A Walk Among the Peonies

My peony bushes just keep getting better and better every Summer! It always surprises me how many more blooms I get from year to year. Although peonies are actually considered a late Spring flower, they signify the beginning of Summer to me.

Peonies are among my most favorite of flowers and I wish the blooms would last more than a week! I always try to keep them well watered at the base so they don't dry out and drop their petals quickly and I think that usually helps prolong them a little longer. Of course, this year we had a major heat wave the week my peonies decided to pop out, so that didn't help. And on top of that, we then had some pretty severe storms that knocked all the flowers off. So sad! 

I was able to salvage a few peonies before the rain hit and this is the first time that I've actually had enough blooms to be able to make a bouquet! I always hate cutting them because they look so pretty on the bush, but I barely missed them outside, I had so many!

Currently, my peony bushes number six, with four blooming and two still growing. It usually takes about three years for anything planted from a root to bloom, so I am hoping next year is the year for my mystery peony that I rescued from a jobsite with only a screwdriver. I cannot wait to see what color it's going to be! It'll probably be another two years or so yet for my Coral Sunset Peony that I planted from root last summer. I am very excited for that one as well.

My yellow Bartzella is really my most prized peony. It's so unique and rare and I love the orange in the center. The blooms are huge and it just screams tropical. And I am all about anything tropical!

This is my very first bloom on my Sarah Bernhardt Peony! I'm usually more into brighter colors in my garden, but I am loving the delicate, light pink color. 

This is my first peony that I planted in my yard and one of my faves. It shows up a lot lighter in photos, but it's really a dark magenta color. I'm actually beginning to suspect it's a Karl Rosenfield Peony!

This lovely mysterious peony started as a root and it was supposed to be a red Karl Rosendfield. It most definitely is not, but I really like it. I'm still on the hunt for a red peony though!

I just love how peonies start from these closed up, tight little buds. 

The peonies really make my back deck area pop and after they are done blooming, the greenery looks good until Fall. I am thinking about putting some peonies in my front landscaping, but it's so shady that I'm afraid they will not do well. But, I think I'm willing to give it a try at least!

This might be my favorite pic ever!



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Happy Summer!

Spring Garden Tour

Spring is finally here!

It's a toss up between Spring and Fall for my favorite season, but I have to say, Spring may just be winning. With all it's gorgeous flowers and budding trees, it's almost no contest for a flower lover such as myself. 

Every year, I add more and more plants and flowers to my gardens for each different season. Tulips and Daffodils are often the most thought of flowers for Spring, but I've discovered that there are so many more Spring blooming flowers out there! I like to add different and new items whenever I come across them and I am very happy to report that every new bulb and plant that I put in last year has come back!

Spring came very late this year to northern Indiana and all my flowers bloomed much later than in previous seasons. I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, the bloom season would be prolonged somehow, but sadly, most of my Spring flowers are already on their way out. 

I have to say that my gardens are really rockin so far this year and I am already making plans for what to add next year! The most wonderful time of the year has begun!

New favorite flower alert! Crocuses are some of the first blooms in Spring and these tiny little flowers are actually perfect to plant in your yard since they will be gone by the first mowing. I got a small bag of them last Fall as an experiment and I will definitely be planting more in my yard and in my flower gardens next year!

I've seen yellow, white, and purple crocuses and mine were either purple or white. I love these purple ones with the white striations!

Above is my creekside garden in all it's Spring glory! My favorite thing about it is the border of purplish-blue Muscari. This is my favorite spot in my whole yard. When I moved in, it was just an overgrown eyesore filled with poison ivy. I had to work very hard to get it into shape for a garden and I am very proud of it!

Muscari make perfect garden borders and they multiply like crazy every year, so it only gets better and better!

Last year I planted a mix of Tulips that I got for free, not knowing what color they would be. I was hoping for red and luckily, most of them were! They look awesome next to the yellow Daffodils and blue Muscari.

These tiny little Daffodils came from a mix bag and I have never seen anything else like it. They are tall like regular Daffodils, but have several small clusters of flowers on them. They are very unique and I am glad they are in my garden. That's the thing with a mixed bag, you never know what you're going to get!

