I have a lot of plants, some that I did and others that we inherited with the house. Artistic landscaping is at a minimum around our place but there's lots of color throughout the year so I figured I'd post some blooms. There is something putting out a flower almost year round at our place. Some plants I know the name of and others I don't.

Front porch Clematis.



Can't think of the name on this one right now, though I know it. I refer to this one as my peek-a-boo plant.



This is why...



I have no idea why the previous owner planted that flower between the box hedges. I will move it when I know where I want to go with it.

Salvia?



These were supposed to be black Iris but apparently the move has lightened their hearts. Now they are strange purple stripped things. They were black at my mom's house where I originally grew them. I will attempt to change them back at a later date.



This is a shot of the whole bed before I tear it apart to put down new weed barrier and mulch this weekend.



One side of the shed. The Peonies are almost ready to bloom. The other side that I haven't gotten to cleaning up yet has my Black Forest callas (they are up now!) a Hydranga shrub, and my blueberries.



Blueberries are a go. I have three plants. This is just my early starter. They always do their thing one at a time.



Bushes at the end of the driveway. Don't know what they are but they stink and they're noisy. I think that's why they were planted so far from the house.



This is why they are noisy...they are everywhere.



A new flowerbed I built on the north side of house weekend before last. Plants from left to right: Bristly Locust, Hosta, Plantain Lily, Mums, Renewing Bleeding Heart, more mums.



Weird grass that blooms. Don't have a clue what it is.



Where the weird grass is planted.



Back yard Clematis



Red Columbine



Blue Columbine



Only roses that are blooming right now are mini roses.





Where the backyard Clematis grows.



Phlox are done blooming for now but this is them when they are blooming.



Encroaching wild flowers.



Ornamental Sweet potato vine. It has bloomed once already but an ant ate it before I could get a picture of that one. This one will open later today. Yes, I did kill the ant and several others who thought to make a snack bar out of my flowers.



And this is my "garden". Two trees in the back are apples trees. Right is a tart tree. Left is a sweet. I don't know the species. Since the dogs won't let me have an in-ground garden I grow in planter boxes (hence why the tomato cages are upside down). I have two tomatoes, Zucchini, Corn, and weird lettuce.



Weird lettuce.



Potatoes! There pumpkins in there too but they and the watermelon are still not up.



Strawberries.



Last, but not least, some of my indoor garden.



I didn't realize I had so much stuff until I tried to make a thread. I may have gotten a little carried away. Sorry about that.

Jenn, everything is gorgeous!

The phlox looks so pretty all bloomed in that area.

Jenn - everything is lovely. That "grass that blooms" is probably a Tradescantia aka Spiderwort.

I love the phlox - we've been talking about putting some in for ages but the initial investment is daunting (the problem with a large property is that 3-4 plants of one variety just doesn't cut it,)

Your first clematis looks like 'Nelly Moser' but clematis has a lot of look alikes. And the little pink things with the blue green stems probably a Dianthus ("pinks"). I would bet the previous owner put several in while the shrubs were tiny things. The shrubs grew and crowded out the dianthus - or, if your soil is really moist, the dianthus mostly went belly up - they like it wet (I know, we tried with 'zing rose" - just wouldn't take.)

Must be nice to have something in bloom all year round - our daffodils and forsythia have just gone by (the bloom season was truncated this year - major heat all at once as they started the bloom )

I think the next to bloom is going to be my big roses. It'll probably be a couple more weeks on them. After them the Crape myrtle should start to pop. My husband hates them because they look dead for a large chunk of the year. Later in the summer I have some kind of black plant that puts on white flowers, the hydranga bush and the sage will start up. I didn't check but I think some of the lilies are starting to think about budding. Callas should do their thing in a month or two. In the fall there are mums all along the front of the house that bloom heavy.

I'm still waiting on my Joseph's coat rose. It's growing like crazy but not showing any signs of blooming anytime soon so I'm guessing it's a late bloomer. As this is the first time it's been able to put on more than one cane I'm just glad it looks alive still.

Phlox are so slow at first but these have done some serious growing just since we moved in. They will take the yard if I let them.

Nice work and great close pics! you have so much in bloom right now!
Gardens do have a way of taking over and growing, but thats the fun of it.

I need to get out and get some of my blooms but i think the snow did a number on them...

Oh wow Jenn, looks great!! I absolutely love flowers that looks like a bed, and your phlox is just that, heavenly.......I think island gardens break up huge lawns, very nice. And I want your GSD statue, lol.

Wow, Jenn! Your gardens look amazing! I'm so jealous, I do not have a green thumb. I could probably kill a silk plant.

Jennifer, your snow recently just baffles me. I hope it didn't knock them all back and you will have some color to enjoy.

