Some Random Garden Photos

Sprinklers make the lawn happy. It's ready to mow again. I know lawns are not hip in this eco-friendly part of the world, but I do like a small bit of lawn, for the dogs to play on (though they seem to prefer my flowers) and for them to use as a bathroom (they do that, to be sure).

Eventually, I will have enough plantings and other things going on that 3/4 of this grass will go away. I even designed the sprinklers so I can pull two of them out and cap off the pipe. But for now the grass keeps the sand in place and gives a nice big swath of green.

The Nigella, mysteriously late in putting out any blooms, now has big fat seed pods. I love how the petals fell all over the ground around it. The borage is just a few feet away, so there are blue petals all over the place. You can see the sand behind it is pretty sparse. I've got a good long journey to building up a decent soil system. One of the perils of living on an island, you know. On the other hand, we have great drainage.

A new purchase: Polygala 'Mariposa'. It is related to a plant I am quite fond of, Polygala dalmaisiana, but considerably smaller, growing to only two feet tall by maybe three feet wide. It has similar pea-shaped flowers and a rounder, more succulent foliage. Goldie likes it, too. I put it where I think I will plant it, along the West fence between the blueberries and the Montmorency cherry.

Here's a blurry windy photo of Linaria triornithophora: "Three Birds Flying" in the Fern Walk. I had another one of these in the garden and the dogs stomped it, but it seems to be happy here, protected by a fence. Apart from the leaf shape, it reminds me a lot of columbines.

And the wonder of the year: the Brodeia lives! I planted these bulbs (a Home Depot purchase) this spring, but they've been really unlucky. Before the dog fence, Goldie would graze this poor plant down to the ground every time it sent up a shoot. Eventually Noel put the dirt sifter face down over them, and they grew as tall as the top of that. Now that they are behind the dog fence, we stand a chance of seeing a real flower from them. Indeed, you can see some buds forming.

This is going to be a busy weekend. I need to figure out the greenhouse problem, have some more fun with fungicide, and maybe plant some of the milkweeds I have lying around in the driveway, plus there's some tool organization and basement cleaning to be done, and some assorted projects we've been working on to document. Fun fun fun.

Technorati Tags: flowers, gardening, lawn, plants

posted by ayse on 07/14/06