Moving Over to a New Blog

If you have been following this blog at pardonmygarden.wordpress.com, this is the last posting.  My storage reached its maximum and I have started a new blog.  Please feel free to check it out at littlebackyardworld.wordpress.com.

Male American Goldfinch makes a brief visit to the birdbath.

Thanks for visiting these past four and a half years.  I have learned a lot and enjoyed sharing!

Prairie verbena flowers with foliage from geranium ‘rozanne’ and alchemilla mollis lady’s mantle.

Stumble Upon Beauty

When you wander around the garden, after the work is all done, you can see beautiful things that you miss when you are in a hurry.  The flowers are starting to bloom, one at a time, and each one is a little different.

Lily of the valley.  This aggressive ground cover made its way to our yard from the neighbors, but I love these dainty flowers and the delicate fragrance.

These little blue bulbs, scilla I think, are hard to see from the kitchen, but slowly open in May each year.

Baptisia Australis – Blue Wild Indigo just starting to open.

In this picture the indigo is on the right, before it began blooming.  On the left is the Fothergilla bush with its white blooms.  The purple lysimachia ‘firecracker’ make a great contrast to the panicum virgatum ‘rotstrahlbusch’ switch grass.  The tall bush in the middle is a spice bush and the viburnum on the right is ‘raspberry tart.’  I planted another Fothergilla bush this spring but it is not looking great.  I will need to prune off quite a few dead branches and then hope it recovers.

Prairie Verbena

Geranium sanguineum.  This geranium is near the prairie verbena.

Purple columbine.  I have a lot of pink columbine near the geranium and verbena, but only this purple one was open.  It looks blue due to the lighting or my camera…

The ajuga are a shade loving ground cover that are in bloom now.

Purple and Gold

The kids are going to college soon.  In honor of their school colors, here is some purple and gold from the garden this week.

The cucumber blossoms are gorgeous this year.  The turf grass looks so green after the rain.

I was surprised to see two clematis flowers blooming yesterday.

We have a lot of yellow tomatoes to eat this year!

Prairie verbena.  Just planted this year, but doing well.

Last year I planted purple browallia and yellow moss roses in this planter, but this year I threw it back by the vegetable garden and did nothing.  Then this week I saw that the moss roses came back on their own, despite the drought, and have started to bloom.

Geranium ‘Rozanne’

The Caryopteris bush almost died over the winter.  This little lavender flower does not look like much, but when a whole bush blooms at once the bees go crazy.

This fall garden is meant to be yellow and purple, but different things bloom at different times.  The veronica – spike speedwell are purple now, but hard to see in the middle of this picture.  Soon we will have purple asters and goldenrod on the right.

Food Adventures

I enjoy trying new fruits and vegetables in the garden.  I just want to see if they will grow without too much work and if I will enjoy eating the item.

This morning, when making our blueberry, banana, lettuce shake, I went out to the garden to see what I could find to add.  Here are strawberries, juneberries, raspberries and mulberries, fresh picked.  Not so many strawberries left with this dry weather.  The birds are eating the Juneberries (Serviceberry)  so I wanted to get some before they are gone.  The raspberries belong to the neighbor, but they were hanging over into our yard…..

Juneberries on bush.  Amelanchier Laevis – Allegheny Serviceberry.

The kale needs to be eaten before it gets too big.  Maybe I can cook some soup…

I ordered sweet potatoes through the mail.  I have four or five mounds around the yard.  I hope they produce sweet potatoes!

Cucumbers taking off.  Also getting going are tomatoes, beans, peas, beets, sweet corn and potatoes.

Prairie Verbena.  I planted this about a month ago and it seems to be happy and starting to bloom!  In the top left are nasturtiums that I have planted as annuals all over the yard this year.