Renee, if you want the statue you can come and get it. We inherited it from the old owner. Lee hates it and wants to blow it up, I just didn't want it in the middle of the yard where they had it. I'm not sure what to do with it since when we move I doubt the next people will want it either which leaves the dilemma of do we take it with us or just let the new people do what they might with it?

lol, Casey. Don't leave them in the sun and they won't fade. Frankly, most of my stuff was established before I got there so I'm just trying to keep them alive.

I think it looks amazing but I just kill plants. Not sure how.

Wow Jenn, your garden is awesome!!!  I love it!!! Love the flowers on " weird grass", phlox looks AMAZING, all the planter areas are so cute, everything looks sooooo beautiful. The "peek-a-boo" plant does look like a Dianthus like Amy said, it's stems are very carnation-ish, looks very pretty. I wish I could keep my lawn that green!!LOL

Just a lil side note...the ornamental sweet potato vine is toxic to dogs and other animals if eaten, just thought I'd throw that in here in case you didn't know...I used to have some back in the day and saw them for sale at a nursery with a tag on them about being poisonous to animals, I looked it up when I got home and sure enough, they are.

Thank you! Didn't know that about the sweet potato vine but it is in a box suspended off the back of the porch about 10 feet in the air so they shouldn't have issue with it. So far mine have been really good about leaving plants alone. Most of the potted stuff is in the yard with them all the time and they don't bother them. They prefer to dig up all the nice green grass instead. I think they dislike the mulch that is on everything because they don't usually walk through the flowerbeds too much. Keno will get after moles and that's when I have to look out if a mole run goes through a flowerbed. They killed another monday morning. I have the mole beepers and everything but they don't seem to phase the moles too much anymore.

Dianthus sounds right. I have a red one in the back yard that isn't blooming yet. I would move this one back there with it but that bed is going to fill in pretty tight in the next couple years. I think there's another pink one in the front yard but it hasn't put up any shoots yet. It comes back from the root every year whereas the other two just kinda hang out all winter then green when spring hits.

I didn't know either for a long time, especially with a name like sweet potato vine, and I had them in hanging baskets in my backyard on the patio, man were they beautiful!!! But at the time, I had Malukhai who would get seizures so I didn't want to take any chances, because leaves fall and all that stuff so I removed them...same with my angel trumpet plants, another toxic plant. It sucked but Malukhai's seizures sucked more and I wanted to eliminate any possible trigger.

You're lucky!!! Lol, mine dig up potted plants AND my lawn, LOL...Mishka is really big on eating plants too

Jenn, I don't wanna sound like Mr Doom and Gloom, lol, but just like with the sweet potato vine, I thought I'd throw this out there and you can take what you want from the information...(there is a site...naturescapes-pa.com that talks a little about it...there are others as well but this site touches on the the different aspects of it)  and I'm not sure your mulch is the colored mulch, it just kinda looks like it to me, but colored mulch isn't really good. It's made from pressure treated wood and contains things like arsenic, doesn't break down and enrich the soil, and can actually kill beneficial things in your soil and things like that. Your dogs are good with leaving the mulch alone so that part I wouldn't worry too much about but as I said, just throwing it out there cuz a lot of people use it without knowing some of the, I dunno, side effects I guess.

It is a red mulch. I have heard mixed things on it. The original owners started it. I had planned to phase it over to natural cedar. The crews that clean power line right of ways around here mulch everything they cut and will give you the mulch for free so they don't have to try and find a place to dump it. Crews aren't in my neck of the woods yet though. My parent's have a mountain of it I plan to raid for the larger beds I haven't gotten cleaned yet. I'm not a fan of the colored mulch. It's harder to keep up with and I don't plan to use it at our next place.

New wave of stuff is starting to open up.





My not-so-healthy rose. Surprisingly it looks better than last year.



Peonies are blooming but can't seem to handle the weight of it. The storm Saturday didn't help them much.





Pumpkins getting bigger. They will be ready to train in a couple weeks I think.



Morning Glories



One of two watermelons



Red miniature that's starting to bloom



Zucchini is on the bloom



My parent's brought me what they had left of the free mulch they got from the power line cleaning crew. Thought we did pretty good. Only found one snake mixed in with it.

I am so jealous that you have peonies. So many of the flowers I love don't do well (or grow at all) down here.

Who would turn down free mulch? And lord a snake? Yikes.

Wow, everything is taking off. Love the roses

simplify wrote:

I am so jealous that you have peonies. So many of the flowers I love don't do well (or grow at all) down here.

Who would turn down free mulch? And lord a snake? Yikes.

Now, I really like a lot of stuff that can grow outside down south that our winters will kill off in a heart beat. I know there's a ton of flowers I see in the south that would have to house plants here. I recently picked up an asparagus fern that Jimmy had in his front yard in his garden thread and it's doomed to a life indoors here.

I was happy to have the snake. We don't have many where we live. I was glad to let this one go in the back yard. Just a ring neck. It'll keep the bugs away from my garden.

