Question of The Day. Saturday 25th of March

Winchester

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@Norachan, I love your large planter on your deck! It's gorgeous!

Since it's only March, we have snow and dead stuff right now. But our daffodils are up, not blooming yet. Here are some pictures of the yard during the summer. I just love summer. The sun, the flowers, the warmth!





There's a kitty in the window!


This picture is a couple years old. Where the red bonica bush is in this picture, we now have a large cement fountain with lion heads. And rose bushes around the fountain. I was looking for a picture of it, but can't find any right now.


Rupert, the Gargoyle, lives in the front yard.



The weigelas here were a bit overgrown. If we don't prune mercilessly, they go crazy.


As you walk from the pool area through the arbor into the back yard....

 
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sivyaleah

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Yes oh yes oh yes I do!

I just bought 2 packages of dahlias yesterday in fact.  I had really good luck with them a couple of years ago and happened to be at the place I bought the others from.  They are "dinnerplate" size - HUGE blooms.  I got an orangey one that has a droopy appearance and a white/light purple striped variety.  

Roses are my weakness.  I have managed to squeeze in 10 of them - one being a climber which in one year has already taken over it's space.  

I adore peonies although I only have one of them.  They grow really well in my area but, take time to settle in once planted. So the first year I got zero flowers. Last year, a lot and I expect this year will be even better.  

I also have a lot of hydrangeas, a few types including an old tree which is spectacular when it blooms.  They are native to my location but the winters have been wonky the past few years; the result being not as many blooms.  Keeping my fingers crossed that this year is better.

Then the beds have various perennials in them like lavender, day lilies (these never come in the house), tickweed, asters, catmint, etc.  

We also have flowering trees (Dogwood, Plum, Magnolia) and bushes (the hydrangeas of course, mountain laurels, azalea)

Here's some pix of what I've grown. It was difficult deciding which to include because I have tons of photos of my flowers!  I tried not to overwhelm you all LOL but really was not easy. If you want to know what anything is let me know.  PS: The kitty is Cocoabean 










 
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neely

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Everyone's gardens are so colorful and beautiful.  I do like flowers but since we only get approx. 4 mos. of seasonably warm weather I try to plant more hardy flowers and perennials, e.g. geraniums, begonias, coleus, marigolds, clematis, hostas and daylilies.   When we moved in there were 2 large peony bushes which I transplanted because we put a garden shed where the peonies were located.  People told me they would never grow back but not only did they grow, they flourished!  Unfortunately I don't have any pics of them.  The only picture I could find was a climbing rose vine on the patio lattice.  

 

micknsnicks2mom

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i have perennials in my gardens. at the front of my house i have two (hardy) hibiscus (one pink, and one white blooms), a butterfly bush (purple blooms!), a forsythia bush, and quite a few spring bloomers (crocus, squill, tulips, iris -- both bearded and non-bearded, hyacinth and grape hyacinth, lilies, and daffodils). at one side of my house i have hostas and astilbes -- it's the more shady side of the house, just gets morning sun. the other side of the house has two planter boxes with...gosh, i can't remember their names
......anyway, two types of old timey summer bloomers with yellow and purple blooms. in the back yard are 3 more (hardy) hibiscus, 3 bleeding heart plants (they're just huge!), two peonies (one pink and one white), some more lilies, and many more of the same kind of spring bloomers. oh, and a strawberry patch!

i haven't spent much time out working in the gardens in several years. i dug and planted all of my garden beds myself. when my Mickey
crossed the Rainbow Bridge and my little Snick
already had medical issues, my priorities shifted. Snick preferred me to stay close to her, was comforted by me being close to her, and so i did. and so, other than those i've listed, many summer and fall blooming plants were lost. i simply chose to mow around most of what i had.
 

mani

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I have flowers in pots (it's night here or I'd take a shot of them) but my garden soil is very sandy, so I rely more on foliage for colour in garden beds.
 

Freedom

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I really enjoyed seeing all the photos!  Wow, we have some green thumbs on here.

