Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Garden Journal~May 2013

Last month I did my first Garden Journal post as I thought it would be interesting to document the progress of our gardening efforts and to begin a record of what blooms when. Below is the right side of our garden, one month later. All my bulbs have finished blooming and now the perennials are taking the stage, though many of my seedlings are still too small to provide any visual pleasure. I'm just trying to keep them alive by giving them enough water and protecting them from snails. I've lost a few small plants, but most of them are thriving.


Dear Husband added four teucrium  bushes, drought resistant plants with silver/green foliage and lavender flowers.  They should grow another foot or two, providing a visual wall between the garden and the front concrete wall.


My tomatoes, which were three to six inch seedlings a month ago, have produced their first blossoms this week. Lesson learned: I had a few extra seedlings, which I threw out after I planted the garden. I should have saved them as pests destroyed a few of my seedlings. The basil is doing well, too, and I'm trying to resist picking it too much so that it can really take off. I know that pinching off basil encourages new growth, but I was hardly giving mine a chance to grow!


I planted a few  varieties of tomatoes, and their plant shape/height is quite different.



My healthiest coneflower is slowly blossoming--the flowers are slow to open, but they do last for a long time. I planted a number of coneflower seedlings this spring in two different colors, but I don't know if they'll mature enough to bloom this season.


The Russian sage has bloomed. It was already established before Dear Husband erected the canopy--it's sort of half in/half out, but unless it gets a lot bigger, I don't think we'll have to relocate it.


The left side of the garden has a few mature perennials and lots of seedlings.


The Grosso lavender plant that I stowed away in my carry-on luggage last September has survived and I'm enjoying its first blooms this week. The mature French lavender has finished its first bloom and I've cut it back. The Hidcote, begun by seed a few years ago is blooming, too. I used to be proud that I started these from seeds, but I've since learned that you "shouldn't" start lavender from seed as the plant quality in unreliable. It's better to propagate from an existing plant or buy a plant that has been started that way. 


The Leonotis has just begun blooming, providing a nice contrast to all the purple blooms I seem to favor.



Below is one of of the salvia plants I began from seed. While some garden pest has gnawed away at a few bottom leaves, the plant is otherwise thriving, albeit with a weird half-albino leaf thing going on. I've searched around on the internet to see what the problem could be but haven't yet come up with anything. If anyone knows, please inform me. I have a couple other seedlings grown from the same pack of seeds but none of them are affected. Ironically, this is the biggest and otherwise healthiest seedling of the bunch.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So beautiful! My elder sister in Jordan grow flowers in her garden that are usually small flowers in a pot here in Sweden but she has bushes of them and it is so nice! Here spring has arrived, but still cold, still wearing outer garments.../S Susan

Woman of the House said...

I applaud your effort to grow flowers in a dry climate! I'm sure it's not easy. I tend toward purple flowers too and have to remind myself to get other colors sometimes. I've also been lining some flower gardens with rocks, but my Mid-west rocks from a farmer's field look quite a bit different than yours. lol

rheinsberg said...

I got your URL from the Middle East Moments and your blog looks wonderful. I put a link to it on my own garden-blog, but that one is in German language. Maybe that was a mistake and I will have to change to English ....
Recently I did not work on it, for different reasons. But now the plants are coming along nicely, although our little garden cannot be compared to what I see here in your beautiful pictures.