Hydrangeas

I can never get enough of these flowers.  

These hydrangea plants will be transferred into larger containers at the end of the year. They were started from cuttings.  

May Garden Bursting with Color, Zone 10

A lot of photos to share, but I hope you will enjoy them.

 We start off with some beautiful visitors.  It is fun to watch them flutter around the my little garden patch.

 Last of the Tonda di Parigi, carrots.  I will sow more in late summer.  A favorite to grow.  Opie likes them too.  Seeds from Botanical Interests.

A container of Swiss Chard, nasturtiums and bush beans.  Lets see how this turns out. Love to experiment with containers. 

 My latest bouquet filled with a little bit of everything. Sweet Surender rose, Sweet Williams, larkspurs and yarrow.

 Red Yarrow

 Sweet William

 Pink yarrow

Thank you for visiting my blog.  

Wishing you a lovely day.

Pressed Flowers and Violas/Pansies

 I up-cycled a junk mail envelope with glassine windows.  I covered the envelope using miscellaneous scrapbook paper, book pages and washi tape.  I glued the flowers onto a book page and slipped into the envelope, after the glue dried). The glassine protects the flowers.  I did some garden journaling on the back.  The middle pressed flower is a larkspur.

 A lovely memento of my garden. 

 The violas and pansies filled the garden with beautiful pockets of colors.  I have enjoyed picking them for micro-mini bouquets and for pressing.  I use heavy books and sandwich the flowers in between newsprint paper.  In about 3 to 4 weeks, they should be pressed.  Do not press wet flowers (they will mold).  Pick them when the morning dew is gone.  Late after noon is a good time for me to do my picking.

In this wine barrel container, I have a mix of violas, pansies and in the center there is a Sweet William. All from seed.

Pansy "Swiss Giant Blend" - Botanical Interests

Sweet William " Lace Mantle" - Renee's Garden

Viola "King Henry" - Botanical Interests

Viola "Sorbet XP Select Blend"

Changes In The Garden - Summer 2019 (Raised Beds)

BEFORE (2018 SUMMER)

AFTER (2019 SUMMER)

The raised beds make a difference in my garden.  A lot more easier to garden too.  Not so hard on my hand and back.  I was not sure what I wanted my garden to look like or what I wanted to grown. But so far, I liked how this past summer turned out.

Showing the rose area in this photo and an area that I'm still working on.  Lower part of the photo shows Borage.  Oh my what an amazing plant and it was the first time growing it too. 

But I want to share some winners for Sumer 2019

These are called "Minnesota Midget" melons.  Fun to grow and they produced well in my zone 10a here in Southern California.  Towards the end of the growing, I had to deal with the powdery white mildew.

So tasty and sweet.  These are my Husbands favorite fruit.  You can see the powdery mildew on the leaves.

The next surprise that grew for me were the mini eggplants called "Little Prince" container eggplants.  Seeds from Renee's Garden.  

They grew well in large containers and amazingly well in one of my raised beds, huge as a matter of fact. They were great producers.  I had to stake the one in the bed because of all the fruit it had on the plant.  First time growing this variety  of eggplants and I had much more success. 

It seems last year, I did not grow as many flowers.  This year I plan to not have that happen.  That is depending what type of summer we have here.

Yarrow, Gina Lollobrigida and zinnias.  

First time growing cover crop.  This is a beautiful and fun cover crop called "common Buckwheat", seeds from Botanical Interests.  Love the tiny little flowers. The plant is good for soil conditioning and attracts bees.  A warmer type cover crop and it will reseed itself.  Need to be careful, it will take over.

It makes great filler to flower bouquets too.  

This is one amazing herb, Borage and it is still growing in my garden.  It loved the summer heat and it really attracted the bees and lay bugs too. Not the most attractive plant but if you need to attract pollinators, this is the plant.  I think I will always be somewhere in my garden.  It has many good uses too.  You need to make sure you wear your garden gloves. A very prickly plant and may cause irritation to your skin.  But it is always good to wear glove while working in the garden.

The long hot days of summer along with the humidity bring this interesting insects, dragonflies.  They were in abundance in summer 2019. 

I could not have done it all without the help from my Husband and my garden buddy Opie.

I hope to post some of the fall and winter garden soon.  The lettuce has been amazing.

Thank you for visiting my blog and have blessed day.