Beginning Stages - Week 1 (June 5, 2011)

Sorry it took a while to post the pictures. The following pictures were taken on Sunday June 5th. They are week 1 after buying them from the landscaping area.

I had one remaining pot of the impatiens in which I planted them in this angel container that I got from a white elephant gift party several years ago. Cool, huh?

The blueberry tree is doing well. We haven't planted them  yet.

The following pictures are the Butterfly garden we are trying to create to attract butterflies.

These 2 are the Jim Crockett Star Asters.

Jim Crockett False Asters

This is the whole butterfly garden. I have put in cherry wood mulch on it now which I will post in a separate post. I've planted: Star Aster, Yarrows, Zinnas, Marigolds, Dark Pink Gaura, Salvias, Peony, Gladiolus, and Dahlia. I planted the Peony, Gladioulus and Dahlia bulbs in the back of the gardening area thanks to the generosity of my Sis in-law!

Images link for: Gladiolus     Karl Rosenfeld Peony      Dahlia Hawaii

These are the Belleza Dark Pink Gaura that I am not sure if there's still hope for them. They look more brown than when I first bought them.

Link to image: Belleza Dark Pink Gaura

These are the Sunny Seduction Yarrow. My neighbor has these in his garden and my other neighbor says you cannot kill Yarrows. I guess that's in my favor! LOL

Sunny Seduction Yarrow

These are the Safari Mix Marigolds

French Dwarf Marigold Safari Mix

These are the Swizzle Scarlet and Yellow Zinnias

Swizzle Scarlet and Yellow Zinnia

These are the Salvias

Salvias

Another close up picture of them.

 

 Below is the gardening area in front of the deck:

I have Diamond Frost to use to border it and a couple different annuals: Lemon Symphony and Soprano Purple flowers

Soprano Puprle

Soprano Purple

Lemon Symphony

Lemon Symphony

This is the Diamond Frost. I wanted something for border

Diamond Frost


The following are updates of how well my impatiens are blooming and so beautiful!

Below are the hibsicus flowers that came with the house. They bloom late summer/early fall. They are already starting to come up. I weeded the area and put cherry wood mulch on them. They run along the side of the house (don't ask me which direction: re - north, south).

Hibiscus Flowers


Below is the gardening area in front of the house with cherry wood mulch.

 Dahlinova Flordia annual. Hoping they will survive.

Dahlinova Florida

This is supposed to be the Dahlietta Violet Frost Dahlia Annual flower but I am not sure if they will survive

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Dahlietta Violet Frost Dahlia

Serena Lavender Pink Angelonia

Serena Lavender Pink Angelonia

 

Carita Raspberry Angelonia

Carita Raspberry Angelonia

Black-Eyed Perennials that came with the house

Black-eyed Susans

The following is the side of our driveway that is not feasible to have mulch or flowers or plants there since it is in the way of our vehicles and when we get in and out. The previous home owner had perennial flowers there and we had to kill it because it was a nuisance. We plan on putting grass seeds there.

I have yet to buy vegetable plants, but this is our garden that we will have vegetables in. It's a perfect area of our backyard that is out of the way but receives lots of sun.

A passion for gardening

I started showing some passion towards gardening last year. I started small with starting our own vegetable and fruit gardens. I did not get a chance to put energy and fiances into pursuing other gardening ideas such as flowers or perennials.

What I love about gardening is the peaceful nature of the task. It encourages me to slow down and take in something so simple that is not a tech-y device such as cell phone or computer or TV. It brings me to what matters and living life beautifully. I have found that gardening gives me an outlet to unwind and eliminates my stress from everyday life.

So this year I had so many inspiring ideas of what I could do. I didn't necessarily have any specific plants or flowers in mind. I basically wanted to fill up areas where I felt needed plantings. I also was inspired by Kaylor to have a so-called "butterfly" garden - meaning having flowers that naturally attracts butterflies. My neighbor subscribes to a magazine called Garden Gate and she found an article/section about butterfly gardening plans. She let me borrow it. In that section, there were many flower ideas of what I could choose from to use to attract butterflies.

So I had all these ideas but I knew I had to maintain what we had in our yard first -meaning getting the garden areas ready (take weeds out and get the soil ready). I worked hard to grab at every free opportunity time I had, at the cooperation of weather, to work on this so that the sooner I get this done, the sooner I could do some shopping and plant my gardens!!

I was ready by Memorial Weekend and it was a perfect timing too since I had a nice long weekend. I normally have long weekends anyways with my 3-days part-time job but it was nice to have Monday being the holiday - having the schools being closed and nothing else going on (like Hannah's softball game). I am sure you can understand when I say that holiday weekends are usually less hectic than your normal hectic weekday life.

Anyhow, I drew all the gardening areas measurements on a piece of paper and brought the magazines with me to a local landscaping business I have never visited before. I wanted to check out this business. Like I said earlier, I didn't have any particular flowers or plants to buy, just simply something that I would like and is appropriate for my gardening areas. The butterfly garden was an exception, however, because I had some guidance on what to buy. It really depended on what plants they had available there.

Green Scene Landscaping link: Green Scene Landscaping

I was so thrilled and enthusiastic to plant all those pretty things and bring my ideas to life. I am just an amateur but I know we all start somewhere and improve with experience and practice. I am not quite finish with my gardening areas. I have discovered that I did not get enough for a couple areas. So I plan to get some more plants and maybe some edgers.

Here's a picture of all the plants I bought on Memorial Day:

              This is Rockapulco Purple Impatiens that I put in the shade in a basket I kept from 2 years ago. It stands on a plant hanger and is next to shed. This was the first day when I brought it home. I will have to show you an updated picture of this basket now that its been 1 week. It has bloomed more flowers now.I also used potting garden soil to plant with these flowers.

Impatiens Day 1

 Here's an image link to what the flowers would look like: Rockapulco Purple Impatiens

      
              This is one of the gardening areas I wanted to plant. If you notice that I have a plant there already. Its a type of fern that I transplanted from a different area. It was growing on our side underneath the neighbor's fence that borders our driveway. I was hoping to use more ferns to plant there and my neighbor was willing to give me some since she has so many of them, but the ones she had were very, very tall and it just didn't work for me. So I am keeping this one fern I have here. I have already planted some flowers in this area but my camera battery died today and I have to charge it before I take more pictures. Will post tomorrow or Monday hopefully.
 

Deck Garden Area - Day 1

I will post more pictures tomorrow or Monday when my camera battery is fully charged! I also wanted to remind you that after I post my gardening area pictures later, it is still a work in progress and is not complete yet. Also, it is in the beginning stages. It will take time before it really blooms and grow to what is expected from the plants.