I think the best smelling flower may be the Hyacinth. Get around a group of them and it's absolute heaven! I am going to make it a focus to plant more this Fall. Possibly as a border somewhere. I wish I could find this exact color of purple again, it's the only one I've seen and it's much brighter than others.

Inspired by Foster Park here in Fort Wayne, it's been my goal to plant as many different kinds of Tulips in my yard as possible. I love these new orange ones that I planted last Fall and the different color variations on them.

These Lilac bushes literally began as sticks from someone else's yard. Lilacs are very easy to transplant, but they take a while until they bloom. This is the first year that all three have bloomed and I was even able to harvest a few branches to bring inside and put in a vase!

I was asked if they all have different smells and they do! The dark purple ones smell a little fruity to me and the white have a spicy smell. 

Funny thing about this tulip bed. I started it three years ago as a white, purple, and pink bed. My friend had gotten a Tulip bouquet of those colors and it was so pretty. Last year only one white Tulip came back, which I later found out that for some reason, white Tulips are notorious for not coming back like other colors. So I planted more white ones. This year, only one pink Tulip showed up to the party! I guess I'll be planting more pink ones this year! And probably some more white too, just in case!

I'm totally one of those people who can't seem to bring myself to cut my flowers and bring them inside. They just look so pretty in their natural element! But I desperately do want to one day be able to! This is my sole Daffodil, an Ice Follies, that I brought in this year and I only did it to save it because it had gotten cut off somehow. I am planning on starting some sort of a cutting garden so that I can have gorgeous floral arrangements in my home too one day!

I will wrap up the tour with my apple tree that finally blossomed this year for the first time! I am hoping to be eating some delicious Gala Apples from this tree in the Fall, but even if that doesn't happen, these blooms made it all worth it!


Thanks for stopping by and follow me on Instagram @ sweethome.indiana for daily updates on my flower gardens and all other things home!



Next up, Summer here we come!

My Flower Garden Tour 2017, Part 2: Annuals

Last week I took you on a tour of the perennial flowers in my flower gardens. Today, I will be sharing the annuals!

In case you were wondering what the difference is, perennials come back every year (hopefully!) Annuals are only around for one season. I try to incorporate a good mix of both perennials and annuals in my flower gardens. The nice thing about annual flowers is that they can really change up the look of your garden from year to year if you plant different ones each year!

Next year, I am planning on really stepping up my annuals. The past few years I've focused mostly on perennials because they are cheaper in the long run and you don't have to keep replanting them! But, my annuals have really looked awesome this year, so I am going to do it up even more next Spring/Summer!

I really don't have that many gardens. Don't get the idea that I have acres upon acres of perfectly manicured gardens like Martha Stewart! Although, that is my goal one day! I have a few little areas around my house, garage, and creek that I've managed to put a border on and plant a few plants! They are always a work in progress and I still have plenty of space in all of them to plant more flowers next year, and even for years to come!

If all you have are a few containers on your apartment balcony or window ledge, that's a great start! In fact, that's how I got my start! And don't get discouraged if your plants didn't do so hot this Summer. There's always next year!

All the seeds that I planted this year. The Primrose and Phlox didn't happen this year.

Here is my back little garden area at the very beginning of Summer. It looks like weeds but about July or August it really starts to look like an actual garden.

Here it is today!

These are the Zinnias, which are one of my new favorite flowers.

An up close shot of one of the Zinnias. They are all so different, you never know what you're going to get!

A Sunflower just about to open.

These are Cockscomb that I originally got at the Johnny Appleseed Festival two years ago! I planted the seeds that fell from them and they have come back every year! They are technically Annuals but the seeds just replant them by themselves!

Twins! This year I am going to get another color to add to the garden! Maybe orange.

My creekside garden is so shady, so I planted Impatiens and they have really done well! I think they are going to be my go-to flower from now on since my yard is so shady.

I love ornamental or flowering cabbages!

Perfect for Fall!

A unique Begonia mix.

In the background is one of my fave plants, a Kong Coleus. The Asparagus Fern in the front I got on clearance for 50 cents and it has just grown like crazy! I love these Ferns!

Speaking of Coleus, the ones I planted from seed actually ended up blooming! It was touch and go for a couple months after a groundhog messed up this area. I will definitely be planting these again next year.

This is a Flowering Maple...it reminded me of a Hibiscus, so I had to get it!

