Gardening with Queenie

Succulent Wall Hanger

2011-05-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

I should have taken a picture of this last year before I planted it. It's a wall planter. It's approximately 16 inches square and about 2 inches deep, and has shallow compartments which are tilted upward
slightly to keep the soil in place. These are meant to hang on an outside wall, fence, or any vertical surface you want to decorate. You can butt them up against each other and hang as many as you like together. I'd love a good portion of a fence covered with them, but just don't have the sunny area.
I just finished 'refreshing' this one with some new plants. Many of these will probably become too
large for their space here, but I like a full look to begin with and will thin the plants as needed.

Variegation in Hosta

2011-05-15T14:26:00.000-07:00

Some hosta are all green, some all bluish and some are variegated. Variegated ones are my favorites.
The variations of colors is awesome and endless. On an overcast day, the colors seem to 'pop'
even more. These varieties here are more along the green/gold variations and as more of
my hosta unfurl, I will show more of the white and green variegation.

Zonal Geraniums

2011-05-13T18:12:00.000-07:00

Zonal Geraniums are annuals. Some of my favorites stand out with banded or variegated foliage. I love variegated or interesting foliage. It makes for interesting and colorful plants, even when they are not in bloom. Geraniums can take full sun to just a bit of shade. They also make great hanging baskets. You can over winter them in the house or greenhouse, and propagate them by taking and rooting cuttings.

Pulmonaria aka Lungwort

2011-05-05T10:12:00.000-07:00

There are many varieties of Pulmonaria. It's an early spring bloomer, sending up flower stems first and blooming first. Then after blooming will send up a rosette of
leaves, similiar to a hosta form. Some varieties are blue, some red, some pink and some, like 'Mrs. Moon' here, have both pink and blue flowers at the same time.
I have a dozen or so different varieties of Pulmonaria, some have more silver spots in their leaves than others and some are almost all silver colored. P. Sissinghurst White has all white blooms and p. Bowles Red has coral/red blooms but no variegation.
It's a very hardy perennial returning year after year. We have had it growing in our yard almost 30 years. Pulmonaria likes shade or morning sun with afternoon shade. Moist soil, especially if in sun.

hosta Vivacious

2010-09-03T14:20:00.001-07:00

Living Wall

2010-08-27T07:21:00.001-07:00

A planter with a twist. It's made to hang on the side of the house, or an outside wall or fence. The compartments tip downward to hold the soil in. Filled with succulents, it requires little watering. You can arrange as many of these cube as you want to fill an area. I'd love a 3 x 3 group hanging. I've planting trailing sedums along the outside edges and lower edge of this one so as it fills it will spill over the edges.

Have a seat.....

2010-07-10T15:51:00.000-07:00

And two more benches in what we call 'farmland'. We park some of the yard work implements here too.

Have a seat.....

2010-07-10T15:50:00.001-07:00

And our canopy in the side yard

Have a seat.....

2010-07-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

And our back pergola, one of our favorite spots. Every place you sit, you get a different view of the yard.

Have a seat.....

2010-07-10T15:46:00.000-07:00

And our back canopy, although we haven't put the canopy on it in a couple of years.
We like the structure.

Have a seat.....

2010-07-10T15:44:00.001-07:00

Another bench tucked in along the path

Have a seat.....

2010-07-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

And in the secret garden. Note the broken fence. We think the same bear comes in the yard all the time. This is his favorite exit.

Have a seat.....

2010-07-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

And this is the front pergola

Have a seat.....

2010-07-10T15:40:00.001-07:00

And here is another seating area near the end of the driveway.

Have a seat.....

2010-07-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

We like our little seating areas scattered throughout the yard. You are never too far
from a place to rest.

This is a new swing we bought over the 4th of July weekend. Made by some Amish people that have a produce stand near here.

Less Lawn

2010-06-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

Some new flower beds Gary has been working on the past couple of weeks. He told me I was not to plant anything until he gave me the 'all clear'. Who? Me?? He's all done now and I can start to fill them up. This area actually gets a little sun too.

