Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Echinacea, Marigolds, Dahlias and Ghost Ferns: This Week in My Maryland Garden

We finally have an echinacea (coneflower) bloom! If you've been following my blog you might recall that about 20 days ago I first noticed a flower bud forming on our largest plant and last week the bud was looking beautiful but was still green (no pink or purple color). Finally, yesterday I noticed the first full bloom and this morning snapped this photo of it. I seem to recall that last year the plant had darker flowers. Not sure if that means this is a seedling from the original plant or if our soil needs to be amended (probably the latter) but I'm just happy to finally have a flower on it. If you're curious about what echinacea seedlings look like here are some photos of some I transplanted in April.

I love the coloring on this marigold.  The yellow and deep red are a nice contrast. So far, of the whole three flats of marigolds my dear husband planted we have only one casualty. It's right in the middle though so I'll either have to grow one from seed soon or buy one single plant to fill in the hole.

Here is a tiny little yellow dahlia bloom. The flowers on this plant are less than two inches wide. We didn't keep the tags but when we first planted them the flowers were a bit bigger. My guess is that this points to our soil needing amending or at least the plants needing fertilizer. The heat has arrived here in Maryland though so benign neglect is now the order of business in our garden until we get a cool spell.


Speaking of coolness, in our shady side garden this ghost fern, aka Japanese painted fern brightens up the shade in a violet saturated section of the flower bed. We used to have some astilbe back here but I see no signs of them this year.

Do you change your gardening habits as the weather heats up? What's blooming in your area today?

May God bless you with the beauty of His creation!

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