Two Great Perennials

Mystic Spires Blue Salvia

I looked a long time for the right purple perennial.  I found this in Shreveport, La at Garrison nursery. I ask if it multiplied  by root, she said no.  I had bought some in the spring, 2012. Two or three died.  These should be bought in the fall.  I  had  three or four to live through the winter.   We go to Shreveport every spring to look for flowers.  We see Charlotte my daughter, then go down to Tyler Texas to see his son. 

You can see my Easter Lily in the background.  Debbie gave them to me in 2011, for Easter, they were blooming.  Somtimes it takes a forced blooming bulb a while to bloom.  Just as soon as it stopped blooming I planted it.  Most perinnials bloom a while and then no more until the next season.   However Mystic Spires Blue   blooms from late spring until frost. 

 






                             The Lady at the nursery told me this plant would spread out but not multiply by root.  They did not reseed.  I had broken one limb off of one so I put it in the ground.  I watered it everyday and it lived and is going to bloom.  I am hopeing  I can root all I  need.


 
 I planted these Salvia along the walk.  I can sit on my bench and watch the humming birds.  They love this plant, that is an added pleasure of this flower.  The color is darker than the picture shows.  I think this is the ideal perennial.

















Stocks Aster  is another good perennial it blooms a long time but not all summer.  It has good points, multiplies by root., and is evergreen.  I found a new baby on my old Aster took a knife and cut the root in between the mother and the baby.  They are both living and will soon boom.  These are earlier than my first one.  They do not bloom all summer but do have a long bloom life.

These are my older Stokes Asters The one on the right I planted in 2008.  The one on the left is the baby I cut from the mother plant.  These stems are more sturdy than the ones in the top photo.  I ordered some plants I know nothing about and planted them in front of the Asters.  They grew all out of bounds, and so tall they cut the sun off of the Asters. They multiplied something fierce took over the whole bed in only one year.  Carrel had a hard time digging the tough roots out.  Bloomed only once.  Bad plant unless you have two acres to fill

I hope you have enjoyed my blog page about my two best perennials. Thank you for watching my garden grow and bloom.  I hope you will grow one of your own.  Happy gardening to you from Carrel and I, Juanita.

                                             
     

                                                                    

A Special Tour

Debbie and Ken

 Debbie always comes to see me sometime close to Mother's Day.  They brought me a Daily Devotional Book I know I will enjoy reading this with my morning coffee.  They brought my lunch fish, hush puppies, and slaw.  We all enjoy ourselves.  I opened my card and folding green fell out and it was just the right size.

 When you drive into my drive way, this is what you will see from your left window.

This rose, Eureka, was bought for me by Charlotte for my birthday in two thousand seven. Thank ou Charlotte it has given me a lot of pleasure.  I decided I wanted two so I bought one also.  When it started blooming, Carrel the man next door, who became my husband, wanted one.  This has been a favorite of both yards, I finally found him one in two thousand eight.  Liz at Selman's Nursery ordered it from Weeks Nursery.

Eureka is a wide bush but not very tall, a Florabunda.  They have blooms most of the season.  I only have two tea roses, Mr. Lincoln and the Peace Rose.  I may do away with the Peace rose, it just does not perform well enough.  I have had it since two thousand and seven.

The next rose is American Beauty a shrub rose, it will bloom some all summer.  Part of the canes died so it is not real thick, however I hope it will be.  This rose was one of my first roses. I bought the American Beauty in two thousand and seven.








                                                                

Queen Elizabeth is my favorite rose.  Forabunda, tall, slender, pink and blooms a lot.  However you need to cut it back a lot after every blooming, because it will grow to nine feet tall if you don't.

Gold Metal,  I bought this to go with Queen Elizabeth.  I am not impressed.  The rose fades quickly and do not last long at all.  Gold Metal is two years old.  It takes about three years for a rose to fully develop, so we will watch this rose.

This is Gold Metal after a few days.  A well formed rose and looks like it may bloom well.  The court is still out on it.

The buds are really yellow with pink around the edges.  This bloom still has some pink on the edges.  This was taken today,May 14.

This was Gold Metal on May 9, you can see how quickly it fades.  You can see the pink on it.  However before it is opened all the way it is almost white.



                                                          

This is the day after this bud opened.

 I bought this rose in the Ashdown, Ar. at the Wal-Mart store in two thousand seven.  I do not know the name of it. The first three or four years  the limbs would go long and the roses were heavy and would fall down.  We kept cutting them off short, and they grew bigger.  Now it is a nice bush. If a rose is touching another one you can remove some cane at the bottom.  They need to be three feet apart.

I bought Madi Gras in two thousand and eight.  I really like it, the bush is neat and the right size. The color is great.  And blooms great all season.















                                                         

Madi Gras

  Madi Gras is a very colorful bush.  Saw this bush first in Charlotte's yard.  I did a blog page on her yard, hope to do another one.

      Fantastic pink was Carrel's rose.  I had space to plant another rose and since this one was not getting enough sun he planted in A bed.  A bed gets about ten hours of sun.











                                       

 This rose was here when I bought the house.  It is a high performer all summer.  Frank. my son, moved this rose from the shade to A bed in July of two thousand seven.  Carrel cut it back and said it would not live.  I kept a gallon of water by it and watered it every day. I do not know the name of it.

 This is the kind of rose I like.  A tight rose a lot of pedals no center showing.

