Garden

To celebrate my third year living in this house, I finally planted flowers in the yard. It has been two weeks post-planting, and they are all still alive. I can't wait for them to spread out a bit and get to know each other. Click on the pictures to view larger versions. My initial plan was to grow poppies and purple cone flowers (echinacea) as a subtle nod to my profession. But purple cone flowers are a wimpy shade of purple and look sort of weedy sometimes. And poppies seem to be solitary souls, when what I want is a jungle of dense color. So I just picked out random flowers that I like.

The small, green, flowerless patches above are red compact mother-of-thyme. It is groundcover that is supposed to produce a blanket of teeny red flowers that will fill in the empty spaces. I had planned to use white alyssum (sp?) for groundcover, but I missed my chance to buy it. The green seems to be doing fine, but I see no flower buds yet despite judicious fertilizing. I am moderately concerned.

These are purple dianthas. Perennials!! My grand plan was to mix yellow/orange, purple/blue, and white flowers, but I couldn't resist the magenta.

Blue floss flowers. Unfortunately an annual, but hardy and will last through the fall. I like the fuzzy flowers.

My plan was for a riot of black-eyed susans. But I couldn't find any except for seed packets (see below). I usually scorn marigolds, but I liked these tricolor ones in orange, red, and yellow.

I desperately want black-eyed susan daisies. I want tall cheery yellow flowers to stand proudly behind the blue/purple/magenta ones. I couldn't find any plants around, so I bought a seed packet. The sprouts are pictured above, on my front patio. I am thrilled that I got this far with seeds. I am hoping that they haven't been started too late for blooming. When I bought the seed packet, I accidentally bought the annual black-eyed susans instead of the perennial kind. I am a little disappointed about that. My plan was to get a larger and larger crop of them every year and to encourage them to insidiously take over the neighborhood. There would be little cause for unhappiness around here if we were all surrounded by daisies.