Welcome to my Garden.
Grab a cup of tea,
and join me for a while.
Very nice flowers you've got. I think I have a black thumb cause I only kill plants
http://www.waynehunt.com/alaskagardenjournal.htmlI've been meaning to add you to my friends list on my blog to... Hope you are having a blessed Lord's Day! 
Pretty flowers.
It has been so long since I've writen in my garden journal here!
We've had quite a few changes around here which have kept me from gardening this year as much as I did last year. We put our house on the market about 8 weeks ago, so any gardening I've done has all been done to 'beautify' our home. We've added some hanging baskets of ivy. I got a beautiful little wisteria 'tree' and a hibiscus 'tree'. I've been trying to purchase only plants that can move with us!
My gladiolas are just starting to open up now! The first one is a beautiful deep salmon color. I'm hoping to move some of my bulbs with us, since I put some in pots. My dahlia is also doing well, although I don't see a bud on it yet.
Last week we went to butterfly world and I snapped some photo's to share here.
This is one of the butterflies, on some very colorful little flowers. I'm not sure what the name of this plant is.
I can not remember the name of this flower either. My mom has one that is similiar but it has a pink flower with darker pink and purple 'petals' inside of it. I'll be taking a picture of it soon.
Our new home is a hobby farm, so I expect that I will be doing a whole lot more garden journaling soon! I'll share our preparations to make things ready for next spring. We will also be adding goldfish in a small man made pond at the farm and I would like to create a garden and a path surrounding that area.
We will also have pasture, and I'll be learning about how to care for that, and what types of grasses to add for our new horse!
In the spring I am hoping to plant enough corn to feed our entire family come harvest time! I grew corn in my little garden here in the 'city' last year, and we had two 'skimpy' meals out of it. We all love corn on the cob, but it's very expensive here on the Island. When you are buying enough to feed 8 people (who will all eat AT LEAST 2 ears a piece) it gets too costly, so we wind up only eating corn off the cob mostly. 
I hope to have a very large garden next year, but we'll be breaking new ground so we'll see how that turns out.
The garden is in full bloom now, and it's such a blessing to be able to walk out each day and notice new tulips opening up, other ones looking different now that they are opened up even more and have become even more vibrant! I've always wanted a flower garden full enough of flowers to be able to pick some for my vases, but now that I have them in my garden, I hate to cut any of them! LOL I've been allowing myself 4 tulips cut each week. That's enough to add some color to my kitchen. It seems such a shame to cut them when they last so long if I leave them right in the garden.
Two of my rhodo's are almost fully bloomed. Here's photos from both.
Here's some more photos of some tulips. I never grown tired of all the different shades, and how beautiful they are once they've opened right up!
I think this is one of my favorite tulips now that it's opened right up. I just love how delicate it looks with it's pink and white colors. To me it looks as close to perfection as anything could be!
I was so pleasantly surprised to realize I had so many purple tulips in my garden!
The color of this flower is so rich!
This weekend two of my girls joined me in some garden shopping!
We went out to a plant sale and picked up a small rose bush, 4 hostas, a bunch of bright pink tulips and a columbine for the flower garden.
Then we went to a garden shop and picked up a flat of 12x4 annuals, all different kinds!
I can not wait to see all these flowers blooming! I think we shall have plenty of color in our gardens all summer now! lol
We also picked up a couple of bright burgandy dahlia's, and some geraniums.
I placde most of the different purple annuals in a big wooden half barrel I have out front. I'm hoping some of them will grow to cascade down the side of the barrel.
We also picked up 10 tomato plants of all kinds.
It's time to get the veggies into the garden before it's too late! 
I get so excited in the spring time! 
More photos from my flower gardens!
Bright pink tulip with some yellow. I love the soft fringe on this flower.
A soft pink tulip with white edges. So pretty!
Several colors. I was pleasantly surprised to find that many of the bulbs I got on sale last fall are producing fancy tulips!
This past weekend, hubby and I went away to a resort. They have fabulous gardens and I have to share a couple pics of my favorite tulip! I'll forever be on the hunt for the name of this flower so I can plant a few in my garden!
Notice the 'furry' edges? Amazing! 
I'm very pleased at all the color in my flower gardens this year. Each year I keep adding more bulbs as I find them on sale. Right now I have about 60 more bulbs in my freezer as I'm tricking them into thinking it's winter so I can still plant them this season! I know they'll be stunted, but they should still grow anyways.
Coming up in the gardens are gladiolas, though VERY small. Irises are up about half a foot-a foot high. At the resort we were at, they had 3 that had blossomed already! 
Two of my rhodo's are just beggining to open up! Every year I forget which color they are! LOL
The daffodils are just about done for the season. 
I have some other plants coming up but I'm not sure what they are yet. I'll have to wait until they start to bud.
The magnolia tree is in full bloom and the petals are falling now.
I'm always amazed at the beauty and color that spring greets us with each year! Here are some photos from my gardens.
Bluebells
Our largest cherry tree
Magnolia
Tulip
Today hubby went and got all the lumber he needs to fence in my garden properly! We have two shelties who love to dig in there and we had a small wire fence up before, which was fine when there was just one of them but with the two of them we need something better!
Once the fence is up, the first thing to go in will be my 24 strawberry plants, and some sunflower seeds! I'm going to plant seeds that came right from the giants I got last year! Plus I'll grow some other varieties of sunflwers as well. I'll wait another week before we plant the veggie seeds.
