Many and plenty! For some reason aquilegias have always been one of my favorites. Cannot have enough of them.
This year I have managed to have five more varieties to bloom and I am happy. After several trials even Nora Barlow has started to bloom for the first time.
The challenge is that I have planted so many varieties that I am not quite sure what do I have.
Well the main thing is that they look beautiful.
A newcomer to my flowerbed. I am surprised how easy it was to grow and even though the summer has been cold the flowers are doing well. I guess the name just suggested that it is for a warmer climate.
They do though seem to have an ability to predict the weather. If it is going to be cold or rainy the flowers close themselves a way ahead. It is always good to have a weather station of your own.
I already ordered two new colors for the next year. If everything goes well I will have white and red ones to accompany the orange.
Now I am just waiting my other new experiments to bloom.
Why orange? Siberian poppy comes in many colors – white, yellow, red. But for some reason only the orange ones are able to make it through the winter.
Do not know why but now all the ones I have are orange. Only in the autumn the colors are many due to the seeds I have added in the spring.
This year I have added many other poppy varieties. Hopefully those will bloom in the autumn. Just have to wait and see.
Time to harvest. After very many years my chive finally looks good.
I do not know what went wrong but for many years the chives we have looked poor and modest. Maybe they just needed time and the right weather.
I have tried many different varieties and to be honest not sure anymore which was the one that was successful. Main thing is that I now have many flourishing hassocks.
Autumn has been beautiful. Sunny days and only few rainy ones. The nights are already cold but some of the flowers are still standing.
Spent the whole day outside enjoying the colors of October and planting bulbs for the spring. Hope they make it through the winter. Was not that successful last year and have selected hardier varieties this time.
The dwarf sungold sunflowers are blooming. Finally I would say. They made it but only barely.
Usually I have selected the teddy bear as the dwarf variety but could not find the seeds anywhere in the spring. The two varieties are very similar but teddy bear blooms a bit earlier and that makes all the difference up here in the north.
The nights are getting long and dark up here in which means that I have plenty of time to start planning for the next summer.
Twilight Zone sunflowers made it and finally started to bloom. This was the first summer I planted them.
A successful experiment even though part of them were lost to moles who seem to be numerous this year.
As a variety it is small and short. A tiny spectacle among larger sunflowers with a bit peculiar look.
Still have some seeds left for the next spring. Need to look for more different varieties to experiment with.
It is always nice to try something new in the garden but as important is to have something that you can count on. A flower that will not fail you no matter the weather.
Mallow has been there for decades and each summer it blooms with beautiful pink flowers. The only thing you need to do is to support the long stems against the strong rain showers that will so easily bend them.
I guess I should try another color since there are others available. Something to consider next spring.
This is the second summer when I can enjoy sunflowers blooming early.
Happy that I found Ruby. It grows fast and starts blooming as early as in July. About a month earlier than any other variety I have tried.
The color of the flower is nearly brown when it opens and it changes to a mixture of yellow, red and orange when days go by.
My first Xanthos started to bloom today. A new cosmos variety I have tried for the first time and I think it just became a longtime acquaintance.
Yellow is a totally new color to me when it comes to cosmos.
This year seems to be dedicated to annuals. I lost so many perennials last winter and had to quickly replace the empty spaces with something. Luckily had tons of cosmos seeds available to hide the damages.
My geranium finally started to bloom! It took months from the flower to recover from the darkness of a long winter.
The poor thing looked pathetic in the spring – pale and dry.
I started it from a seed and managed to enjoy its beauty last summer. Nice thing about the nano series is that it remains quite small. So in the autumn I took it inside and to my big surprise it survived.
That usually does not happen to my geraniums. The flat is simply too hot and dry. Happy that this little thing made an exception.
Gardening in the North 