And finally, my sweet peas! This was my first year growing them and clearly I have some things to learn! 1. Get the proper size! These are supposed to grow up to 7 foot tall! Way taller than my tomato cage trellis! It's still possible that these will bloom, so we will see!

This is my big old planter on my deck full of petunias, sunpatiens, verbena and a corkscrew plant.

Goodbye Summer! Til next year!

My Flower Garden Tour 2017, Part 1: Perennials

 Tomorrow is only the first of September, but Fall has arrived early this year to Northern Indiana! This past week's weather has been unseasonably cold for the end of August and tomorrow the forecasted high temp is only 68 degrees! Yikes! Perhaps I jinxed us in my last post when I said that we usually have several weeks of good weather left!

Today, I am posting pics of all my glorious flowers from this year before they bite the dust! I feel like even my flowers are sensing that Fall is near because they are subtly starting to fade away. So let's take a tour of my flower gardens before that happens!

I had a pretty good season for flowers this year. Things I thought didn't survive last winter made a surprise appearance late in the season and even my first year Dinner Plate Hibiscus bloomed! I started a new garden, added to my existing ones, and have decided to revamp all of my front porch landscaping next year. In fact, I've already started adding to it with a couple of clearance plants!

I'm going to break this down into two posts since I have so many flowers! Perennials and Annuals. We'll start with the Perennial plants first, which come back every year (hopefully!) 

First up is my new fave, the Hardy Dinner Plate Hibiscus!

 

I didn't know what to expect when it bloomed. I knew it was a red and pink combo of some sort, but there are several different kinds. I was pleasantly surprised!

This is my favorite picture ever!

It brings a touch of tropical Hawaii to my Midwest garden! Be sure to get the ones labeled hardy if you live in a non-tropical climate.

Next up are my Hydrangeas, beginning with my favorite, the Limelight Hydrangea. 

This was from this Spring when it first started to bloom. It's my favorite stage because of the bright lime green color.

Then they turn white and fluffy!

This sucker is so huge! I got this plant at Main's Flower Garden for half off (only $10!) probably 6-7 years ago. The first year, I misread the directions and cut it off almost to the ground! I thought I'd lose it! But it came back better than ever! It's now bordering on being too big for it's spot.

Here is the Limelight Hydrangea today. It's already starting to turn a dusty pink around the tips for Fall!

 

This was my Bloomstruck Hydrangea a few months ago. It's a beautiful purple color. I was about to dig it up because I thought it was dead due to a late frost when all of the sudden this tiny sprout appeared.

This is the Bloomstruck today! A flower bud has appeared! Better late than never! This winter I will definitely be protecting it better!

This is my shade garden area. On the far left is my pink Let's Dance Diva Hydrangea. It too barely survived the late frost, but it's come back nicely! My transplanted Hostas sure have thrived in the shade garden too! I'm on the lookout for more shade loving plants to fill in the rest of the garden here.

This is a fully bloomed head of the Let's Dance Diva. It's a little strange, but still very pretty. The little pink buds in the middle don't get the big flowers on them.

These are purple Balloon Flowers, aka Platycodon. The unbloomed flower at the top resembles a balloon, hence the name! They don't really spread much from year to year, so I will be getting more next Summer.

This is a new plant for 2017, a Spiderwort. I planted it in the shady creekside garden, but I may move it next year if it needs more sunshine.

After seeing the Bleeding Hearts at Foster Park this year, I had to get one for my creekside garden!

My most recent purchase was this Black-Eyed Susan and the Echinacea in the next picture. They are front and center in my new garden area around my garage.

This is Echinacea, otherwise known as Coneflower. I only fell in love with them this year!

My new garage garden area is looking good!

This Wisteria is a new plant this year too! (I am only just now realizing how many plants I actually bought this year as I write this post! I can't help it! I love them!) I planted it in a pot since I am unsure where it's forever home will be just yet. They are known to grow like crazy, so I have to find just the right spot! Hopefully it will come back next year!

One plant that will not be coming back next year is my Chinese Lantern plant. I love the orange lanterns it produces, but it has gone wild and completely taken over my garden! I can't ever just seem to throw plants away so I may see if I can re-home it elsewhere in the yard, but we shall see!

Stay tuned for Part 2 of my 2017 Flower Garden Tour ~ The Annuals!