Fall Is Upon Us

Nandina

Fall is such a wonderful time of the year! It does not only signal the end of the warm weather but also signals the end of the year and the beginning of the holiday season! I love all the colors! Enjoy! 

Red Maple

Garden Moms

Red Rooster Crape Maple

Fall Tasks

I will dismantle these drought-tolerant stone planters and reuse the stones to create a border on the side of the hose. 

This area has a mulching problem. Because it is sloped, whenever it rains, mulch washes away on the path which defeats the purpose. So, i will add a border to contain the mulch but allow for the water to go through.

The major wheeler and my heucheras  need to move to the side of the house. 

• Dismantle stone for drought tolerant plants and create a border on the natural side garden
• Move heucheras and hostas to the side of the house
• Move hydrangeas next to the deck
• Move Major Wheeler honeysuckle next to the deck.
• Move garden moms next to Dynamite crape myrtle 
• Move succulents next to oak trees
• Move blueberry tree
• Move  perennials from next to the 
• Transplant container plants 
• Move Yarrow to the front
• Move liriope to shady part of the garden
• move short bushes to the path where liriope was
• Move razzle dazzle away from knockout roses
• Move  one front wintergreen boxwood to the side of the house
• Pull some weeds and cleanup
• Clean my herb planter
• Move my dogwood from swampy area
• Move rhododendron to where the pink dogwood is. 
• Move my clemantis from postbox to trallis by the garage.

What a Difference Three Years Make

First Year of Planing

Year 2

Year 3

Summer's End Ushers In Planting and Cleaning Season!

Our puppy loves to hang out with us in the garden.

It is September and we have finally hit true summer temperatures. The past few weeks have been very hot and humid. September is when summer is folding down and temperatures drop but this year it has been very hot for this time of the year.

Our July and August was unseasonably wet with more than twice the amount of rain we normally get. I am not complaining since the rain made things very easy for me. I did not have to water as much.

End of summer also ushers in the planting season namely, the  Fall/Autumn. This year I have a lot planned. I have to move many plants because the conditions they are growing under are not very conducive. Rather than fight nature I want to work with it to finally have a peace of mind.

My butterfly and hummingbird garden has to move. It is not doing well at all. Instead where I have my butterfly garden I will have drought tolerant plants.

I will move all the plants suffering under my oak trees to a shady areas in my yard where they can thrive. The good news is that I don't have to buy any plants I just have to moved them to the right place. No more hostas or honeysuckles under oak trees.

I will also solve a problem that I have in my side shade garden. A lot of mulch washes away when it rains. So, I'll build a border with some of the stones from the dry creek and from planters I had made to plant drought-tolerant flowers.

It is amazing how much my flowers have filled in the last 3 years. Some of the pictures below will reflect the changes since I started my garden.

Creeping Jenny Is Taking over, Less mulch at least

Cleaned Side Path

The side path plants have filled in

Could not be happier with our trash area

Hummingbirds In My Garden!

Hummingbirds made for an amazing summer in my garden. I set out to create a  Hummingbird Garden this year.  It did not get to far because I planted it next to my big oak trees which suck all the nutrients and water from plants.

And the Cape Honeysuckle I had bought died because of too much water! That broke my heart because I brought it back from brink of death only to kill it with too much water.  It seemed like my garden was cursed to kill everything I had done to attract  hummingbirds.

To supplements the plants, I had also bought a hummingbird nectar feeder, clearly it did not attract birds as advertised. For months I did not see any birds feeding; I had given up hope of attracting hummingbirds!

Luckily I had also started a container garden which literally came to my rescue. I planted a variety of tropical plants in hopes of attracting these birds.

The star of my container garden was supposed to be the hibiscus. I bought not one but two, a red and a yellow hibiscus. They were already big and had beautiful blooms but no birds in sight.

Then, my petunias (pictured left) started growing and not only did they look beautiful hummingbirds also loved them. So, my love affair began when I saw my first hummingbird. For the first time I had 2 or 3 hummingbirds on my deck almost every day except on rainy days. They come twice a day, mid-morning and early evening.

Humming birds are so fast and sensitive to noise and movement; so capturing them on camera or video is a mission. And they only feed for a few seconds and fly away. But, as you can see in the video I was able to capture a minute of it. Now, I just enjoy watching them enjoying flowers.

Dr. Maya Angelou Was As Beautiful As my Rhododendrons!

Dr Maya Angelou's Tribute

I've never seen so many blooms from my rhododendrons! I've waited three long years for this display.All of them bloomed.  I cannot be happier. I can only imagine how everything will look in the next few years when they've filled in completely.  Knowing rhododendrons, there is more to come in the next few years. 

I also took some time to make a tribute to Dr. Maya Angelou who passed away this week. Death is a fact of life and it will happen to us all. It is tragic when one passes having not lived! I can say, judging by Dr. Maya Angelou's life story, that she lived and she achieved her mission in life and she can and will rest in peace. What a legacy she has left us! Her life's story, apart from the books she's written, is a great lesson to many of us. 