Frank Jr. rooted this rose for me.  Charlotte and Frank went to the old home place and dug up this rose.  Mrs Murphy, their grandmother had  this rose and a pink running rose when I was a little girl.  I do not know the name of it, however it must be a hundred years old.  The fragrance is very nice.  The next four  roses are the fragrant part of bed A.












a






  



   These two pictures are two of the colors on this rose bush.  There is an almost purple color before  they die.  Carrel thinks this is one of Ebtide's  parents.








                                                                 
 I bought this rose at Wal=Mart in McGehee, I walked by and the fragrance was wonderful so  I had to buy it.

 You can see by the buds it has had a lot of blooms.  I planted it in two thousand six.  I call it my frog rose because in October of two thousand eight, I found this frog in it.  The morning was cool, maybe the rose was it's blanket.

                  

Ebtide the first rose to bloom this year.
                                  

This bush has a lot of blooms on the end of the limbs and we have to tie it up.  I am hoping it will have stronger limbs in the future. It is a heavy bloomer,all season.

Sweetness was given to me by my granddaughter, Bridget, for Christmas in two thousand eight.  A gift for my garden just keeps giving.  Sweetness is the last of the good smelling roses.  Thank you Bridget.                                                   

    

This is really a nice bloomer.  Kimbalina was another rose that Bridget gave me for Christmas in two thousand and nine.

This tour only covered about half of my roses I will finish this at a later date.  I do hope you have enjoyed this page of my blog.  Thank you for watching my garden grow and bloom, hope you will grow one of your own.  Happy gardening to you from Carrel and I, Juanita.

                                                                    

                                                                               

  

New Flowers

I know, looks like a lot of work  They are all planted, except for the pots.  I will show you where we planted them and if I know it, the name of them.

 These were light and dark pink, they reseed themselves.  They had no tag.  They told me what they are however I forgot.

These were light pink.  They have faded to white.

These were all dark pink now they are fading to light pink.  I like the two tone effect of these.

These flowers in front of the bench are the reason I  went to  Shreveport.  Garrison's Nursery is the only place that I have seen these.  They do not multiply by root and none came up from seed so maybe by rooting a limb, I will not have to buy so many if I can root them  The name of this one is Mystic Spires Blue Salvia.  The humming birds love these.  The blooms are quite large for a Saliva.

 This limb broke off of one of these plants.  I took off two more leaves and planted it.  I take a glass of water out everyday and pour it on this limb.  I believe it has rooted.  Any limb from a
plant you want to root you have to water
everyday. These flowers cost me $5.00 each so I saved that much.












This Clematis I planted in 2011 has really grown.  It was not a foot tall  when I planted  it. I want  it to climb the arbor and meet the rose. One of my California friends,  TerryLynn  said 'Grow baby grow."  It is now about five feet tall.  It has two vines on it.  Thanks TerriLynn it minded you.

You do not have to plant these close to another plant for shade.  I put thick pieces of newspaper down on all sides and covered it with pine straw and as you see it is quite healthy.   To me this is one of the prettiest  Climates  there is and the bees love.

I thought I bought a King Kong Coleus. Charlotte told me I did not but I did buy two others.  She gave this one to us for my two and Carrel planted it in his Mother's pot.  













                                                                      

We buy these red Bronze Begonia every year for one of my beds. However this year I decided Carrel should plant them around this pot, in the picture above.  He  built an eight foot square bed in his front yard and put the pot in the center.  I talked him into planting the Creeping Jenny in it with King Kong Coleus in the center,last year. We have had a hard time deciding on what  flowers to plant here. We will see how we like these. It will take another flat of these Bronze Begonia at  least.  I will buy them from my favorite place, Selmans Nursery in Eudora.

 I bought two Shasta Daisies.  I planted both in A bed  one on the outside and one on the inside.  I have not had any plain daisies in a while.  This daisies is close to the " Black eyed Susans"

 This one is in front of my Shepard's Hook.

I planted eleven Red Hot Sally Salvia next to the house in F bed.  These are close to our Humming Bird feeders.  They love these.  The flowers are under the windows and I can watch the humming birds feed. 





                                                                                                                                 

 I plant Dianthus in Spring and Fall.  They give color to the garden all Winter and very early Spring.  In our  hot and dry Summers some die.  However some of them come back from seed.  You need to remember that I am seventy six, my right hip has been broken.  The doctor told me I would never work in my garden again.  I did all that Spring cleaning.  When I had only four plants left I could do no more.  I called Carrel over and ask him to finish.  I did not tell him how badly my right hip hurt.  I went in took a hot bath, laid in the water thirty minutes.  Then went to bed.  I just did too much.  I am fine now.  In fact I have done my pots, next blog.  Carrel was pulling the water hose around in A bed, most of the roses are in this bed, and he broke off a piece of my older Mystic Spires Blue Salvia.  When I found it, it was very wilted. Not only that but he had the water hose laying on the bloom of the Clematis.  I moved the hose brought the wilted limb in and placed it in a glass of water.  The next morning it looked great.  Now I have three more of these wonderful plants, if they root.  Carrel is very good as all of you know, however he is a man.  I told him we would have to make an adjustment to our watering system.  I will tell you all I said.  Always there is a brighter side. I now have three more of the plants that I go all the way to Shreveport to buy and saved fifteen dollars.

                                                       

   I hope you have enjoyed this blog page.  Thank you for watching my garden grow and bloom, hope you will grow one of your own.  Happy gardening to you from Carrel and I, Juanita.