April Iris Blooms

In late March I posted about how excited I was about all the buds on my irises. Well, bloom they did! It has been a spectacular year for these pretty purple plants.

By April 1 the first iris blooms had opened up.
Previously, these irises were planted in a very shady part of the backyard garden. Once I moved them to the sun, they multiplied very quickly. I've had to divide them every other year so far. Talk about prolific. This year is a divide year, so after they are done blooming, I'll have some irises to share with some garden friends!
I've had quite a time trying to figure out the cultivar/variety. I have some guesses, but no clear identity. Isn't it a beauty though? I love the rich color. I think it is stunning.
They are the perfect component in my front porch bed.

Capturing Spring

Can you believe I almost have roses? This bud is on my David Austin "Golden Celebration" rose. My Austins are covered in buds. I think by the end of the week next week I'll have many beautiful blooms to show off.
"Homestead Purple" verbena is blooming its little heart out under the irises.

And do you spot those iris buds? I should have iris blooms by next weekend!
But that's next week. Spiraea "Van Houtte" is enjoying the spotlight this week. It is covered in pretty blooms.
The bees love it.


Pansies are a staple in my spring garden.
I just love these with their purple, white, butter yellow, and lemon yellow blooms.
And then a pot of orange pansies to complement the new house color. The knockouts will be blooming soon as well. I like to sit here with a book and a cup of tea or glass of wine. Livin' the good life.
Thank you all for your comments about the house color. I am so glad that so many of you like it. I think it might grow on me. Maybe I am just shocked because it is so different compared to the old color. But, you know, I like it darn it. I can't wait to see what it looks like with lantana and knockouts in bloom.

Irises in the Evening Light

This is probably my last iris post for a while. I don't want to bore y'all with photos of the same plants over and over. I am so happy with this part of my garden this year. It seems that after four years of trial and error, this area is finally looks how I always knew it could. I took these photos as the sun was going down, from 5:40 pm to about 6:20 pm.

I turned the compost pile yesterday evening and harvested over 15 gallons of gorgeous, black compost. I've already used about 5 gallons of it on my veggies. I plan to give some to my mom to supplement the clay-heavy soil in her vegetable garden. I'll find plenty of uses for the rest of it, I'm sure!

Irises in the Morning Light

The irises are exploding into blooms this morning. I can't believe how healthy this patch has become. When I moved in to this house, the irises were in two shady spots, and I had just a few blooms that first spring. I vowed to move them to a sunnier location, so I built a bed around a gum tree and moved them on New Year's Day in 2008. In 2009 the blooms were just mediocre. Here are some blooms from this morning.

The morning light isn't the best, so I am going to try to take more photos this evening. I also have my first clematis bloom of the season. This variety is H. F. Young.

Irises in Bloom

I got home from Oxford today and found that my irises are starting to bloom. Aren't they beautiful?



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Easter Morning

My little garden in suburban Mississippi is coming to life. We've had a late spring. The azaleas, phlox, spirea, and confederate jasmine are just now blooming. I took a walk around my garden this morning and took photos of the flowers and foliage waking up to spring. Happy Easter!

Corner bed filled with perennials. Because we had such a hard freeze this winter, the verbena did not come back. I am missing their pretty cascading blooms.

Gladiolus (gladioli?) popping up. These are passalongs from Grandma. I received even more this spring.

Phlox

First iris buds.

Hydrangea, hostas, Autumn ferns, and cast-iron plant begin to grow in this shady spot under my mimosa tree.

Bridal Wreath Spirea blooms and frames the front porch steps. My mom top-pruned it a little too hard, so it lost some of its cascading shape. Ooops!She was just trying to be helpful.

Indian Hawthorne buds out.

Bridal Wreath Spirea blooms, in detail.

In the rose garden: Lambs' ears, shasta daisy, all-purple Mexican bush sage, and russian sage. Along with my yellow and peach roses: Ambridge Rose, Tamora, Molineux, and Golden Celebration.

Raised beds for veggies.

The new plum tree ain't lookin' so hot.

Isn't the color on these azaleas divine?

Azalea "Purple Formosa"

Carolina jessamine

The Big Move

Fall is in the air, and as always, that means fall gardening chores. After work on Friday, I put on my favorite gardening jeans and my clogs, and began one of the biggest projects of the season - moving one of my raised beds.

I love this raised bed that I bought a few seasons ago from Gardeners Supply Company. It is their Two-Tier Raised Bed. One half is six inches deep and the other half is twelve inches deep. Plus, it has these great poles that can be used to drape row covers. I originally placed this raised bed in a spot too shady to grow vegetables, so I decided earlier this year that it was time for a move.

I'd been wanting to move it beside my other two raised beds, but the summer heat and humidity had kept me far, far away from tackling this project. In its new spot, it will get about 8 hours of sun a day in the summer. This area is on a bit of a slope, so I did have to grade the slope a bit.

First, I had to move all the soil from the raised bed to the tarp. I removed about 3/4 of the soil from the deeper bed, then called it an evening. It took me about an hour and a half to clean out the bed, dig, fill the garden cart, then dump the soil from the garden cart onto the tarp.

After attending a family reunion at Holmes County State Park on Saturday, I picked up where I left off and dug out the rest of the soil. Once I had all the soil out, I deconstructed the raised bed (so easy!) and started grading the slope where I planned to move the new bed.

I really hoped to finish the entire project on Saturday since there was rain in the forecast on Sunday, but after digging for another two hours on Saturday evening, I was once again ready to call it quits.

On Sunday morning, I was ready to pull this project together and FINISH IT. My wonderful husband volunteered to help me so that we could try to get it done before the thunderstorms rolled in. We started putting the bed together and moving soil at around 9:30 AM in 65F weather. It was cool, windy, overcast, and threatening rain all morning. In my opinion, the perfect time to do tough chores. By 11 we had the bed built and all the soil moved in. I moved on to other gardening chores (weeding the iris bed, putting fresh pine straw around the raised bed in its new location, moving some elephant ears that were in a bad spot), and Chip (did I mention that I have a wonderful husband?) started on the next big project on my list - moving the compost bin.

By 1 PM two huge chores on my list were done, and I felt great about what we'd been able to accomplish. I don't usually recruit Chip to help me in the garden. I can be terribly bossy out there because I want everything done my way because - after all - it is my garden. Depending on the day I'll either be a real meanie or I'll be nice and let him do it his way, then go back behind him and redo everything. Today, though, we reached a happy balance out there. By the time I got cleaned up, the storms had rolled in for good. It is 9 PM, and it is still raining out there.

So now, my backyard vegetable garden is much improved. I've got a sunnier location for my vegetables, a neater spot for my compost bin, and some additional work space for turning my compost bin.

With fall here, the leaves will be falling from the trees in no time, and I'll fill my lunch breaks with raking and my bin with chopped leaves. Did I mention that I found out that our leaf blower also has a leaf vacuum that chops the leaves? I am really optimistic about managing those leaves this year! We'll see if that changes once they start falling.

And, once again, I leave you with my gardening motto. Happy Fall!