Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Echinacea are Coming



I've been reading a lot lately about Echinacea in other gardens and have been patiently waiting for mine to bloom...well they are an their way. Above is the start of a white variety and a couple different purple types below...



I thought I would also do a little Wednesday garden tour...there's always so much in the garden to interest me and I try to show it all. I have noticed lots of yellow and pink.

Here is another type of "funny flower"...


This yellow daylily always looks nice...even if it is pretty common these days.


The morning glories have such a glow in the later morning hours.


I like how the tall onion scapes provide a clean vertical shape.


The rose mallows dance in the breeze wind...


These little Coreopsis sure have a great fire-cracker effect...


I just love the many shades the leaves and blooms have on this Heuchera.


These pansies and violas sure look cute tucked into their own spot of this bed...they've been going strong this summer.


The lettuce going to seed has its own look...I really like how the red leaf variety looks.


Finally our happy Rudbeckia.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your garden looks great Chris. I love all your blooms. It is strange that your Echinacea are starting to bloom now, but I guess that is how it is in different zones. I find that interesting.

Anonymous said...

It all looks healthy and showy. Your garden is beautiful. My lettuce is going to seed too. I didn't like the variety cause it had mustard greens in it--yuck.

My husband was stationed at MAFB for 4 years. Cold and crisp were the winters---hot and bright were the summers. Both my kids were born there and we call them NoDaks;)

Unknown said...

Your garden looks really good! I like that red lettuce, too... do you collect the seeds, let them reseed, or... ? I need to get better at saving seeds and managing the garden produce overall.

Cheryl said...

Chris...your garden is lovely, I so enjoy viewing it.
The coneflower are beautiful wildlife plants...I love your varying colours....I plan to have many more in my garden next year.

But my favourite today is that coreopsis....they way you have them planted looks wild and carefree, I love it.

Enjoyable post...tku.

ChrisND said...

Hi Perennial Gardener...it is interesting to see how the different zones and local climates effect the garden seasons. The strangest thing is that all around be locally there are Echinacea in full bloom...so my garden is just slow this year.

ChrisND said...

Hi Blackswamp Girl...I want to learn how to save seeds and I might try that some this year. But the lettuce is just an experiment...I like to see what all the veg plants look like in seed....I guess I could always look it up online, but that's no fun!

ChrisND said...

Anna, this year I just let some of the lettuce go when it started to bolt. Haven't really had mustard greens, but with my tastes I wouldn't want many.

An uncle of mine was in the AF and was at MAFB for a while with his family...they later moved a couple of times and he is now a regular citizen. Interesting how people connect across the country.

ChrisND said...

Cheryl, I am happy to share...I've always liked the coneflowers and I will have to watch this year to see if the birds take advantage.

I think a lot of the coreopsis reseeded from last year...you can't even tell that our lovely dog bowled half of them over the other day searching for some scent...I have put some barriers in but they blend in pretty good.

Roses and Lilacs said...

Hi Chris. Your garden looks great. I really like the coreopsis, haven't seen that one with the red eye. Very striking. As Cheryl said it almost looks like a prairie scene. Beautiful!
Marnie

ChrisND said...

Roses and Lilacs...thank you...I think we have the plains coreopsis, so you image of a prairie is appropriate. Some may call my overall style messy -- I like carefree and natural.

Beth said...

My purple coneflower became diseased this year - started off gangbusters and then absolutely tanked and shriveled to nothing - not even a bloom. "White Swan" is just opening up and is outstanding. They have been easy growers for me. I planted Ticksee for the first time but mine have been slow to bloom so far - yours look great!

ChrisND said...

Hi Beth...Checking back from last year the garden looks 2-3 weeks behind with some things more effected than others. I noticed some of the coneflowers were bending over...I hope it's just the shady location.

I really like the plains tickseeds...they seem to do very well after the winter. Plus, I don't have to worry about when to plant!

chey said...

I love the shots of the immature echinacea. It makes the cone so much more pronounced. Looks like your garden is on the same schedule as ours here in the maritimes~ our echinacea are almost here as well:).

ChrisND said...

I generally like echinacea....will have to do another post soon as some are "here". It's interesting to see how the different garden zones align for blooms.