Remember the mystery plants I had in April, wellllllllllllllllll...................

Turns out, they were the Cornflowers.  I forgot that I had a few of them in the garden last year.  They are quite tall and pretty.  It is funny how they seeded in a perfect arch in only one spot in the garden.  In the bottom photo, that is my Blazing Stars growing.  They will be tall like the Cornflowers when mature.

Iceland Poppy

This is one of the small iceland poppy flowers I have this year.  It is small.  Gloria, Sandi, Mary, did you get any of the poppy seeds to grow. 

White Delphiniumn

Loving my Delphinium this year.  I can't believe how big they got in one year.  That background fence is 4 feet high.  You can see the pink Lupine to the left of some of the photos.

My fabulous Lupine

My show piece in the garden this Spring has been my beautiful Lupine.  I have the red one and now, this year, planted from seed last year, a beautiful pink one.  Here are the pictures.  The fence in the background is 4 feet high!  Notice all the little spikes on the plants.  They will bloom too.  I have tons of little baby red lupines growning in the garden.  I am saving as many as I can.  Anyone want one??  The tall flowing plant to the left of the red lupine pictures are my yellow Geum.

Orange/Yellow Columbine

This is the yellow/red columbine plant that grew from seed from the original mother plant.  It looks impressive this year.  The tight fencing is from my neighbor's garden.  He is growing corn on the side of my garden, so he put this fence to help keep his garden in "his" garden.

You can see the mother plant in the background of this picture.  I think it is probably in it's last year, I will need to divide it to keep it going.  Have to find out how and when is the best time to do the dividing.  If you know, please do post here for me.  The front of this picture shows the most beautiful Heuchera, I've had this plant for the 5 years I've had the community garden now.  It got frost heaved out of the ground back in 2009.  Had to divide it and move it, boy, did this plant react to that.  I thought I had lost it, but in 2010 this plant came back hail and hardy.  It looks super this year.  The color is so different that this picture shows.

The Virginia Rose

The Roses are starting to bloom.  These are the mini rose bushes, I have a Yellow, Red, Pink, White bush this year.  All are in the process of coming in bloom.

Can you say Geum?

This is the variety called Martha Bradshaw. Geums have creeping roots that are actually underground stems called rhizomes. New plantlets develop from rhizomes, allowing the plant to spread.  I planted this last year, it did nothing, this year, it is a huge plant.  The flower stems grown high above the mother plant, the flowers remind me of ballerinas.  As the flower buds form and start to open, they are yellow, when they open, they are this color.

Speaking of Dianthus

Here are some of the Dianthus I have this year in my garden.

Diane's Garden Before and After 2011

First scape of the Season

Cute little garden friends among the Daylilies

Before and After 2011

This is photos of my garden in early April of this year and today.  I did some major rearranging of certain plants and just ripped out certain ones.  I was tired of all the Echinacea "cone flowers", so I pulled the front ones up.  I left one plant, but still may pull it up.  I added a Moss plant, Artemisia, which will quickly outgrow it's garden spot, but for this year, it will be OK where I planted it.  I added some marigolds for color and bug control, the rest of the plants you see are perennials.  Click on the photos to see up close.

East Boston Parrots

UPDATE ON JULY 2, 2011

The parrots have not been heard from or seen in probably 3 weeks.  Our area has 2 large hawks that have taken up residence near the park.  I fear the hawks may have caught the parrots.  Their nest is falling apart.  This saddens me!  If you are from East Boston and have seen or heard the parrots, please do reply to this post or email me.

Remember I told you last week about the Parrots in the Park. Diane managed to get some pictures of them at the Garden today.  The day was very overcast at the time, but here they are.  As far as we know, there are 3 of them now.  In case anyone doubts the story, just look at the last picture with all the Boston Higway signs.  :)  If you click on the pictures, either once or twice, the picture will enlarge and you can see the parrots much better.

Dwarf Asters

I had never heard about these flowers, but when we saw them at Home Depot, they were standing up and liking the cooler weather.  We read the stick in them and it says they bloom from early Spring until Late Fall.  They look like keepers to me.

More Daffodils at the Park

Today was a dreary, overcast day, but take a look at these pictures, will make you feel like smiling

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Nothing new to report from the Garden today, it rained earlier in the day and I spent my day relaxing and dreaming about what I'm going to plant this year.

Welcome to 2011

YES, I am backkkkkkkkkkkkkk.  Been a long Winter, my beloved Patriots fizzled in the end again, been in mourning that, time to get over it!!  OK, enough said about the Patriots.

Diane and I spent some time today at the Gardens.  Below you will see a host of pictures from our efforts.  Most of them won't mean anything to my blog readers, but they do help us memoralize our garden season from year to year.

Happy reading and please do come read as my blog will be updated regularly now.

Before and After in Lees Little Garden

 This is what faced me today when I went to the Community Garden for the purpose of working for the first time in 2011.  I thought I had cleaned up in the Fall, but I soon realized, I could have done better.

This is what the garden looked like after 3 HOURS of weeding and raking leaves.  Since my garden is the first one in from the Orchard, I tend to get a huge cover of leaves in the Winter to my garden.  I don't mind as the leaves help shield my perennials during the long Winter.  Click on pictures to get a close up view of before and after.

Candytuff

This Candytuff plant is getting ready to bloom.  It has hundreds of tiny, tiny white flowers that are Spring blooming only.  The plant grew a LOT over the Winter.

This Coral Bell may very well outgrow its garden spot

I could not believe how large this plant grew over the Winter.  This is also an established 5 year old plant, having bought it for my daughter the first year the Community Garden opened.  She did not want her garden and turned it over to her older sister, who is still there.  This plant is special as I call it Pamela's Plant.  A couple years ago, I had to move it in the garden, as it had heaved itself out of the ground over that Winter.  I decided to divide it, I thought for sure it would die.  The plant did not like it that year and barely held on.  This is the result the second year after moving it around.

Delphinium

This is the delphinium today.  Look at how tall it has gotten.  The fence behind it is 4 feet tall.  No support needed for this tall spike.  The plant has several spikes.

 Last year, I bought a few delphinium at our local supermarket, they were pretty.  This year will be their 3rd year (as they were 2 yr. old plants when purchased).  They should be spectacular.  One of them is a white one, a blue and a purple one.

My Beautiful Geranium

This is what my GIANT beautiful Geranium looks like in the Spring.  This is an established 5-year old plant that does not disappoint all Summer into Fall.  Looks like nothing, but OH so PRETTY soon.

Not sure what this is - perhaps Corn Flowers or Gallardia?

 Under all the leaves in the garden from the Winter, I found this cluster of plants.  They could be weeds, but I kinda suspect they may be Corn Flowers or Gallardia?  I will leave them here for a while to see what developes.

This is the white Rose bush from last year

Mini Rose Bushes

I now have a total of 5 different colored Rose bushes (all the mini potted ones, all purchased from the local supermarket) that are thriving in my garden.  Last year I added a red one and a white one.  These are the bare root photos of all of them.

Pink Rose Summer of 2010