What's blooming?

The Minnesota hardy mum! Even though I pinched this back in mid-July, it is blooming like crazy!

I blanched a pound of beans tonight and picked some beautiful Caspian Pink heirloom tomatoes. They look different, but are very tasty!

Garden friends

Thanks to some of my gardening friends who are moving their plants and wanting to make room for new things to try, I planted a bunch of hostas and other plants - phlox, daisies, daylilies, coneflowers, fleeceflower (pictured), and Joe Pye weed.

As I was planting the hostas (really, I was just plunking them into the ground in no particular fashion), I was dreaming of the beautiful bed that they would be planted in next spring. What a special pleasure it is to be able to take a simple patch of ground and create something interesting and beautiful.

New bed

Between the vegetable garden and the driveway, I have added some phlox, a plume poppy, daylilies and a bunch of coneflowers. They all look pretty sad, but they will look great next spring! I hope to find some shorter perennials to fill in at the front.

Carefree Beauty

One of my favorite shrub roses!

Rock border

Another project that I am working on is adding a rock border. This is the edge of a path that will run in front of the house between the foundation plantings and the shrub border. I'll use newspaper and mulch to kill the grass, then after a year or two, I will take out the mulch and add pea gravel or crushed limestone. I also want to make some stepping stones.

Small bed

I added some rock to this area. The plants are irises and My Monet wiegela. The raised square brick will be the perfect spot for a planter next spring. There is one on the other side of the path, too. Sorry for the hose in the background - no rain lately, so the soaker hose is running on some of the new shrubs by the vegetable garden.

Front yard shrub border

It has been a hot week! I have been working on the shrub border in the front of the house. On this end of the border, I've planted spreading cotoneasters, some Tiger Eye sumacs and Ivory Halo dogwoods.

I also planted some hydrangeas - Tardiva, Pink Diamond, Pinky Winky, and three Twist and Shout. They are close to the front path. There are also some Ivory Halo dogwoods and Tor spireas in this part of the border.

I discovered a bee colony when I tried to move a large boulder. I decided to leave the boulder in place - I didn't want to kill the bees.

The Mugo pines in this border are not doing well and I plan to replace them with evergreens that are more upright. This will all look much different once it gets mulched!

Another shrub border....

I've started to add shrubs around the outside of the fence. Snowmound spireas, some Sara Bernhardt peonies, and some Regent serviceberries. I plan to add a couple of hydrangeas - an Annabelle and an interesting one with varigated leaves. I am also going to move my Honeycrisp apple tree to this are.

Arbor

I finally found an arbor! And it was on sale : ) I planted an Aunt Dee wisteria to grow up and over - it will be so much fun to see it grow and bloom (hopefully) next summer.

Climbing Roses

These roses haven't grown too much taller, but they are blooming!