This post is full of photos that I took in our gardens last week. We have been so busy buying new plants, planting the new plants, and weeding and mulching that I am just now getting around to sharing.

The photo above is of my favorite weigelia. It is a variegated weigelia. I love all things variegated. I have also heard it called a Monet weigelia. I am going to use the Monet moniker for mine because it just sounds so cool! Who doesn’t want a Monet weigelia to make you think of a great artist with beautiful gardens? And the term really fits. The flowers are white and pastel pink and bright pink and dark rose. Not to mention the fact that the leaves are green and white with varying patterns. The complementary splashes of colors make for an impressive plant! I pruned it last year and the show it put on this year was my reward.

I no longer remember what variety of clematis this is. We have two types and this one blooms first. It blooms heavily and for a long time. Then it rests a little while and gives another round of blooms. I recently learned that you are supposed to prune clematis. Before that I had no idea, so this one never had been. It is a monster in size, with roots growing up to a couple feet away from where the original roots where planted. I found one entirely new rootling and separated it to plant on my rose trellis since the rose is having an off year. I’m sure there are other rootlings in there to if I look for them amongst the jungle of stalks. I cut some dead stems from this plant late last fall. I don’t know that I will trim it anymore than that since this plant has always provided us hundreds of blooms. Why mess with a good thing?

We just got the fancy purple and white columbine this year. We hadn’t planned to buy one, but when we saw this at the box store, we had to have it. We have had the pink columbine for years. I don’t even know where it came from. It just showed up. Either the chipmunks brought the seed, or it was carried on the wind. And new seedlings continue to show up in unexpected places. Sometimes I leave them alone and just enjoy the flowers, like the one that planted itself in between a rock and some bricks at the base of my rose bed. It looks whimsical there. The pink columbine’s favorite place to reseed seems to be in the crack of the sidewalk leading up to our side door. These I gently pull out and transplant elsewhere. They are never happy the first year I move them, but they come back the following year in fine form. I’m sure they wouldn’t survive in the sidewalk with the dogs trampling them multiple times each day. This year I found one growing between the steps leading up to our side porch. It now resides in a flower bed beside some foxglove. I hope the new purple columbine reseeds as prolifically as the pink.

This is another plant that is new to us this year. If I had realized the lupine was such a large, substantial plant, I would have gotten one years ago. The spike with the blooms must be 15 inches tall. A new row of little individual blossoms opens up every day or so. There are also two more flower stalks starting to show color. What an impressive plant! I read that they will reseed but revert to the natural blue color. If the flowers are half as big as this one, on reseeded specimens, I will be quite happy.

These purple irises had been growing on the far side of our house when I moved here. I had never seen them bloom. I think the pine tree on that side grew so big that there was too much shade. I moved a few puny root tubers a couple years ago and this is what we have now. I think they like the sunny end of this sandstone raised bed. In another year, I should be able to split them for even more irises.

This pot of tuberous begonias was so impressive when we saw it at the store, we had to have it. It provides so much color that it is in a place of honor on one of the four corners of our patio fountain. We usually reserve those corners for hibiscus or mandevilla, but the begonia offered so much color, we decided to change it up and try something different. We will still do the tropical plants on the other corners.

This little gem was my pick on the trip to a local nursery a few years ago. I couldn’t resist its beautiful pink, double blooms. I’m a sucker for anything that blooms in doubles. And it’s pink!

By now we have many more plants in bloom so I will have to do another garden post soon. We are still in the planting stage for the troughs on top of the enclosed garden wall and my hanging baskets that are suspended from the workshop porch. Also, my roses are ready to bloom! Unfortunately, the little red squirrels have decided that rosebuds are a tasty snack. Time for the live trap. I did not go to all the trimming, weeding, mulching, fertilizing, and transplanting to have no roses to show for it. Not to mention the scratches and holes in my fingers from the thorns.

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