In My Alaska Garden–Busy Summer Addition: Flowers
I am wayyyyy behind on my photo blogging and I’m going to try and catch up a bit this week. I promise that I’ll show you the photos of setnetting and I’ll also get to the vegetable progress. As you can imagine, everything is exploding right now.
However, I wanted to catch the flowers “while they are hot” so you can enjoy the beautiful colors this Fourth of July week!
Lilacs at Sunset — 11:30 pm on July 1st
Columbine (with the fluffy remnants of Cottonwood seeds sticking to the petals)
Lilies read to burst open
One of the hundreds of varieties of Sedum
Yes, lavender is my favorite color…why do you ask?
More Columbine in a vibrant pink
New Edition — a Pincushion Flower to replace my Thrift
The Thrift was a victim of Dear Husband’s weeding…but notice, I said HE WEEDED — and without complaint! You can bet I wasn’t going to complain about losing a couple of replaceable perennials, no Sir!
Yup, more Sedum!
Another new addition: Hens and Chicks
This was also to replace one that was…errr…missing. The reason my husband attacked everything so fiercely is because of our Campanula Glomerata. Read the link and our reasons are much the same as discussed in the blog post. The plant was given to us by Josh’s mom. We saw it when it was blooming and thought it was pretty. She has since dug it out and gotten rid of it as well.
I’ll have another blog-full of flowers in a few weeks…the midsummer flowers are coming! In the next garden post, I’ll catch you up on the fabulous hoop house and what I’m learning as I go!
How is your garden today?
I started over to read two or three times and finally got her today!! Oh such pretty flowers!! Can’t wait to hear how the hoop house is doing.
For us lots of salad makings, green tomatoes, squash up and doing well, Currents are geting ripe, as are strawberries. Let me see, what I am I missing…oh yes, broc & cabbage are going great gusn, cauliflower less so, but still have hope. Potatoes doing well. Think that is it for now.
Am mostly looking for breaks in the clouds the last few days and keeping track of the fishing crew and other ‘work’. Hoping you can all stay cool, at least those who are frying!!
I finally planted 2-year old seeds almost two weeks ago (prompted by wanted to transplant zucchini seedlings out of the composter where they’d decided to sprout, though they’ve all since died). One half barrel full of collards, spinich, and two lettuce mixes–everything going great guns, albeit just a few mm. tall at this point. Two pots of carrots not yet up yet, but the packet said two weeks till germination, so we’ll see. One pot of broccoli which is also growing well. One pot of basil which seems determined to grow. The failed zucc seedlings have been replaced in their half barrel by English peas that were sprouting in their pods; we’ll see if they grow into anything worthwhile!
The flowers are coming along, though the lilacs are on the downhill side of good. The delphiniums should open soon, the irises are blooming, the primroses are all done, the columbines are plodding along, as is the bleeding heart. And the dang creeping buttercups…ugh!
Thanks for sharing, Linda. Pretty certain your penultimate picture is an Arenaria, Sandwort, in the Caryophylla, Pink family. There are some garden worthy native plants in that family, one I have a lot of is Bering Sea Chickweed. Could share some of that with you, also have a lot of the native Sedum, Roseroot.
You could be right, actually, about both the pink and the white flowered plants. I knew they were the same thing and memory (as well as disappearing lables over the years) could have assumed it was stonecrop (sedum). However, I’ve been unable to find anything online exactly matching my pinkish-purple flowers. They do look more like dianthus (in the same group) than they do stonecrop, however.
Thanks so much for the beautiful flowers.
Columbine are some of my favorite flowers.
I picked green tomatoes yesterday for the next door neighbors. I also picked the first two ripe cherry tomatoes and popped them right into my mouth. We are having the same heat to a lesser degree as Jimzmum. I am thrilled that after two severe storms, my corn is still standing. A few of my other vegetables are slowly producing a thing or two. Over the weekend, I thinned out my purple carrots and added what I pulled to a sauteed dish along with swiss chard, garlic, onions, purple beans, zucchini and the last of the spinach. All from my garden. The broccoli has been doing very well and I have a fridge full. The first round of red potatoes are dug.
