Big Yellow Irises and Multicolored Roses

Big yellow iris flower: Copyright © Phyllis Wheeler, 2016

Happy floral Friday and welcome to "this week in my Maryland garden!" I'm always excited when my honey scented yellow irises start blooming.

Yellow iris extreme close up: Copyright © Phyllis Wheeler, 2016

 They smell as nice as they look and we've already had some bees enjoy them too.

Soft yellow rose: Copyright © Phyllis Wheeler, 2016

 This week also marks the start of heavy rose blooming season. This yellow rose has a soft scent.

Our first orange rose: Copyright © Phyllis Wheeler, 2016

This is our very first orange rose bloom. I think I planted it last spring but we didn't have any flowers until this week. Better late than never!

Hot pink rose flower: Copyright © Phyllis Wheeler, 2016

This hot pink/red rose is one of about five bushes and they usually put out flowers through frost.

As you can see, it's a great week for Maryland flower gardens. I hope you have some lovely gardens in your area too. Thank you for visiting! May God bless you!

Related posts:
Irises and roses with raindrops: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2015/05/raindrops-on-irises-roses-dahlias-and.html
Yellow irises at Kenilworth: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2012/05/flowers-at-kenilworth-aquatic-gardens.html
2014 big iris photos: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2014/05/yellow-blue-purple-and-white-irises.html

Irises, Pansies, Begonias and a Rose with Tiny Bees

Pale purple iris: Copyright © Phyllis Wheeler, 2015

Happy floral Friday and welcome to "this week in my Maryland garden!" The irises and roses have started blooming and I think they look especially pretty with raindrops on their petals.

Burgundy & yellow pansies: Copyright © Phyllis Wheeler, 2015

Most of my neighbors have already pulled up their pansies but as long as they look great we're letting ours stay. I did plant other flowers in between the rows of pansies though so once they start to fade there will already be established plants in their area.

Creamy yellow rose with bees: Copyright © Phyllis Wheeler, 2015

This pale yellow rose, which I think is a knockout rose, smells lovely and the bees (even the teeny tiny ones in the photo above) seem more drawn to it than our other roses. It was also the first to start blooming this year.

Deep purple blue irises: Copyright © Phyllis Wheeler, 2015

These deep purple/blue irises smell lovely too. The only iris we have that smells nicer is our giant yellow and that one's just starting to bud. Maybe next week I'll have a yellow iris photo to share.

Yellow nonstop begonias: Copyright © Phyllis Wheeler, 2015

This is my first ever nonstop begonia. The largest flower is almost four inches across. I wish I'd asked the nursery worker what they used for fertilizer because the new blooms coming in are much smaller. But they're still a lovely yellow which brightens up a shady corner of our side yard, which I appreciate. That's all for this week's post. I hope you enjoyed my flower photos and pray that God will bless you this spring and always!

Which photo(s) did you like best? What's blooming in your area?

Related posts:
Yellow irises: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2014/05/yellow-blue-purple-and-white-irises.html
Kenilworth irises: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2012/05/flowers-at-kenilworth-aquatic-gardens.html
Iris  buds: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2012/04/tulips-fire-poker-lilies-japanese-maple.html

Mandevilla, Roses, Dianthus and Petunias: This Week in My Maryland Garden

Happy floral Friday everyone! I love spring. This week in my Maryland garden all kinds of beautiful flowers are blooming. I might do a special post of iris photos so I picked the best of my non iris bloomers of the week to share with you today. Above is my very first mandevilla plant. 

 I love this bicolor dianthus and even have a little caterpillar vase full of them by my computer.

 These red petunias with white stripes make me smile.

 Our roses have started blooming. The yellow ones smell wonderful and are some of my favorites.

These small pink dianthus plants survived our unusually cold winter. They're supposed to be annuals but I was happy to see them come back this spring.

May God bless and keep you dear friends!

Which photo do you like best? What is blooming in your area?

Related posts:
Columbines and irises: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2012/05/columbines-widows-tears-irises-more.html
Zinnias, roses, echinacea: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2012/07/zinnias-roses-joe-pye-weed-day-lilies.html
Strawberries and cream roses, chrysanthemum: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2013/10/autumn-maryland-garden-flower-photos.html
Fair flowers, including roses: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2012/09/fair-flower-photos-for-floral-friday.html
Daffodil, hellebore, primrose: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2012/03/pink-yellow-and-white-blooms-this-week.html

Flowers: Day 7 of 30 Days of Thanksgiving

Today I'm giving thanks to the Lord for creating flowers. I love flowers and am thankful for them. Anyone who's visited our house probably knows this (there are flowers everywhere). Today I clipped what's likely to be the last of our roses, echinacea (coneflowers) and chrysantheum for the calendar year from our garden. I am thankful to be able to grow flowers outdoors here for about nine months out of the year. The above photo is one of our Angelique tulips from this spring and the photos below are our last garden flowers for 2012 (clipped and photographed today). I've read that just viewing flowers makes people more productive and happier so that's a wonderful excuse to keep fresh flowers around. 

 Our last big (but admittedly, scraggly) purple coneflower (echinacea).

I'm thankful I was able to salvage some yellow and a hot pink rose. The yellow ones smell like lemony honey.

