Nature and Garden Photos From Recently

[aimeekitty]

Sorry... still don't feel like editing SDCC and Labyrinth stuff. :)

Work's been a bit crazy, but I had a break today, so I went to the nursery for the first time in a long time. It just so happened that it was their 40th anniversary!

I'm happy to see businesses who are well run do well. This nursery always has great plants, lots of local specific, unusual and native plants, too. And they always give me lots of good advice and are really nice to me. They're helping me learn how to water my yard properly (which is a big deal when you live in a hot/dry climate like this!)

A butterfly on a butterfly bush at the nursery


So they were giving away stuff for the anniversary, and one of the employees slipped a water meter on my cart when I wasn't looking. haha... they knew I was having trouble with that. How thoughtful is that?? I also got a free house plant and a lei.

My new garden policy is to, in general try ONE of a plant and see if it does well... and then get more. Except for roses, because they love me no matter what I do to them apparently. (HUZZAH!) I almost killed my camellia in the front though because I didn't know our drip system was clogged for WEEKS and I didn't understand why the camellia was dying. I think I have it figured out now though... and maybe the camellia might recover. But I've learned a lot!

A hummingbird at the nursery. :)


I've been on a tomato kick lately. One night when I had to work late, when I came home, Mitch had made me a smiling capreze salad! (I couldn't eat this much, though, but isn't it cute?)


I worked in the yard ALL day today. And inbetween Mitch and I went to see Inception (which I really enjoyed. Super interesting and amazing effects. I couldn't even imagine how some of it was done.) And then I worked in the yard again till dark. I feel totally relaxed now.

Tomorrow I think I might go to a garden and just read for a while and be quiet. And maybe clean the house a bit. It feels good to catch up a bit.

Some clouds. :)


I got my iris babies in the mail! What's really cool is that one of my online gardening friends was dividing her irises and asked me if I wanted some for the cost of postage. WOW. A ton of free gorgeous irises! Now I'll have more to put around the roses and in the back yard, too! YAY! Sometimes the internet is a wonderful place. :)


Here they are in the bed (this is what I did today after the nursery) Around them is La Reine, Baronne Prevost, Grosso Lavender and Agapanthus.


Mitch mowing the lawn


Some roses in my yard lately.

Compt de Chambord


One of my mystery roses... I actually squealed when I found it blooming this morning I thought it was so beautiful. Most of my mystery roses have been red... and I don't really like bright red flowers. So I was really happy to find this complex double bloom in such a pretty peachy color. I think it MIGHT be Precious Dream (Hybrid Bracteata). If so, that would be AWESOME because then it's a 2 foot tall rose, I could put it anywhere!


Penelope. This is a climbing rose. I'm hoping to have it climb up part of the side of the garage.


can't remember which one this one is. D: maybe Rita Sammons


Sydonie


Tiffany. This variety was my first and only rose as a child. I really loved it. It's still a great rose! It smells great and I love the yellow around the base of the petals. I was really happy to see it bloom because I accidentally stepped on it a while ago when I was trying to dig a hole. But it came back even stronger. Yay, Tiffany!


Wildeve


Rose(s) and the TARDIS
Madame Alfred Carriere, Baronne Prevost, Carding Mill


I've been taking blossoms in to work with me lately. They smell so great!
(from the left) William Shakespeare 2000, The Prince, Jude the Obscure

Comments

[gothiclibrarian.livejournal.com]

Can Mitch please come and do some yardwork for me? Please??? I've got a push mower he can use, just like he's used to ;-)

Your garden is looking lovely, Aimee, all your hard work is going to pay off in spades next year, let alone the 2 years after that when the roses really take off.

What taller bulbs are those planted behind the irises that went in? I just placed my bulb order for this year...I went...well...a little nuts (270, egaaaaads). Are those Fritillaria or maybe Nectaroscordum (I got some of both)?

I've got a daylily sale to go to at the end of August...here's hoping I find something NOT yellow/orange/peach.

I'll be doing a garden update to Flickr and my website today, btw, in case you want to see what I've been cracking the whip and having Terry do.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

Mitch HATES mowing the lawn, though I think he doesn't hate it quite as much as he used to. hehe. :) (but hey, I'm doing all the other yard work... it's kinda fair, right? right?)
I'm really tempted to eventually nix the entire front lawn. You can see pretty much ALL of it in that photo. How stupid, such a tiny thing! And I could put more roses there! :D we'll see. Maybe the neighborhood has some stupid rule on lawns.

I'm still on the fence about daylilies!
I think I'm going to shovel prune the morea (african lilies) because -everyone- says they get ratty and overgrown after a while and that I'll "regret it". And I figure that I can replace them with something with a prettier flower. I just have choose something tough enough.
so I was thinking maybe that would be a couple Daylilies because you see them all over developments here, so they can't be that finicky, right...? I dunno. I think I'll try two or three and see how they do in different parts of the yard.

