Tulips

The tulips are mostly all in bloom right now. They’re so pretty this year! (I’m always surprised that so many of them survive what with the digging devil squirrels here. The chicken wire helps!) There are still a few later blooming varieties to come as well. I’m hoping they will get to bloom– with our 85 degree temps and sticky humidity this past week, it feels more like summer than spring. I have been busy doing yard work, moving and planting and continuing to work on the new flower bed area near the gazebo. I have a huge number of plants inside the house that I need to get out soon. I’m hoping to get around to doing that this coming week. We had wicked storms here this week, tornado watches and high winds. An all night power outage on Monday night and a few limbs down is all the damage done here though.

Here are a few photos taken this past week of some of the many tulips I have blooming now. Click on any to view larger.

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Pretty red and yellow tulip in Spring Bed

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Tulips and Muscari at edge of woods

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Darwin Hybrid ‘Pink Impression’ – my favorites

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Mixed color Tulips in spring bed

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Tulipa hageri ‘Little Beauty’

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Double Flowering Tulip ‘Eternal Flame’

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‘Golden Parade’, ‘Pink Impression’, mixed Darwin Hybrids

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More Blooms

Here are a few more blooms from around my yard this past week. I just can’t keep up with everything this year!

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This pink Endless Summer Hydrangea is so pretty this year. I’m sure it’s on the way to becoming blue here in our acid soil, but it sure is pretty halfway there. The camera doesn’t completely capture the purple tone of the blooms.

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Endless Summer Pink Hydrangea

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Click any photo to view larger

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Dahlias are thriving in the heat.

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Japanese Forest Grass and Portulaca

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The Elephant Ears are growing well in the new Stump Bed.

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Anemones with chartreuse Coleus and Purple Shamrocks
in the background, new stump bed

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Native Rhododendrons are in bloom.

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Pink Verbena, Mixed Caladiums, Purple Angelonia and Red Pentas in Lamp post flower bed

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Mixed containers on the patio.

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Impatiens in a growing bag on a tree in the secret garden, Blue Allium and bugs, tomatos ripening!

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Flower beds

My flower beds are all at their peak right now, and even though it is a lot of work to keep everything watered and pruned, it’s worth it when I get to enjoy all these beautiful flowers. My yard is always a work in progress, and I am always adding flowers to, moving flowers from, changing around and mostly enlarging all these beds. Although I used to try and always have complementary color and texture combinations, with all the changes and additions I make every season, all my flower beds seem to inevitably become mixed borders of wild rainbow colors and textures, annuals and perennials, roses, groundcovers and flowering shrubs. I think I like them best this way. As always, click on any of the photos to view larger versions.

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Above is one end of a long, curving border I have at the edge of the front yard, along the fence line. In this area, I have coneflowers, red penta flowers, purple and red verbena, and burgundy vinca along with bishop’s weed.

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A huge section of mixed-color impatiens and begonias in the same border. My large snowball viburnum shrub provides shade for the impatiens.

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Curved border with birdbath and mixed annuals and perennials

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Verbena, lantana, gallardia, lilies, dianthus and more in a long, narrow rock wall flower bed at the base of a slope in the back yard. Evergreen dianthus cascades over the front of the wall.

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A tiny flower bed surrounding a lamp post in the front yard. Right now, I have hot pink petunias, coreopsis, dianthus, white coneflowers and a hanging pot of verbena here.

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This is a small triangular shaped flower bed surrounding another lamp post in the back yard near the deck. In this one, I have zinnias, mixed coneflowers, black-eyed susans, shasta daisies, and bubblegum pink supertunias.

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Coneflowers, bishop’s weed, impatiens and geraniums in the curved border, yellow lantana in the background.

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Coneflowers and a pink rose bush along the fence

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More views of the fence border, including begonias, coneflowers, bishop’s weed, vinca and more. I love coneflowers and have them everywhere. We are in the process of lengthening this border right now and I have even more coneflowers, black-eyed susans, torenia, burgundy yarrow, salvia and vinca ready to plant.

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The small flower beds around the new gazebo have filled in nicely. These beds include nasturtiums, impatiens, mixed colors of torenia, salvias, polka-dot plants, begonias, alyssum and asparagus ferns. The hanging ferns are huge!

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For the times when I want to escape the color and the full sun of the yard, I have the secret garden. Here, I have a very few small white and light pink impatiens and begonias but it’s mostly shades of green, with hostas, ferns, liriope, dwarf evergreens and native trees, and a fountain in deep shade.

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Click photos to view larger

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Hummingbirds and butterfly bush

Butterflies aren’t the only thing these butterfly bushes attract. I have also seen a hummingbird moth at them several times lately but haven’t been able to get a photo of it yet. Hummingbirds love these flowers as well, and seem especially attracted to this bicolor shrub I have on a sunny slope near the yard. I see them on it throughout the day, up to four at a time. Here are a few photos I captured yesterday morning. Click photos to view larger versions.

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Related posts:
Hummingbirds and Bee Balm
Hummingbirds at feeder
Hummingbird Moth
Bicolor Butterfly Bush

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