Scraggly chrysanthemum. Our bright yellow ones have already passed peak.

 I'm hoping this yellow rose bud will open nicely.

This tiny yellow rose is propped up in a recycled (tiny) pepper shaker. Hope you enjoyed my last garden flowers of 2012 photos! What are you thankful today? Whatever it may be, I pray that God will bless you!

Flowers From Our Garden: Floral Friday Photos

Our surviving yellow chrysanthemums are at peak bloom in our mid Atlantic/Maryland garden this week. I love their happy yellow flower faces. Their peak bloom also signals the end of my deadheading activities for the year. Now I'll let our flowers set seed so we can harvest them for next year and the birds can enjoy them this fall and winter.

The marigolds have gone wild and taken over the front part of our front yard flower bed but the moths seem happy about it. I think next year we'll put in half as many marigolds... or maybe even half of that so we can add a bit more variety but they were a quick and inexpensive solution to our back hoed yard emergency situation earlier this year.

 We still have yellow, pink and red roses blooming.

This cute rabbit and I surprised each other. I felt honored when it decided to sit and watch me instead of hopping away.

I thought this dahlia bud was striking. I'm glad to see that we should get another nice flower out of the plant before it's time to dig it up and store it for winter (we're on the cusp of zones 6 and 7).

This was one of my resurrection plant projects. It looked near death when I bought it for a dollar but it's doing fine now. God sure did make some hardy plants.

That's all for this week's floral Friday photos. I hope you enjoyed them and wish you a safe and happy holiday weekend. May God bless you!

Fair Flower Photos for Floral Friday

Earlier this week I posted about my county fair frenzy so I thought for floral Friday I'd show you some of the flowers I entered in the fair. These aren't the actual blooms entered but are flowers from the same plants (thought you'd appreciate the prettier ones still on the plants).

I think our yellow knockout rose earned a blue (1st place) ribbon. I love this rose because it smells slightly lemony and the blooms fade to white so it's like you get two kinds of roses on one plant.

I think our white hybrid tea rose also earned a county fair ribbon.

I'm not actually sure what type of rose this is but I guessed it was a floribunda and I think it earned a blue ribbon.

Last year our orange zinnia earned a first place (blue) ribbon but this year I think it earned third place (white). Even though I grew this plant from seeds I gathered from last year's blue ribbon winner, the rabbits kept eating the seedlings down to the ground and this plant is a good two feet shorter than it's parent was. The birds, butterflies and bees still love it though.

I think our red and pink zinnias that I started from seed after our front yard was excavated this spring earned white and red ribbons. You might wonder why I keep writing "I think."  Well, I entered over 30 flowers and floral arrangements and I didn't write down my results so while I'm pretty sure I remember correctly, I'm not 100% sure. On Monday I'll pick up my vases and ribbons and then I can give a true count. I wish I'd taken pictures of the fresh floral arrangements before submitting them, especially because they were my first floral arrangements ever entered in any kind of contest. However, they are already suffering from the heat and humidity and don't look so hot now. Also, as a separate note to remember for next year, I'll have to find out if it's permissible to add a flower preservative to the water (I assumed it wasn't but it can't hurt to ask) because that would help them all to last longer.

So, those are 5 of the 30+ flower entries I clipped from our Maryland garden and entered in our county fair this year. It was a lot of work to make sure all the flowers and vases met the requirements and fill out the paperwork and tags. I'm not sure I'll ever enter so many again but it was certainly fun to do once.

Which flower did you like best? Have you ever entered anything in a county or state fair? I'd love to hear about it!

May God bless you, dear reader!

Flowers After the Storm: This Week in My Maryland Garden

Red Zinnia Photo By Phyllis Wheeler

We lost power for four days, all the food in our refrigerator and freezer and had a few downed tree limbs but are thankful that our power is restored (and with it the blessing of air conditioning). Many people are still without power so we're praying for them and all of the emergency workers who are hard at work trying to restore power to everyone. Thankfully, our flowers don't need electricity or gas to grow. We did lose a few plants and had to stake a bunch that didn't need it prior to the storm (and a big shout out for my hubby who got that all done before I even knew it was necessary!) but the bulk of our garden is intact and we're thankful for that too. Above is the first of our red zinnia blooms from the seeds I started outside in April.

Purple/Pink Zinnia Photo By Phyllis Wheeler

Here is a "purple" zinnia bloom - the first of it's batch, which I also started in April. Two others are blooming and they're all the same color so I guess we aren't going to have the dark purple represented on the seed packet but they do match our pink roses and are pretty so I'm still happy. Regardless of color, it's always special to see the first bloom on any plant I personally grew from seed.

Sunny Rose Photo By Phyllis Wheeler

Here is one of our sweet smelling yellow roses.

Rose of Sharon Photo By Phyllis Wheeler

One of our first rose of Sharon blooms of the year, along with a bud for a future flower. I love the hibiscus like blooms on these plants.

Butterfly on Purple Coneflower Photo By Ben Wheeler

The storm split our giant mother echinacea (purple coneflower) plant but my husband got creative with some stakes and trellises and the plant still seems to be doing just fine. There were bees, butterflies and moths swarming all over it this morning. It's definitely a great plant to have in a butterfly garden.

I hope you weathered the storm well if it passed through your area. May God bless you!