Are you going to get any daylilies with gold (metallic) edges or diamond dust? :D :D

The big plants that have long spikey leaves and globe flowers at the top are agapanthus. (Lily of the Nile) They're kinda a tuberous root system... like an octopus. they're practically impossible to kill out here and are super drought tolerant. I really like the globe flowers. :)

TELL ME WHAT BULBS YOU BOUGHT. Ok, maybe not 270 tell me, but maybe some you're super excited about? :D I'll go look at your website again. I'm a little behind with checking yours and kelly's lately.

Me, for my summer order that already came in... I very quickly rotted 2 Nerine - bowdenii 'Stefani' . But I think maybe two of them will survive. I foolishly followed the instructions, when I should have planted them more shallow because of my heavy soil.
I also have a Scadoxus - multiflorus in a pot and some Bletilla - striata (chinese ground orchid) in the front... which may or may not be surviving. lol.

For my spring order,... (assuming I don't crack and order more) I got:
Narcissus - Aspasia
Narcissus - Tripartite
Narcissus - Hawera
Narcissus - Minnow
(basically some various types/sizes of daffs)
xAmarcrinum (naked ladies)
Freesia - leichtlinii
Crocus-Fall - speciosus

[gothiclibrarian.livejournal.com]

I am super proud of myself because this is the first year I've made all my bulb decisions in time to order from one of the good mail-order sources rather than buying them for too much $ at local nurseries.

I went with: http://www.vanengelen.com/ (and yes, I'm crazy...270 bulbs ::face/palm::)

I'm getting...

100 Fragrant narcissus mix
100 Fritillaria meleagris
50 Nectaroscordum siculum
20 Allium cernuum

The "not as crazy amounts of bulbs" side of that website is: http://www.johnscheepers.com/

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

I ordered from brentandbecky's, btw! :)

You're lucky, you can have tulips, they do like crap here. :D

Allium cernuum... WOW! I've never seen either of those kind of allium before. SUPER AMAZING. All of these fit your style really well. I bet they'll be gorgeous.

I didn't get all that many,... I'll probably get more after I figure out how not to rot them. :) :)

[gothiclibrarian.livejournal.com]

Next order I do will be much smaller and through B&B...I learned that they'll give a percent of the proceeds for my order to the Indianapolis Museum of Art if I tell them they referred me.

I want tulips, but I don't have a spot picked out yet, so none for this year.

Terry likes planting bulbs though...he uses a power drill and auger...maybe you could cajole Mitch into helping if you got him a similar toy?

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

you're going to laugh. our ground is SO HARD here (with enough rocks, too) that you can't use a power tool to do it. It'll break it. haha... *tears of blood*

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

ps, here's a photo of my agapanthus in the back:


they come in various heights (dwarf ,medium and MONSTROUS) and come in purple and white, basically.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

well crap. I signed up for wordpress.com to try and reply to your entries, but it still wont let me. I love your window painting idea. that is EPIC. I can't wait to see how it goes!!!

I really like the shape design of the two top ones. and the 2nd row right one. I like the "brightness" of the 2nd row right one, too. but I don't know if blue would be out in the colorscheme. It seems like maybe red roses would blend in with your house better? I guess in general it depends on how dark you want the space to feel.

[gothiclibrarian.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the glass painting planning is taking FOREVER because I also want to do a full stencil border in the same room up at the top of the walls.

So the added difficulty of matching the glass painting and the stenciling up (I don't want them TOO matchy matchy, ya know?) is really taking a toll on me making decisions thus far.

Sherwin Williams is having a 40% off sale on paints next Saturday only...that's the deadline I'm giving myself to have decided (I want to add a frieze of paint at the top of the wall to go underneath the stencil, if that makes sense).

Not sure why it won't let you join!

Can you try again? I'd really love it if you could comment. I checked my settings, it should work.

[persoconchii.livejournal.com]

your garden pics make me wish smell-o-vision existed...

also, it looks like Zapp is whispering sweet nothings in Fry's ear in that last pic =P

[taperkat.livejournal.com]

if you ever need plants let me know.. my mother's always looking to give them away LOL.

[blastmilk.livejournal.com]

It is looking gorgeous Aimee! Our summer has been so cold that everything is stuck in hard green spring mode :/

We put an offer on a house with no lawn=YAY!

<3

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

CONGRATS, DARLING! :D

[blastmilk.livejournal.com]

omigwawd! we're under contract!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blastmilk/sets/72157624454476863/

It will be all roses & hydrangeas for me too next year!

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

that place is going to be great! I can't stand how cool those built-ins are and the kitchen and laundry shoot is really neat :D

YEAY PLANTS! :D

[suzieboots.livejournal.com]

Your roses are looking lovely. It's great that you've got such a perfect climate for them. Apparently it's the same around here, they really flourish. I'm determined to make my garden prettier this year, all my roses are looking really unhappy :-(

[larasgirl.livejournal.com]

Your roses are amazing. They definitely love you.

Mitch doesn't look too thrilled about cutting the lawn in any of the pics you've taken of him pushing that mower. lol I used to despise mowing the lawn in the Florida heat, but now that we live in a town home and don't really have much of a yard, I miss the satisfaction of cutting the grass and having a lovely green yard for the kids to play in.

[praedestinatio.livejournal.com]

Oh man I love your garden posts, makes me wish I had a garden myself!

[usagi-moon.livejournal.com]

beautiful garden. :D