I paid a $20 fee to get a small plot in the community garden behind the catholic church at the end of my block. I am using that for more potatoes, beans and onions. I found that planting onion sets in between the rows of beans helps keep some of the pests off. 🙂
Will you be able to keep that plot for next year, m? If so, go on and plant a nice winter groundcover there this fall to turn under early next Spring for a mineral boost. Good stuff! What cultivar of corn did you plant? Hooray for it to not be sprawled on the ground!
I won’t be able to keep the same plot. The church/garden organizers rotate the garden plots with the food pantry corn. They do plant cover crops for the winter and till it in. They also provide compost and a rain water catchment. The plot I have is rather small. Next year, I’ll get over there earlier and get a larger one.
I planted silver queen corn from lake valley seed. One of our local urban farmers suggested I save some seed from this hatch since it’s so strong and vigorous.
Oh your sauteed dish sounds wonderful! Can’t grow all that stuff but gonna try gathering up the stuff and try it.
Swiss chard is late and slow, spinach has and is still doing wonderfully ( on 3rd planting) , broccoli hasn’t made any “brocs” yet but putting along. No carrots- too slow here but folks 20 miles away in drier part of borough do well with them. Gonna see what I can trade for some 🙂
New variety of zucchini (for me ) has blossoms- is called “Eight Ball” Some folks have had good results so am trying it.
Oh yum, yum. Gonna try em all together 🙂
Just about any vegetables mixed together seem to make a wonderful sauteed dish. That’s how I finish off the last few dabs of things too. Makes for a tasty dish and loads of good stuff. Add some fresh herbs to give it some real punch.
Lilacs at sunset- so pretty!
I hope you enjoy the Pincushion flower as much as I enjoy mine of 10 years.
For all my whining about the chill and extra rain here, cool weather shade perennials are doing beautifully.
Astrantias are blooming. Search for images and be enchanted with this beauty 🙂
Multiple varieties of primula, including some candlebra types , are blooming in reds, whites, yellows, oranges, and lavendars. Silvery Snow on the Mountain is covered with white blossoms next to tens of purple iris.
Daylilies are late but about to open, ligularia close too.
Lots of other things very slow and cranky in perennial beds this year but plenty of cool weather color anyway !
Sedums coming along but am now putting on wish list a find-out-if-it-will-grow-here note for the lovely lavendar one you have. Wow!
Thank you Linda!
Campanula Glomerata. Spent a few years ridding one of our gardens in NJ of that most, er, enthusiastic cultivar. We moved from there in 1990, and I havent had the stuff in any of the gardens I have had since.
Our gardens are on hold as we are in full drought, and excessive heat warnings every day. It has been as high as 112*! I am braving the possibility of bothering a skunk, and heading outside at 4:30 in the morning to water, then periodically throughout the day depending on shade and need.
But, we are busy putting food by for the winter. Beautiful produce from our locally grown farm stands and markets. Corn has been in for three weeks, which has NEVER happened before. So have tomatoes, and ditto on the time. The dehydrator is going 24/7 with herbs, and I am giving that bounty away as fast as it dries. We have plenty.
I have been nosing around friend’s hoop-houses to see how they deal with climate problems. We don’t use them all that much except for early propagation, and then straw storage later on along with cool-season crops. Several around here are dug down a couple of feet to keep them cooler!
We live in Illinois, just outside of St. Louis, MO. Our small county is agricultural, no huge corporate farming. Market farming and livestock. Our county supplies a lot of the produce for St. Louis, and the farmers are diversifying to work with the changing climate of both the weather and consumer wants and needs.
I love your pics. Fun to see what is in bloom so far away and a couple months after we’ve said so long to the flowers here. A question about your lilac. We have to be on guard against powdery mildew with these lovelies. Even the newer cultivars said to be mildew resistant. Do you have that problem there?