Hosta Blue Angel

2010-06-05T13:18:00.000-07:00

She's an older variety, but a big girl. Hosta Blue Angel can reach a mature width of
6 feet with flower scapes reaching 4 feet.

arisaema Ringens

2010-06-03T14:50:00.001-07:00

You can see some smart little spider has made a trap for himself.

peony Karl Rosenfeld

2010-06-03T14:36:00.001-07:00

It just glows in the shade.

arisaema speciosum

2010-06-02T15:19:00.000-07:00

This one is going to be tall. Tag says is will grow up to 24" but it's already over 30" tall. Love the stem, looks like snake skin.

Hosta Sum Total

2010-06-02T15:10:00.000-07:00

Hosta Sum Total is a sport of h. Sum and Substance. Ultramarine is the blue hosta about to be devoured by Sum Total. I guess I need to move Ultramarine.

arisaema Kiushianum

2010-06-01T14:56:00.000-07:00

This one is cool with it's long whip coming out like a snake's tongue.

Hosta Creek

2010-05-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

My friend Suzie, sent me this Castle. Of course, the Queen does need a castle.
I need to pick up some crushed glass to make a moat around the castle.

And a gnome living in a tree trunk

Hosta Creek

2010-05-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

And here is Hosta Creek today

Arisaema Sikokianum

2010-05-17T18:58:00.001-07:00

Asian Jack in Pulpit. Now I hope it will set seeds. I've read it produces a lot of seeds but a very low rate of germination. This particular variety can reach a mature height of 30 inches. One of the plants I have added along Hosta Creek.

Another year, another May, another freeze

2010-05-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, again. Monday night we went below freezing for a short time. Not as much damage as last year, but the bigger hosta suffered the most. Drat! And they were looking so good too.
Dreamweaver pictured, before the freeze.

Hosta War Paint

2010-05-07T18:29:00.000-07:00

First leaves of hosta War Paint unfurling. The coloring is fantastic in early spring, then later it turns all green for the summer.

Some spring blooms

2010-05-03T04:52:00.000-07:00

Alliums - members of the onion family. Meleagris, aka, Checkered Lily. Mother Nature has a steady hand to paint this one. And Fritillaria uva vulpis. Another early bloomer.

Arisaema Serratum

2010-04-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

Cleaning up in the spring is a major job and will wear you out. It's important to rest often.
Here we see arisaema serratum emerging. I'll be adding about 10 more arisaema varieties
to Hosta Creek this spring. We had a couple of days of really warm weather and a lot of plants are sprouting. Nights are still very cool though. Just hope we don't get a frost.

Spring?

2010-04-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

It was snowing two weeks ago and now it's 80 degrees. I've got lots of daffodils coming into bloom. Today they are swooning from the heat. It's wonderful to see all the perennials coming back to life. We still have a big job of cleaning up leaves and branches from the winter, but we try to get a little done each day.

Hosta Creek

2010-03-23T04:47:00.000-07:00

Well, it's not really a creek, it seldom has standing water. It's really just a diversion ditch across the back edge of our property. The area is slightly lower than the neighbors yard and was flooding during heavy rains. So hubby made this slight ditch to divert the water run off into the woods and down to the street ditch. Hosta Creek is 100 ft with 2-3 ft on either side of it. It's mostly shady with a few spots of dappled shade as the sun passes overhead during the day.
And you can see the fence along the property line to keep the deer out of the yard.

These photos were taken in late summer 07. Since then, I've been planting hostas and arisaema, daffy's, tiarellas and other plants along both sides. This year, I'll be adding more shade plants such as tricyrtis and epimediums, ligularia and brunnera.
So, these are the 'before' pictures of Hosta Creek. And in a month or so, we'll start to see what it looks like this year.

Antique Car Show

2009-09-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

We got to take a short walk around an Antique Car Show held this weekend at the Pocono Race Track here. It was quite a big show, too much for us to see it all.

