The Beautiful Blues

Iris and May Night Salvia

Blue Montana

I just about made it for GBBD for June! But being only a day late is not all that bad, considering this is the first month I have made this year! Seems to be a theme going here, and it's BLUE. I do love blue/purple flowers and they are in abundance in my gardens this time of the year.

HUGE leaves of Japanese Anemone due to my special winter mix

For some reason the salvias are particularly strong and beautiful this year. Even my DH noticed and commented on them. The stems are so tall.

False Indigo

Creeping Turkish Veronica


A few daisies to break up all of the blue

Bright Blue Flax

While I lost a large number of new plants to winter kill, the older perennials really prospered. I'm wondering if it was the special winter mix I put on them last Fall (EKO Organic Compost, Earthgro Garden Soil, horticultural corn meal, Yum Yum Mix & Winterizer, and alfalfa pellets.) To that mixture I added bits of cotton bole and mushroom compost that I had left over. It certainly has been worth the effort, now that I see the results.

It's About Time??

Know that statement, This is the first day of the rest of your life? Well.... that is more fitting for me today than I'd like to admit. I can't believe it has been sooooo long since I've updatede my blog! Good grief... there are still snow photos of April! It's not like I forgot or anything. Illness and dealing with my father's death had to take priority over everything else for a while. As of this week I finally have his house cleaned out, remodeled, and ready for sale. What a difficult journey that has been, especially not feeling well. The house was in horrible condition because of my parents' declining health in the last several years and it needed a LOT of work. Throw in a handyman who was as slow as molasses in winter, and a recently diagnosed back condition, and there you are...no time or energy (mostly energy) left over for blogging. I feel like I have my life back as of today. There are so many things that had to go undone for the last three months that I had to do triage every day to see what would be a priority. Thank goodness my wonderful DH did a good job of cleaning up the perennial beds in the Spring and putting in some new plants. I was only able to keep up with a little weeding and some watering. But bless their beautiful little hearts, those perennial beds have just carried right on without me. That's one of the wonderful things about perennials.

We had a very strange, cold spring with little moisture. Not a good tulip year. The cold got to them, as well as most of the new plantings I put in last Fall. Quite a few plants and bushes suffered a lot of winter damage. The problem was that it was sooooo cold, and yet sooooo dry!

I missed Bloom Day on the 15th, but did take some photos which I will go ahead and post a little late. I'm looking forward to catching up on every one's blogs and getting back in action. Gardening will be limited while I have a shot in my back and start some extensive physical therapy. But I plan to take care of myself now and get healthy. Gardening is my inspiration!