It is interesting to me as a gardener that on the week she passes away, I look at my garden and see all these rhododendron blooms wide open. If anyone knows rhododendron buds, they  know that they look so unassuming, closed and not as attractive. By looking at the buds, and if you did not know about rhododendrons, you could never assume that they will blossom to such beautiful flowers. But when they open up, they transform into these beautiful, large flowers that are attractive to bees, hummingbirds, humans like me and other beautiful garden creatures. Dr. Maya Angelou's works and life story (the first lesson) were/are attractive to so many of us. We were attracted to her wisdom about the meaning of life and how to walk tactfully in life to not only achieve your dreams but to leave a legacy.

Rhododendron Bud

Her story is attractive because it is about the beauty and wisdom we all possess and is innate to us and ,with time, we could all blossom into beautiful creatures. 

Like a garden, Dr. Maya Angelou's life's story is a reminder to us all  that we must be patient with ourselves and the world around us. That some of us are, no matter how we begin, or what we endure that we still rise; that we are resilient like those plants in my garden that have endured my amateurish and indecisive ways. 

Beautiful Maya

Like many plants that bear beautiful flowers, those flowers may never come to blossom if conditions don't allow them to. That as humans, like all living creatures, we are vulnerable to our environment therefore it is crucial to always assess our environment to decide whether it is an environment that allows us to thrive or is damaging to us.

The picture on the left shows that Dr. Maya did not consider herself  pretty because of the environment in which she grew up in where girls like her were not seen as pretty. As flowers bloom in best conditions, we must try and create a world where every human blooms into their true self. Dr. Maya was obviously a resilient flower managed to withstand harsh conditions that most flowers could not endure! She managed to not only thrive but to bloom under such conditions, this is a lesson for us all. She was her own master and remained unscathed by her own harsh experience.

Her life's story taught us never to judge a plant  by its buds and that with patients, we can all bear witness to something magical like a flower of a rhododendron, like Dr. Maya's life. That our story is not written at the beginning of our lives but often in the end when we finally bloom for the world to ENJOY our flowers!

My wild side garden

Dr. Maya Angelou Passed Away Today - Rest In Eternal Peace!

Farewell Beautiful Lady. 

It is with great sadness that I write this blog today as the news of Dr. Maya 

Angelou's passing are sweeping the world. I chose to celebrate her life in my 

garden blog because, 

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom. 

Maya Angelou

Happy Birthday To Me With Spring Blooms

The word is out that I love gardening. So my daughter gave me this Stargazer lily! It is so fragrant that there is no way you cannot feel the whiff as you pass by it. I've planted it next to our patio so that when we are hanging out there we can be graced by its smell. 

I also got a beautiful garden chime from my friend Kim. I love it because it was such an unexpected gift and it fits right in my yard. 

I was in the middle of looking for some garden accessories and this was definitely a god-send.

Thanks you family and friends! Now, enjoy the rest of the pictures.

View of my frontyard from the side of the house

My Container Garden and My Quest To Attract As Many Birds As Possible.

Today is a gorgeous spring day so I took advantage of it by starting my 2014 container garden. Last night I ran to the garden center to pick some flowers for my container garden. 

I'm in a quest to  attract birds and butterflies this year therefore every color and plant has been select for that purpose. 

For a cohesive color scheme that is attractive to birds and butterflies I chose mostly purple and red with some tinge of yellow, pink and white.

I love the red and purple color combination. It comes off as rich yet playful. 

I found that birds, especially humming birds love red color as proven by the fact that I've already had two of them in my yard. Butterflies love yellows and purples as well. 

Bird bath

My shade garden is looking shabby right now, but a lot of new growth has sprouted. By the end of spring, I should a full garden area.

Major Wheeler Honey Suckle

Hummngbird nectar <<< it is already working!

I bought the following plants:  purple verbena, hibiscus (red and yellow), petunias, sage and red Hawaiian flower I cannot recall now! I will look it up. Additionally I have existing perennials that I bought in previous years. These new flowers, coupled with my existing butterfly and hummingbird flowers should make my garden very attractive; and as I write this, all I can hear are birds making music!

Another thing to look forward to this year!

Spring 2014 Is Here!

 Spring 2014 is here and nothing makes me more excited than a non-winter season. Spring is not only is it the first season after winter, for me, it is a season filled with anticipation for what is about to sprout off the ground. I have so much to look forward to!
This is year 3 of my garden project, so what comes off the ground should be bigger and better. Everything is chugging along pretty well except for my Drakensberg Gerbera; fingers crossed that it makes it.

I had to make another trip to the garden center today, a second since the beginning of spring. I picked up mostly annuals and 3 perennials. I should stop buying now and just be patient and divide what I already have.

I also moved a lot of plants around to more permanent and suitable places within the yard. A lot of my hostas were not doing well because they were planted right under trees. Trees are sucking up all the nutrients from the soil, and they do not provide as  much shade as I expected; this was another reason to move them.

Humming Bird Feeder

The one thing I'm excited about the most this spring is my humming bird and butterfly garden. I have my bird feeder of course, honey suckle, butterfly bush, a bird bath, a humming bird feeder and planted some seeds for butterfly garden. You may not be able to see it until you click on the picture on the left.

fothergilla  in bloom

Fothegilla Flowers

White flowering dogwood

when my dogwood is fully grown, it will peek from behind a Japanese maple tree and a green huge Nellie R. Stevens holly.

Chaste Tree is coming along very well. It is full of new shoots.

Hollies thriving.

Little Ms Kim Lilac :)

vigorous growth by Oriental Lilies