So here we continue our toure of the Grande Iggy Mama Garden:
Part 2: The Flower Bed
Here is my one large flower bed the longways view. I am somewhat embarrassed to give this part of the tour, since it is quite weedy at the moment since most of my attentions have been going to the food plants. But nonetheless, here it is. When we first moved in, those bricks were out twice as far, making the bed quite deep. I had to move the bricks in towards the fence since I really had no idea what to do with that deep of a space, and there was no way I'd be able to keep up with that much weeding. It's still a fairly deep flower bed so that I have to step in it to weed, but it's a nice size. Most of this was weeds when I first acquired it, but there were several calla lillies survived through the jungle of weeds that seem quite healthy. The rest of the plants have mostly been split from my mom's garden last summer, with some more added this year. I have put several herbs in my flower bed, since I am big on herbs and I love the idea of intermixing usable plants in with decorative ones. "Edible Lanscaping" I think they call it. I'd like to do more of that in the future.
Here we are starting on the right side of my flower bed. I have several flowers split from my mom's extensive garden, including dahlias that were planted this year. I actually don't know most of their names, and they all seem to be blooming at different times. I think the white ones are flox, and there is also a pink flox later on.
This year I also added a little blueberry plant (after which I found out you are supposed to have more than one) which is hiding to the left of that tall dahlia in the back next to the wall. I also put my golden sage (right in front of the dahlia) into the ground this year (it has previously been in a pot for years, but I needed its pot for tomatoes this year and decided it had earned an upgrade).
And here is the next part, you can see the pink flox and then my pretty white daisies (I think they are shastas) plus I have sevearl lavender plants and just recently got a tri-color sage that I planted in place of a very sad peony plant that came with the house and had never bloomed (and always wilted away looking very pathetic by the end of the year). I do also have some mint in the back, which this year has gotten extrememly tall and lanky! Many of my flowers have started to droop over, so next year I will definitely need those plant grates you put above them before they grow to support them as they get big.
In front of my shasta daisies is the first of the calla lillies. It is one of the smaller plants, due to the fact that last spring we did not know it was there and pulled it when we did the massive weeding, but this year it grew back beautifully and even has several nice flowers. It has several little side shoots it keep sending off as well (or they are remnant bulbs left from the first weeding). As you can see, this is where I originally put my raspberry plants. Last year this was also where I had my veggies, only a couple zucchini, beans, and a cucumber plant (I did try a cantalope just for fun, but the slugs ate it right up). The raspberries produced beautifully this year for only being in their second year, and are busy sending off lots of little starts which I am constantly having to pull up. I did plant my purple sage in front of the raspberries, as well as several dahlias, but this fall I will be relocating the purple sage and next year I plan on letting the raspberries claim that whole chunk of the flower bed. (The poor dahlias in front of the raspberries keep getting trod on by my kids since I wasn't smart enough to leave walking space around the raspberry plant.)
Right after the raspberries there is another nice calla lilly (on the right, part cut off in the pic), and then I put my big spicy oregeno plant in here (I needed its pot for my tomatoes too). This is where the plants get very sparse, since last year this is where my flower bed pretty much ended, and also becuase this half gets quite a big of shade from the big pine tree next to this end and so I have still been discovering shade-loving plants to put here. I do hope to put some more hydrangeas in here, since I love those. I plan on trying to see if I can get some starts from my other hydrangea plant, tho I may just end up buying actual plants next spring. There's another calla lilly on the left, which is not quite as healthy looing since it has just recently been relieved of the smothering morning glories which were suffocating this half of the flower bed (see my Garden Warfare post). And then that tall skinny thing in the middle is I believe pigweed. Yes, it's a weed, but I was so intrigued by how similar to amaranth and quinoa it looked as a seedling I decided to let it grow and see what happened. I'm hoping it at least gets some pretty flowers or something, as right now it looks somewhat pathetic (I'm sure the morning glories didn't help) tho I may end up just pulling it out.
There is another "weed" which I have become quite fond of and actually have been transplanting it throughout my garden this year which is in this pic but you can't see it because it also is quite sad looking due to those stinker morning glories. I don't know what it's called (I'll have to get a close up pic of it later) but it has very pretty slender leaves along a very tall stalk and gets these tiny pretty pink mini-snapdragon looking flowers in spikes at the top. It grows super tall, so I put it in the back, and I have it in several places. It's little seedlings pop up absolutely everywhere, so I know it's supposed to be a weed, but I do rather like it so I think I'll let it stay. There's a third "weed" I discovered last year that I also like, and it has just now started popping up all over my flower bed, so I'll have to get a pic of that too. It's a little one, that has dark slender leaves with a darker patch in the middle and gets very pretty tiny round pink blossoms in spikes. It must seed itself since it completely dies after the summer and doesn't grow back in exactly the same spot, so I just have to keep hoping it pops up every year. I may try to see if I can harvest seeds somehow from it this year. It does not transplant well (tried that last year) so I can't even move it around, just hope I like where it pops up. But it is a pretty little thing.
And last, but not least, the tail end of my flower bed where my biggest and most gorgeous calla lilly grows. There is a mystery yellow-green bush to the left that was here as well, which is actually a decent-looking little shrub (I'm very picky about shrubs) so I have left it. It trails off to one side and this year is looking much healthier since last year I didn't discover it until almost fall and it had been smothered by weeds all year. I do have another little hydrangea in the back here as well, but it's still really little, though it's doing much better this year than last. I also have a couple new calla lillies that have peachy-orange blossoms that my mom gave me this year that I put down here. One completely died, and one is barely hanging on, but I think the third may make it to next year. Hopefully they pull through, since I really like the calla lilly and it would be fun to have another color of one.
And there you have it. The Flower Bed! Many improvements are in store for this section (as everwhere of course). I'm hoping eventually this will be a very beautiful flower bed that I can show off to everyone that comes.
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