Hi there.

I am very pleased to see all the visitors to my brand new blog. Thanks to John, at Heritage Perennials, for the mention in the May newsletter. I am looking forward to reading your blogs as well. And if you don't have one, you should. They are very easy to set up. And we all love reading internet garden porn.

Speaking of garden porn, I have a guilty admission to make. I am attracted to plants based on their names, more than anything else. (And being a fairly novice gardener, that is about all I have to go on). Potentilla, Lavatera, Rudbeckia, Liatris, Dicentra, Fothergilla. I have purchased a lot of plants just so I can tell people what they are. The more easily the name flows, the more likely I am to have it in my garden. I also have some that are functional, but I pretend they have much prettier names, Euonymous, Eupatorium, Viburnum. I'll admit, they need love too.

I am going to the garden centre later today for my fix of exotic and alluring plant names, and then see if I can fit them into the garden design somewhere.

I stand corrected

That baby lime green plant is a Sweet Kate Spiderwort. The leaves are chartreuse, and the flowers are gentian blue.

Thank you, Heritage Perennials, for the description.

Teeny baby plants

I love this time of year, with the teeny brave little souls poking their heads above the ground to check out the weather. These wee plants showed up this week.



They are, counter-clockwise from top left:
Something very expensive. I'll think of the name in time.
Speedwell, with lovely lime green leaves, and a purple flower
Red mini tulip, which the squirrels didn't eat.
Fern, delicate little baby just unfolding
Columbine, a variety with these burgundy leaves and white flowers that look sort of like orchids
And a cream mini rose. I bought two pots of mini roses at the grocery store, and divided them into 17 mini rose bushes, which all survived the winter.

Isn't It Lovely

Here, in all it's glory, is the rain barrel.



In front, a Dicentra (Bleeding Heart that blooms all summer), which has just started flowering. A stand of Solomon's Seal that grows inches every day. To the left, the Serviceberry tree, and under that, some grass that needs removing, but more significantly, a Cranesbill that, after being moved a few times, has finally settled in. To the right, our very scrappy Cedar tree. To the far right, in front of the cedar, a boxwood. And to the left, sort of behind, a variegated euonymous.

I am so pleased, these are all things (with the exception of the cedar) that I planted over the past three years. This is the fourth summer for the boxwoods, they were the very first things I put in, the first autumn I started working on the gardens.

The irrigation system has been installed, and plants are being watered. Now it's a race to see if I can get it empty before more rain comes, so that it can be raised on a platform, to sit above the height of the front garden bed. Drip irrigation is very scientific, the water has to flow downhill. It's also a test to see how long it takes to empty. I am almost convinced that I need a second barrel.

Both will share the same blog. It would be excessive for each rain barrel to have his own blog.