My daffodil's are in full bloom so I thought I would share some photos!
I wish I could get a photo that shows all my Daffs, but it started to storm out when I was taking the photos so we had to quickly gather our things and head indoors!
We planted all our flower seeds in the front flower beds today! We planted about 12 packages of all different kinds. I can't remember what they all were, but I'll list them next time I post because I saved the packages so we would remember what we planted. Right after we planted them it began thundering very close by, so we prayed that the seeds would be protected! Good thing too because it actually started to HAIL 10 mins later! 
Tomorrow we will plant our 24 strawberry plants! I'm a little leary about planting any veggie seeds yet, but we may start getting the one raised bed ready for the kids. I'm giving each of them an area about 3 feet square. They should each be able to plant about 3 rows of veggies, depending on what they pick.
I'm happy it's spring again! I love it when we get to work in the garden!
My flower gardens are in full spring mode!
I have bulbs coming up everywhere and my pink rhodo is already blooming! I'll try to get some photos uploaded this week.
Last fall I planted about 150 more bulbs of all kinds. Making my total of bulbs planted in the last two years over 250. I am really excited to see just how many flowers I get out of them!
Hopefully we won't get anymore real cold spells or I may not get many flowers at all!
So far, everything looks good and strong though!
At the end of last summer, I had purchased a wonderful book called: Gardening Month by Month in British Columbia. Here's a few tidbits from the book about this month.
Things to do: February is a great month for making preparations tht will keep things moving smoothly once the season kicks into high gear.
All Gardens: As the days start to lenghen, indoor plants may start to show signs of new growth. Increas watering and apply a weak fertilizer (1/4 strength) only after they begin to grow.
Start seeds for annuals, perennials and vegetables that are slow to mature. A few to consider are:
If you are going to start some seeds indoors, be sure that your plants get enough light otherwise they will be weak and floppy. Consider purchasing a fluorescent or other grow light to provide extra illumination for them.
Last week the kids and I went to the beach and gathered some sea weed for in the garden. We'll need to make 1 or 2 more trips and then I'll till it all in and start getting the garden ready for planting. I'll be picking up some manure soon too.
Well since not much is happening in my garden right now, I thought I would use this journal to at least update on my weight loss progress.
I know it's not much lost so far, but with each pound lost, it's a pount NOT gained!
With fall fast approaching, I have some work to do in the garden. This week I need to hack down all the corn plants. I think I will try to compost the husks, but trash the stalks.
I need to be sure to trim all the lettuce plants so they will grow until frost.
I need to start drying all the giant sunflowers and hack down their stalks.
Till up the ground in the corn section after removing the stalks.
Pick off all the tomatoes with black bottoms.
Take some pics of the garden so I will remember things better for next fall.
Pick, blanch and freeze the beets.
Do the same with the carrots. Maybe freezing some together for a nice change of variety for our dinner table.
Oh! I forget to mention in my last post about how things are growing that Joshua successfully grew a good sized cucumber! I will have to take a pic of it later today so he can always remember! He's been such a HUGE help in the garden this year! I am amazed at how much he loves to do work of any kind. He's a great carpenter and even handy in the garden! He's an awesome help to his mama.
Elsa says they taste like 'mint' lol. Of course we are eating the carrots too. I think I may blanch some and freeze them as well. Such a sad sight after so much hard work. 
That's a great benefit of the giant sunflowers! Not only did they provide majestic splendor for us to see all summer, they will provide us with good seeds all winter. I will be planting twice as many next year! I think the sunflowers pleased me the most this year! Next year we plan to make a split cedar rail fence in our front yard and I will plant the smaller varieties of sunflowers all along the fence. I noticed that the sunflowers bloomed all summer here, where as all the other flowers bloomed only for parts of the summer (except my geraniums and petunias).
Yesterday we ate our first carrot out of the garden. I could of picked more, but I want to see how big they will get. This one was about an inch around, and about 3.5 inches long.
I also ate the first cherry tomato off the vine. It was the first time ever in my life that I have had a cherry tomato. I have never cared a whole lot for tomatoes. I don't mind them on my BLT or a hamburger, but not raw by itself but...after all that work, growing these from seed, spending the last 4-5 months babying these plants I just HAD to taste one of those tomatoes! LOL It was actually pretty good. I could tell that if I really liked tomatoes, I would have really enjoyed that one. LOL 
Last week I planted some green onions, more beets (the ones that are growing are almost ready) and more lettuce. I am also going to plant another batch of spinach hopefully this week. Our season should be long enough since it doesn't get real cold here. I am going to research what I can grow through the winter too, just for fun.
My sunflowers all look pretty sad. Just one is bright and blooming right now. The giants are all hanging with their heads down, and petals fading. 
We should get a real good batch of seeds from those plants though! I am just not sure how long I need to leave them standing before I start plucking out the seeds. I guess I better research that.
The internet has got to be the new gardeners greatest tool! I have learned SO much this year just from reading on the net about whatever I wanted to grow or learn about! The other day I learned about how to grow a rose plant just by getting a clipping from someone else's rose plant so I am going to try this with some of the plants we have out back and with a few clippings from my sisters HUGE rose plant/tree. It must be an old one! The main stalk is about 2 or 3 inches around! The roses on it were just HUGE, about 6 inches around at least! I figure if I can figure out how to root rose plants during the next two years, when we move into our next home I can take clippings along with me of all my plants. lol
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