Last Autumn I embarked on a large project.  I am getting older, and the climate is changing (I'm not getting in to whether humans are impacting that or not, just saying it is changing to warmer) and we had drought conditions here for months, something we've not had before.  So I decided the grass had to go.  I xeriscaped about 3/4 of the yard.  I will add a few photos here.  Anyone interested in the entire project can view it in my photobucket library; scroll down a bit, you will see there are SIX albums, showing step by step progress on this project. 

http://s133.photobucket.com/user/sfsamm/library/2016/Landscape Project?sort=2&page=1

I developed a list of native, drought tolerant plants, made some charts of the land, attended a free seminar, and got going on my project.  What I thought would keep my occupied for about 2 weeks became an over 2 months long project!  As I refined the plans, I added in that the plants be dwarf varieties so I will not have to climb a ladder to prune them, as they mature.   The basic plants I put in are: Mountain Laurel Minuet, Mountain Laurel Olympic Fire, Hydrangea Peniculata  Bobo, Juniper Blue Rug, and Arctostaphyllos Uva-ursi "Massachusetts" aka Kinnikinnick.  In a very quick short version, I went from this:




Stand by!
 

Freedom

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And 4 inches of mulch!






I know it will take 4 to 5 years for the plants to fill in and mature.  And meantime I will plant iris and daylilies to fill in.  But the main job is now done.  I still have to water often this coming Summer, as these new plants take 2 years to be established.  Whew!  I only have to deal with mowing the grass in the back yard, fenced in area, where the dogs go, and where I sit out often in nice weather. 
 

Mamanyt1953

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There really isn't space to garden at our apartments, and our "porches" are so small that you can only have a very few containers.  Plus, to be honest, I have a black thumb.  I can kill a plastic philodendron in 5 days flat.
 

Winchester

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@Freedom, that's  a lot of work, but worth it in the end. We worry more about drought than we used to and when we put together our flowerbeds, we specifically looked for more drought-resistant plants, shrubs that could withstand not having water for a while.

Last year, we didn't have time to really deal with a vegetable garden, and, in hindsight, it was probably a good idea because we went through a drought last summer and it was ugly. Since we're on a well, there's no way we feel comfortable watering the garden every week during a drought. Plus, when we're on water restrictions, it's illegal anyway. (Although I don't know why we were so worried; the guy across the street from us decided to power-wash his huge house during the drought. That really upset a lot of people in the neighborhood.)

We lost several inches of water from the pool last year, even with a solar cover on it and couldn't replenish the water (although I supposed we could have done it at night). The level got really low for a while. 

With more and more people moving into our neighborhood, we worry more about our well and the water.
 

1CatOverTheLine

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There's a kitty in the window!


This picture is a couple years old. Where the red bonica bush is in this picture, we now have a large cement fountain with lion heads. And rose bushes around the fountain. I was looking for a picture of it, but can't find any right now.


Rupert, the Gargoyle, lives in the front yard.



The weigelas here were a bit overgrown. If we don't prune mercilessly, they go crazy.


As you walk from the pool area through the arbor into the back yard....

What a beautiful estate !  You don't even think about sleeping in Summer, do you?

.
 

1CatOverTheLine

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I know it will take 4 to 5 years for the plants to fill in and mature.  And meantime I will plant iris and daylilies to fill in.  But the main job is now done.  I still have to water often this coming Summer, as these new plants take 2 years to be established.  Whew!  I only have to deal with mowing the grass in the back yard, fenced in area, where the dogs go, and where I sit out often in nice weather. 
Wait !  Before you find a place to sit down, could you come over and help dig some beds?

Great work, Freedom !

.
 

1CatOverTheLine

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Where do you people get your energy?  Other than foundation plantings, everything here is more or less "naturalised."  A Friend describes it as, "Mother Nature trying to overrun the lawn, held back with a weed-whacker."

Shots cobbled together from three seasons, in no particular order, which is fitting for this old place:

 

Freedom

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Very pretty!  And that is a LOT more work than just naturalized.  Nicely done!

Naturalized, Mother Nature taking over - that is what I am aiming for.
 

1CatOverTheLine

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Very pretty!  And that is a LOT more work than just naturalized.  Nicely done!

Naturalized, Mother Nature taking over - that is what I am aiming for.
It happens fast.  Just take one day off from maintenance in the Summer and Mother Nature will make another ten days' work for you.  I'm giving up on hand-weeding the border beds; this year I'm buying a bazooka.

.
 

MoochNNoodles

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Oh my.  My neighbors across the street have their garden in the front yard and they burn it every spring.  The house is set back in some trees so it makes sense they garden out front.  But I'm still not a fan of burning to clear the ground.  I have raised beds for my veggie garden; so that wouldn't work for me anyway. 
 
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