Slow progress

There doesn't seem to be alot of color out in the garden, but things are coming along. This week I bought some asters, cleome and dill plants. Today I planted some tomatoes and peppers in pots that someone gave me. They have been sitting outside for a few days so I don't know if the tomatoes will make it but the peppers should be good.
This little fellow is out near the woods...I think he is about to climb through my prize poison ivy.
I don't know if it is a beaver or a woodchuck or what.
The arbor is blooming...I think there were more flowers last year.
This is the arbor that was completely knocked over on its side last winter. We thought about replacing it but we reinforced it instead. The thorns on some of those big canes would probably cut us to shreads!
I cut this butterfly bush back to about 2 feet at the beginning of the Spring and it is just beginning to form buds.
Zelda sporting her new summer haircut.
Indoor cats are not much help in the garden.
A lone zinnia.

In the beginning, there was blog

Or maybe I should say, in the beginning there was FROG...I stepped out my back door today to water the plants and just as I was about to water this Christmas cactus I noticed toadzilla here.
He spent the day in this plant...seems to be rather comfortable there. I jumped about 10 feet.

I am starting this as sort of a photo journal of my garden. I always wish I could remember when I put down one fertilizer or when a certain plant blooms...this should help. If anyone finds this interesting, that's nice. I happen to like looking at other peoples' pictures.

I bought this plant because I couldn't decide what color to get. I love that its red white and blue. What a great idea. This would be great for one of those houses with the big, wraparound front porches where they buy multiple hanging plants. I don't have that kind of front porch.
This view is of the fence next to the hot tub. On the right is the tub, to the left is the only sunny spot in my yard and that is where I have my garden.





This was a pleasant surprise this morning. I have had these irises for several years and this is the first time I have had more than one flower on them . As you can see, they are pretty spectacular. That poppy plant in the front of them are also new flowers on an old plant. I don't know if this is a plant that I bought or if it has grown from the many poppy seeds I have planted over the years. My mom always told me to grow poppies. I don't know why...I don't remember ever having them when I was a kid...not even at Grandma's house and she had lots of flowers.

The poppies are flourishing.

This is the area of my garden that we like to call "the grave". Two years ago I put down some newspaper and covered it with topsoil and then planted some dahlias. The dahlias were great.
The plants were huge. They produced a ton of big impressive flowers from the middle of July until the frost. I decided that dahlias were a good investment. This years grave is about 3 times the size of the original. At the top of the picture I have planted snapdragons. I buy rocket snapdragons. This year there is one flat from Stillman's, which started out looking very small and dainty. A week later I went to Gove Farm and bought a flat of very healthy looking rocket
snaps. They were all planted in the the second and third week of May.
In the foreground of the grave I have several dahlias. Some are the ones I dug up from last year. I did not mark them, I don't know which colors they are. I did buy some new ones at Russells. The ones I bought this year are in the pink and purple. When I dig them up this year
I will mark the colors. Yesterday, June 2, I spread some Coast of Maine Lobster Compost, just a little on top of everything. I also planted a few glads in the center of things. This is a climbing honeysuckle that I bought a few years ago and it has never looked this good. Every year this vine has started fine but then it gets taken over by powdery mildew. The only thing that I would say about this year is that the flowers don't seem to smell. In the past I could smell the flowers when I woke up in the morning. The window on the right is my bedroom.
Its odd that it doesn't smell.
This is a place where I used to put veggies. Last Fall I decided to put some tried and true plants here. I can see this from the patio, so I wanted some color. There are daylilies on the left toward the back. Behind those are some black-eyed susans that were taking over another part of the garden. In the center are 3 tall phlox plants that were getting pushed out by, uh, black eyed susans. On the right that long plant in the sun is oregano. At one time, oregano took up about 2/3's of this bed and I dug it all out. A little bit survived and now it is really taking over again. You can't really see it in this picture but I have a little wire teepee thing that I have planted nasturtium seeds under. I am hoping for a little color, a little height. I also am thinking of putting a bird house on a pole in this garden with a climbing rose or a clematis, for a little vertical interest. I do have a harvest gold toilet in the basement that I could turn into a planter...now that would be interesting...