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!

Multicolored Blooms, Seedlings, Garden Decor & More: This Week in My Maryland Garden

We've had this geranium (potted) for about a month. I took this photo yesterday (all of the photos in today's post were taken by me either this morning or yesterday) and today I moved it to a bigger pot.

Our potted African daisy is also doing well. I loved the coloring on this particular flower (yellow, lavender and the pale white petal tips).

When I was writing last week's post our yard had been obviously (and significantly) excavated. My fantastic hubby took a day of leave and spent part of the weekend mixing in 6 cubic yards of top soil and laying 11 cubic yards of mulch so now the front yard looks a whole lot better (yay, Ben!).

Hopefully when it's time for next week's post we will have replanted the front yard plants that survived the excavation (we had multiple rose casualties but. God willing, it looks like most of the day lilies and irises will survive). Because so much grass was torn up we decided to expand the flower beds and the hosta you see in the photo above will likely be relocated to the front yard. The snow on the mountain is kind of crowding it out anyway so it will be better for the hosta once it adjusts. I'm hoping to divide the clump into 4-5 smaller plants.

These Chinese character stepping stones are one of our few bits of garden decor left after our giant white rock and other decor were victim to the excavation process.

This is a Japanese maple seedling I'm hoping will make it.

 Last week none of the seedlings Ben planted in March were physically distinguishable from one another but this week we can clearly see that these are cosmos seedlings.

And these are zinnia seedlings. Ben only planted cosmos and zinnia so it's easy to tell them apart. I planted a fresh batch of annual zinnia seedlings yesterday (to fill space in the front yard this summer while we work on a long term plan).

This little fern was stuck under a pile of leaves on our shady side garden. I pulled it upward so it could get some sun and crushed the leaves around it so they will break down faster and eventually provide  nutrients to the little fern. I suspect it's a Japanese Painted Fern (aka Ghost Fern) so once it recovers it should be beautiful.

In late March I posted a photo of our old fashioned bleeding heart and it's still blooming beautifully. This week our new fringe leafed bleeding heart started blooming. I just planted it last fall so it's a tiny plant but it should eventually grow to a decent size and bloom from about this time of year to frost (unlike the old fashioned kind which die back after their spring blooming period).

Hope you enjoyed my photographic tour of my Maryland garden! May your blooms be bountiful and may God bless you!

Azaleas, Lilacs, Ghost Ferns, Tulips and Backhoes: This Week in My Maryland Yard

Welcome to my Maryland garden! It's been a heartbreaking week for our yard so I'm really glad to have some pretty flower and foliage photos to share with you (from the non ruined parts of our yard). This white azalea is actually growing in a sunny part of our yard. The bush was there when we bought the house. Someday we might move it to the back but utility lines run under it so most likely we'll just leave it where it is.

The backhoe work I mentioned last week turned out to be significantly more extensive than expected. Instead of losing one flower bed and a 3' x 40' length of sod, the plumbers had to excavate much wider and deeper, in their words, "turned out big enough that you could install a swimming pool." Not that the front yard is the place for a pool. So we lost three major planting beds (front of house, along sidewalk and along driveway) along with about a 40' x 20' area of lawn. Because the soil at the bottom of the excavation is now what's on top of our lawn we need to amend the heavy clay soil before we can put back the plants we managed to save (which are looking kind of sad in their clumps and pots, but the ones in pots are looking better than the ones in clumps).

I love these Japanese painted ferns, also called Ghost Ferns. They're shorter than many ferns and look nice near the front of a shady garden bed.

Our Josee lilacs are starting to bloom. They already smell lovely and that should only improve over the next couple of weeks. These are reblooming lilacs so we'll be able to enjoy their scent on and off through fall but the greatest profusion of blooms is in spring.

Angelique tulip close up. I love the pink and white combination of this beautiful flower.

Our seedlings have started to sprout. By midsummer (God willing, of course), we should have enough Cosmos and Zinnia to please the local birds and butterflies.

As hard as it was to have an astronomical plumbing bill and have such a large amount of flower bedding and yard destroyed, God and good friends helped me greatly this past week. Also, others' suffering (a friend lost his wife and another her father) showed me that in the greater scheme, my loss is not as great as it feels. I still have my beloved husband with me and precious friends who encouraged and prayed for me. You are priceless and I love you all. Thank you for being part of my life. May God bless you!