A View of My Garden in a Mirror 2010

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

#7 of 10 Things I Love in No Particular Order

Gardening!

You are probably thinking, well duh! This used to be a gardening blog after all. She must love gardening. And I do love gardening! These are things I love most about gardening:

Gardening is like "infinite decorating". I love interior decorating but one can only re-arrange and re-vamp a room so often without becoming obnoxious to those around you. Everyone wants to have their "spot" to relax and if you keep moving it around they get a little cranky! Gardening on the other hand is different. If you don't like where a plant is sitting, yank it up and plop it in the ground somewhere else! My favorite thing to do lately is re-vamping different areas in our yard so they are lower maintenance which gives me time for other things like enjoying the garden!


I re-vamped this area last year. Before this all the plants seemed to dry up in the hot sun. So why fight it? I added a dry bed and plants that don't require much water. Now I just ignore it and it's still happy.

 Another view of the dry bed re-vamp. 
These rocks were much cheaper than a new couch!

  
Gardening is full of surprises.  Sometimes that can be a good thing, sometimes it's not good or bad, just interesting.


Believe it or not this green flower is an Amaranth "Love Lies Bleeding". I grew it from a seed packet that has a red flower. It never turned red, it stayed green just like you see. Surprise!  

I planted this hardy hibiscus seven years ago and the blooms are the size of dinner plates. They are like this every year but when they actually bloom and I see them again it always surprises me how big they really are! I love them!

If you look close you can see a dragon fly trying to blend into this rock. Surprise!





7 comments:

  1. Love, love your dry bed area. Love Lies Bleeding must have been mislabeled. Have always wanted to see a green one. I have those Hibiscus and man are they dependable!

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  2. Your dry river rock area is beautiful! When we went almost 5 weeks without rain last summer, I felt like my entire garden was a "dry bed"! If you need a super drought resistant plant, try coreopsis "Sunshine Superman". It's beautiful and tough as nails.

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  3. Absolutely love what you've done with your rocks and logs - such artistry in the arrangement! Everything growing in the bed looks so happy - I've never seen that blue-flowered tiny daisy bush (can't recall the name) as healthy and floriferous as yours!

    The hibiscus you have featured is so gorgeous and unusual. It's the first time I've seen one like it...would LOVE to have it in my garden...yours looks positively glowing with good health!

    As always, a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining post, Annie! You have no idea how excited I get when I see you've uploaded a new one!!!

    Spotting little garden visitors, especially a dragonfly, always gives me a thrill, too! This little fellow was so well camouflaged!

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  4. I love your dry bed. I am creating one this spring and summer. Can you send me a list of the plants you used? I am at the Garden Spot. cheers. ann

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  5. Your love of gardening is oh SO obvious. You've got an amazing talent. I can't wait for spring and all the fun we're going to have.

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  6. Thanks for the comments everyone.

    TS...I will have to try the coreopsis sunshine, thanks for the advice!

    Ann...try this link

    http://www.finegardening.com/design/articles/dry-stream-bed.aspx

    This is where I came up some ideas for my dry bed. Unfortunately mine doesn't look this good but it's fun to look at it and dream!

    I used several different Euphorbias, Wulfenii being my very favorite! I also have a few grasses, some succulents, a coreopsis, an aster and then I planted a few annuals in the spring for color. If you need the exact names then I will need Grace to come over and clue me in! :) She is the genius!

    Annie

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  7. Dear Annie, I read this post when you first wrote it, and felt sure I had commented. Apparently I didn't, so must tell you now how very much I enjoyed it! We all love gardening, but we can't always put our reasons into words as well as you have. Beautifully done! P x

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