When I buy hydrangeas from the garden center, they look like this. But after a couple of years in the ground . . .
. . . they come up like this, and only have 2 or 3 blooms per bush. I'm planning on keeping the hydrangeas well-watered this summer, in hopes that will help with more blooms in future years. Do you have a knack with hydrangeas? What is your secret?
This is the area of the woodland gardens that I've been working on this spring -- lilies of the valley, hydrangeas, hostas, grape hyacinths, rhododendrons, and in fall, I'll plant a bunch of yellow daffodils under the river rock. I still have a bunch of work to do on this area, but I have ALL summer to finish digging out the salal, haul rocks, add mulch, stepping stones, etc.
Basil looks good this year. I've got it in a large trough-style planter on the deck. In my yard, basil does best in large pots on the deck.
Now lookie what I found! If the seed packet was correctly labeled, this is an itty bitty eggplant. Imagine that, here in the cool pacific northwest I have an eggplant growing!
On a whim, I planted a purple potato. They had purple seed potatoes for just a few pennies a piece at the produce stand last month. So I bought a couple of purple and a couple of Yukon Gold, to go with my regular garden potatoes.
The four strawberry beds are looking full this year. Strawberries are just beginning to ripen here. Beyond the strawberries is the raspberry hedge. Bees are busy as ever in the raspberries this week. Should be a good year for both strawberries and raspberries. And that's a good thing, because . . .
. . . the blueberry harvest will be poor this year. Only 3 of my 8 bushes have a significant number of blossoms. Last year was a stellar year for blueberries here. Maybe the plants have gotten into an alternate bearing habit, or maybe we didn't have enough winter chill hours this year. In any case, it looks like I'll actually be buying blueberries this summer. And that's not the only fruit that isn't going to be super-productive this year.
The apple trees just have a handful of apples on each. We'll probably take a day to go apple picking at a local orchard in late summer, early fall.
My rosemary is doing very well this year. I've got the two plants in large pots on the deck. I've been taking snips for roasted rosemary potatoes this last month. Mmmm, I do love rosemary!
Can't wait to bake some rosemary bread.
And finally, some impatiens that I planted in a pot next to the kitchen door, late last week. I planted these just for smiles. I'm taking really good care of them, giving a jar of water every other day, and adding some bloom-boosting fertilizer. I'm hoping the pot will be bushy with blossoms by the 4th of July. They look like lipstick, don't they?
So now you know what's growing here, tell me, what's growing in your garden?
