Saturday Garden Blogging

Two weeks ago we finally got around to buying some flowers and plants. In past years I usually did this in May, but I guess I was just somewhat lazy this year. Anyway, I drove down the street to The Growing Place (Aurora branch). It is actually within walking distance, but lugging home several plants and a big bag of potting soil would be rather difficult, so I drove. Laura stayed home to be ready to haul the dogs away in the event of a showing. So I had free reign at the gardening center, which is always fun. Laura doesn't really get into the gardening thing that much anyway.

I bought:

• A full flat of impatiens for the two hanging baskets out front ("Accent Sunrise Mix," a mix of apricot, orange, salmon, and white flowers). We planted the extra ones in small pots for the front porch. I've always gotten good results with impatiens on the porch since they like the shade.


• A gerbera daisy for a pot out back ("Festival Scarlet with Eye")


• Two basil plants for a cedar box on the backyard picnic table ("Greek Columnar Basil"). We plan to use this one for cooking.


• Two spearmint plants for a cedar box on the picnic table. We use these for cooking as well, although they probably get the most use in iced tea.

This is similar to the last few summers, with the notable exception of tomatoes, which I used to plant in pots. Since the house is currently on the market, we will probably not be here in August when tomatoes would be ready to harvest. I'm going to miss the homegrown tomatoes this year. I don't have an actual in-ground garden, so I would always plant them in pots, which actually works quite well.

We planted everything in the hottest part of a hot, humid weekend. Ugh.

Anyway, the plants have all done great the last couple weeks. I took pictures the day we planted everything and again today, just two weeks later. The herbs have grown quite a bit, despite the fact that we've snipped off a few leaves to use already.

The gerbera flower, close up:

The full plant:


The basil today:

The day we planted it:


The mint today:

The day we planted it:


Hanging basket today. I find it hard to get a good angle to photograph these:

The same basket the day we planted the flowers, looking a little scrawny:


This is the flower from a potentilla plant we have in a large pot. We've had this one since the first summer we lived here (2001). One year it looked pretty much dead, with just one branch still hanging in there. It then recovered and has been doing great ever since. Two weeks ago it was covered with these little yellow flowers.