Love the peonies!!! All your flowers look so healthy! I always have atleast one that gets eaten with holes or something, haha. I like that mulch too. I wanted to get my vegetable garden started (it's kinda late so I'm probly buying plants that are already started) but I was sick all wknd but...I wanna do pumpkins again!!! I don't know why, I just do, haha.

Jenn, with the fern, I'm pretty sure that if it's somewhat protected, like by a tree or something, it should do well outdoors, even with your winters. The roots have those rubbery bulb things and although the plant MAY turn brown or whatever when it's super cold, I'm pretty sure those bulb things keep multiplying and once Spring hits, the plant comes back even bigger. If it turns brown, just cut all that stuff off so when the new growth starts, it's not all mixed in.

If it multiplies, does it do well with being divided? Perhaps I can divide it sometime and try one half outside and keep the other inside just in case it doesn't go well. The last few years we've had at least a week every winter where the temperatures never got above 10 degrees. Some of my mom's outside ferns died last years when we didn't get out of the negatives for 2 weeks and they had been around for a decade, so I wasn't sure how much punishment this type could take.

Lol. I just don't take pictures of the unhealthy ones. You would weep if you saw my poor flowering almond. Only one chunk is alive and it loses leaves every now and then. Starting to wonder if there isn't some kind of bug in it but can't find any on the surface. The dead parts have developed lesions that at one point leaked sap. Now the bark is curling back and it looks like it's been rotting for 2 years yet it was perfectly alive last fall. I fertilized it and sprayed it with a fungus and pest killer but what it has is over my head for gardening.

TwisterII wrote:

If it multiplies, does it do well with being divided? Perhaps I can divide it sometime and try one half outside and keep the other inside just in case it doesn't go well. The last few years we've had at least a week every winter where the temperatures never got above 10 degrees. Some of my mom's outside ferns died last years when we didn't get out of the negatives for 2 weeks and they had been around for a decade, so I wasn't sure how much punishment this type could take.

Lol. I just don't take pictures of the unhealthy ones. You would weep if you saw my poor flowering almond. Only one chunk is alive and it loses leaves every now and then. Starting to wonder if there isn't some kind of bug in it but can't find any on the surface. The dead parts have developed lesions that at one point leaked sap. Now the bark is curling back and it looks like it's been rotting for 2 years yet it was perfectly alive last fall. I fertilized it and sprayed it with a fungus and pest killer but what it has is over my head for gardening.

Try this, Jenn:

http://tellys.com/system/files/Asparagus_Fern_Care.pdf

As for the almond - it's really not a long lived shrub. Is your ground wet at all? May have a root fungus which surface spraying won't help at all.

Love all your pics. Your peony is beautiful. Next year, when the shoots first appear, if you have some brushy twigs, stick a few in the ground as close to the plant as possible, as the plant leafs out, it will become entangled in the tiny twigs, the leaves will hide the tiwgs and the twigs will support the plant.

Thanks for the link.

I don't think the ground is super wet. It's damp but not sopping wet very often. Not sure about deeper down though. We have an unorthodox amount of worms and grubs that are pretty close to surface all the time. I have found that when they built the house foundation they did a layer of gravel about a foot down then did all black as night topsoil on top. Unless the gravel isn't draining properly I would think it would be pretty well drained for the most part. It is very probable it is just dying of age. I don't know its age. I just never expected it to go out quite the way it has.

Amy gave you a good link, but yeah, these things are pretty hardy. Any of those lil rubbery root things left in the ground will sprout new ones too.

Is it possible your tree has a beetle boring into it? I don't know if those trees are prone to those kind of things but here in California we have Monterey Pines that get a beetle that bore their way thru the trunk and suck the tree dry.

I've never seen a shrub attacked by borers so I'm not really sure how to tell. I've seen big trees attacked and be covered in holes but not sure what the shrubs look like when it happens. I will try to get a picture of it when it stops raining. The bush put off a couple little baby shoots at the beginning of spring but one died nearly immediately and the other looks fairly sad. I'm tempted to try and dig the sprout out and move it just to see what happens.

Jenn, I thought it was the tree, didn't even think about it being the shrub, my bad. One thing you could try, in case it is under attack from some kind of insect, either from the inside or out, is a systemic. A systemic works by being absorbed by the plants leaves and roots and when the insect eats, it gets poisoned and dies. I use a granular systemic on my Angel Trumpet bush cuz it gets that same type of worm that tomatoes get and spraying the bush doesn't even faze them, but the systemic does work. Systemic is good for roses as well. I looked up the flowering almond shrub and from the reviews it gets, it's said to be very hardy, pest and disease resistant, etc. so I really don't know what is going on with yours. Could it be its being attacked at the roots, like from gophers or something?

We have a ton of moles, though the dogs regularly put dents in their population. No sign of them near the bed and the Bradford Pear and Flaming Bush that are right beside it look fine. I will hit it with a Systemic. I have several different fertilizers and pest control products that I have for my roses and will see if any of them fit the bill. I fight black spot like it's WWII around here.

Is the Angel Trumpet a vine with orange flowers?