars are reverting back into the solid yellow, so I may pull them. It is also possible the plant reseeded from the right side of the South bed.

091516_southbed

Here is a more macro view of the left side of the South bed.

091516_southbed2

There are splashes of rudbeckia all around the backyard. I’d recently thinned these so they’re a bit floppy still from shock. This patch is between the “Grandma Rose” I received from Mrs. J. and the winter savory. Nestled at its base is Josefine, a little garden charm I brought home from our trip to Germany.

091516_josefine

Here is the anemone I saw last season on a garden tour, and had to have for this season! It adds some flower power to a month the Lot had seemed limited in bloom variety. I found it during our annual Spring Nursery crawl. It is doing quite well in the backyard bed.

091516_anenome

Here is a macro view of the right side of the backyard bed. This is one of the beds the Other Half and I extended this season.

091516_backyardbed

These are some asters I had forgotten about! I was trying to wrangle a false indigo into a rope girdle and found the aster blooms beneath the larger, floppy plant.

091516_asters

These are some double-style snapdragons which recently sprung back with the cooling of the weather. While I was working in the garden on Memorial Day weekend, it was humorous to watch a large bumblebee try to get into this flower.

091516_doublesnaps

This is the full planter. My gardening gal friend Miss A. created the arrangement of snapdragons, lantana, and cosmos.

091516_planter

On the left side of the backyard bed, more rudbeckia and a new yarrow have been blooming. The mum is working on opening up.

091516_mums

This is the portion of Loki’s bed I expanded last year. The little plug of lavender really took off! The heuchera are all blooming.

091516_lokisbed

Currently nestled in a hanging planter above Loki’s bed is a new clematis, the prize of this Spring’s Nursery Crawl. I learned of Clematis ‘Rooguchi’ during March’s Smart Gardening conference. This small-bloomed, rambling clematis plays well with other garden plants and blooms all season long. It is a “Type 3” clematis and can be pruned back to the ground in the Spring since all flowers are on new wood.

091516_ragochiclematis

And then there’s the rowdy cousin. Clematis terniflora (known as sweet autumn clematis) is now well established on the Lot and grew like a plant possessed this season. Last year I learned my lesson concerning its rampant growth behavior, so this season I took time to train it and am much more happy with the results. Overall, I feel this worked well as a choice for a climber on the pergola.

091516_autumnclematis

Here is a snapshot of the fragrant, little flowers.

091516_autumnclematisclose

And here is an overall shot of how it appears on the pergola.

091516_pergola

Other blooms present but beginning to wane on the Lot this month are the jupiter’s beard (Centranthus ruber), butterfly bush (Buddleia), cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum), great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica), rose campion (Silene coronaria), hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis) and tall garden phlox (Phlox paniculata).

To see what else is blooming in gardens around the world, visit May Dreams Gardens, the hostess of this meme.

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – May 2016

alley bed, backyard bed, bloom day, fence bed, gate bed, loki bed, perennials, pollinators, spring

A bright and sunny albeit wind-chilled day marks this season’s Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day. Spring has been wonderful on the Lot this year with transplants having made it through the winter, insects already busily buzzing about, and a few new feathered friends visiting the garden.

Currently the South bed is empty of blooms, the tulips having recently passed. The sweet william in the bed has not quite opened yet. Only a bit of carpet phlox is left behind in the Southwest bed. However, on the East side of the Lot, a pretty vignette has brightened up the corner of the house near the gate.

May Flowers in Gate Bed

The labrador violets are still going, now joined by the purple spear-shaped blooms of bugleweed (Ajuga x ‘Chocolate Chip’). The rock foil (Saxifraga) is blooming like the phlox, but this ground-hugging perennial holds its clusters of white flowers above its mat of foliage. Also blooming in the bottom left of the photo is the pasque flower (Anemone patens). Here is a close-up of the flowers.

Pasque Flower

Next are the white blooms of the foam flower, or Tiarella, accompanied by the neighbor’s escapee bluebells.

Blooms in Fence Bed

Further down the fence, the cranesbill has seeded into the backyard from the two plants near the compost bin. Tucked around the Lot everywhere are forget-me-nots.

051316_cranesbill

Sharing the bed with the new cranesbill plant are the dwarf iris. I did some major shuffling around of this plant last season when I removed some tickseed. I’m glad to see the iris have seemed to adjust well.

051316_dwarfIris

And here’s a busy bee on one of the irises.

051316_dwarfIrisBee

The brunnera is in bloom…

051316_brunnera

…as well as the Jack in the Pulpit. Jack invited along some friends this year.

051316_jackInThePulpit

The strawberries which ducked under the fence from the westside neighbor are blooming.

051316_strawberryBloom

And the same bed brings our second year of blooms from the Geum triflorum ‘Prairie Smoke.’

051316_prairieSmoke

Last season I divided the solomon’s seal (Polygonatum odoratum Variegatum) in Loki’s bed. The plants seemed to have weathered the winter well and are currently blooming.

051316_varigatedSolomonsSeal

Here is the Mt Airy Fothergilla, looking quite stunning in the late afternoon light.

051316_fothergilla

The lilac is blooming near the alley bed.

051316_lilac

The Other Half is not the only one who enjoys sticking his nose in the lilacs.

051316_lilacBee

And the last Bloom Day photo is a patch of violas we are not responsible for planting last season, but have been enjoying nonetheless. The violas are an annual in our Zone 6a garden, but reseed for the following season. I’ve let the generations of the little plants wander about the garden for several years now. The recent cold snaps (we had a frost last night) do not bother them.

051316_pansies

That’s all for the Lot this month. Be sure to visit May Dreams Gardens for links to many other May blooms.

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – April 2016

backyard bed, bloom day, bulbs, fence bed, front bed, loki bed, pollinators, spring

Warmer weather has arrived at the time of this Bloom Day, a garden bloggers’ meme where gardeners across the world share what is currently blooming in their gardens. This April on the Lot is dappled in blues, lavenders, and yellows. The snowdrops, tommies, and aconite have faded, but the remaining early spring bulbs are now in bloom.

Early Spring Bulbs Gate Bed

Here is a photo of the soon to be developed, additional backyard bed where we planted a serviceberry shrub last Fall. Glory of the Snow (Chinodoxa luciliae), Blue Squill (Scilla siberica), and Tete-a-tete Daffodil (Narcissus ‘Tete-a-tete’) add little dashes of color around the budding shrub.

Early Spring Bulbs

Also blooming in the backyard are the Ice Stick tulips, which remind me of fried eggs when completely open in full sun.

ice stick tulips

Here is one of the many early pollinators I found around the tulips and other early Spring bulbs when snapping photos for Bloom Day.

bee Ice Stick Tulip

Here is an up close and personal looks at both the Glory of the Snow (with bee) and the Blue Squill.

Bee on Glory of the Snow

Blue Squill

Around front in the South bed, the Lot’s more familiar Spring arrivals are beginning to appear. These daffodils near the front steps always have the prettiest ruffles and frills.

Double Daffodils

And last but not least, our lovely Lenten Rose (Hellebore) in Loki’s bed.

Lenten Rose

There were a few times during the extreme temperature swings this Spring I worried about frost damaging this plant. However, being well established now and the first perennial plant on the Lot every season, it sort of shrugged off the frost each morning and gradually recovered throughout the day. It does a great job brightening up the shade bed where is lives.

lenten Rose Flower

Beyond some cheery violets and violas, that is about it for the Lot this month. To see more beautiful, Spring blooms, check out May Dreams Gardens.