Fall

2009-09-10T15:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, I can tell it's coming. Acorns are falling, we hear the loud 'ping' as they hit the metal roof of the storage sheds, the propane tank, and the pergola roof. Leaves are changing and falling almost immediately. It was the summer that never was here. We had so much rain, 7 inches over our normal rainfall. I think the robins and wood thrushes left in July and we haven't seen them since.
The hummingbird female may still be here - at least she was yesterday. She's been intrigued by a small ripe tomato on the plant outside the window. I've watched her buzz around that tomato
so many times. She's sure anything that color must surely have some nectar - lol

This week, I heard some branches snapping in the woods and spotted this buck rubbing the velvet from his antlers.

Amaryllis

2009-07-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

In July? Yep. I had a lot of bulbs leftover from the co-op last December. The bulbs were in the greenhouse all winter and about a month ago, I just started placing them on top of the soil in flower pots outside. They are now blooming their heads off.

After the Freeze

2009-07-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

The hosta did bounce back, although I had to trim off a lot of frozen leaves and they are much smaller this year. But I'm sure they will be fine next spring.
Lily bulbs - ouch - so many were already over a foot high. Many froze. They won't bloom this year. I will add bulb food in the fall and hope they come back next year. I still have a lot coming into bloom and I had a lot of bulbs to plant, so they is plenty of color.
The bleeding hearts went back into dormancy. They usually last until August here in the moist shade we have, but they die back immediately after the freeze. I don't think they will be damaged though.
The Rose of Sharon were just starting to leaf out. Those leaves froze. It took about a month for new foliage to emerge. No blooms yets.
From what I gathered from the local weather site, we were at 30 degrees for about 4 hours that night.

Peek a bear

2009-07-21T13:17:00.001-07:00

I finally got a picture of a bear. They usually come around after dark and I've never got a good picture. The crows were making a real fuss in the trees and I went out to see what they were
tormenting.

Freeze

2009-05-19T04:12:00.000-07:00

May 19th and the garden is frozen this morning. The plants with leaves of thinner substance are really shriveled and bent over right now. Monkshood, peonies and bleeding hearts look the worst.
I have more than a dozen plants of each in different areas of the yard. I don't know what damage this will do to the more than 100 lilies that are forming buds at this time. And the hostas, over a 1,000 plants. I haven't even walked around to look at them yet. It's 34 right now at 7:25 am.
The trees here have not leafed out yet, so the sun will warm the garden in a short time this morning. All I can say is, "aaaaaah, crap!!"

Hosta

2009-05-17T20:26:00.001-07:00

Heat Wave
War Paint
Thunderbolt
Northern Exposure
Arc de Triomphe

More Daylilies

2009-05-04T05:24:00.001-07:00

Paper Butterfly
Pandora's Box
Midnight Masquerade
Metaphor
Mark My Words
Love Those Eyes
Gentle Shepherd
Crimson Pirate
Barbara Mitchell
Prairie Blue Eyes
Jovial

Some daylilies from last year

2009-05-03T16:28:00.001-07:00

Daylily Chicago Apache
Bama Music
Chicago Royal Robe

More Narcissus

2009-05-03T16:23:00.000-07:00

Things are really starting to pop now. We've had a day and a half of rain after some major heat last weekend. Above n. Pink Charm and n. Rip Van Winkle.

Narcissus

2009-04-30T19:12:00.000-07:00

This is a double narcissus named 'Tahiti'
This is miniature narcissus 'Minnow'. I didn't realize they would be so small and so adorable when I planted them. They grow on stems about 6" tall.

2009-04-27T04:06:00.000-07:00

2009-04-27T03:55:00.000-07:00

2009-04-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

2009-04-26T19:14:00.001-07:00

2009-04-26T05:28:00.001-07:00

2009-04-25T18:45:00.000-07:00

Bugs and Critters

2009-04-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

2009-04-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

2009-04-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

2009-04-25T10:17:00.000-07:00

Waiting for Spring

2009-03-13T05:35:00.000-07:00

It's too early here to even see hosta peeking up, but it won't be long. The snow is finally all melted, except a few little piles where it was plowed. Crocus, Daffy's and tulips are just starting to poke up.
Pictured here is Hosta Allegan Fog. We bought this in the Co-op last year from Shady Oaks.