Pond, path and side garden tour.

 I've been enjoying the front garden so much lately that I've hardly taken time to enjoy the rest of the garden this summer.  Our front yard is the sunniest and warmest place to spend the day, and with the lack of sun we'd been having for most of the summer, I chose not to spend the sunny days in the shady backyard.  After lots of sunny days in a row, and more predicted to come, I took some time to clean out the pond and enjoy how pretty it looks in the backyard now.  There are still plants that are behind in their blooming, but I'm hoping they'll just bloom longer into August and September.

 A fairy sitting in a mass of Geranium 'Rozanne' flowers enjoying the view.  I have to echo what everyone else is saying about 'Rozanne', my longest and best blooming perennial in the garden.

 The red Fuchsia magellanica by the waterfall has been spreading and so huge and wide I actually had to cut it back quite a bit.  I had no idea they spread like that, but it must love where it is.  Agastache, Daylilies, Hostas, Oakleaf hydrangea, Hollyhocks, Coneflowers and Clematis are all blooming behind the pond.

 The fish love when I fill the pond with new water, they can reach the edges and find lots of bugs to eat.  There have been fewer waterlilies this year and lots more algae than usual.

 Clematis 'Ville de Lyon' is finally starting to bloom, but the flowers are much smaller than usual.

 This time of year the path garden has pretty much finished blooming and isn't at it's best.

Oakleaf Hydrangea 'Snow Queen' is just beginning to bloom.  It's finally starting to get tall.

 Halfway down the path things are a little greener.

 I finally found some plants that like this wine barrel planter.  Lamium, Japanese Forest Grass, Hosta, Cardinal flower and Astillbes are all doing great.

 The corner under the big cedar tree usually looks fuller, but I found that Sawfly larvae have just about completely defoliated the currant bush.  I've never had that happen before and didn't notice until it was too late.

 The side garden was a bit neglected this summer.  The Sunflowers coming up are from a package that spilled there.  Of course the ones I planted did not come up.  Clematis 'Etoille Violette' is blooming on the fence.  The blueberry bushes are loaded and very late in ripening.  We've just started picking them in the last week.

 Most are still green.

 In one of the raised beds the Littlest Gardener and I sprinkled in a Fairy Mix packet of seeds.  Unfortunately all that came up was lots of Candytuft and this one beautiful pink Poppy.  From looking at the seed list on the packet, I think this is a Corn Poppy (Papaver rhoeas).  I will be saving seeds and if I have enough I'll share with whoever else wants some.

Hope everyone is having a beautiful summer and there has been some letup in the heat.  We are finally enjoying some consistent sun here in the Pacific Northwest, and it's amazing how quickly I forgot about the rainy cool weather we'd been having.  Gorgeous blue skies and temperatures in the mid 70's are our reward for months of rain and gray skies and cold temperatures.  It was worth waiting for!

All words and photos in this post are property of A Gardener in Progress.

This, that and the other on Fertilizer Friday.

We're looking forward to a change in our weather this weekend. It's finally supposed to get up into the 70's on Saturday. We have just broken an all time record for the latest for it to reach 75 degrees (the highest it's been so far is 72) and 24 of the last 26 days have given us rain. I'm planning to get Sunflower and Zinnia seeds sown this weekend and hopefully the struggling seedlings will finally get a chance to grow. Unfortunately a lot of what I started by winter sowing has either been eaten by slugs or has drowned in the rain. I also noticed that my Oriental lilies actually have mold growing on them and have begun to bend. But, I'm not going to let those things get me too down. It's all part of gardening, because on the other hand plants like Hydrangeas, Clematis and Hostas are looking the best they've ever looked. I guess I have to take the bad with the good.
Now to the good part of the garden, things that are growing and thriving in the rain:

Canterbury Bells (Campanula medium) were bought last year as seedlings. I started more seeds this year so I will have them blooming yearly in my garden since they are biennials. I've always loved these flowers, but for some reason have never grown them before.

Penstemon 'Mystica' blooming behind the pond. I've been finding seedlings of them around this area which is fine with me.

Bachelor Buttons 'Blue Boy' which reseeded from last year. The seeds I've sown this year haven't even sprouted yet, hopefully once it warms up they will. My oldest daughter said there are lots of these growing on the other side of our fence that faces the schoolyard, glad to know they reseeded there as well. I was thinking about sprinkling some Cosmos seeds over the fence too, just to make it colorful for the kids or teachers who pass by.

The Blueberry bushes I was worried about being late to show flowers are loaded with berries.

The Littlest Gardener spotted peas on her bush pea plants. Sweet Pea's Sugar Snap Peas are growing like crazy. The peas have loved this cool wet weather.

This is how much Gracie loves being outside. She would rather be inside watching us unless it's very sunny and warm. A few weeks ago she had pretty major dental surgery and seems to be healing well.

A corner of the deck where I have some of my containers. My husband bought the wire bird for me on our trip to Portland in a garden shop with lots of garden art made from recycled materials. The Meyer lemon tree on the right still is hanging to the little lemon.

Just to the left of the containers are the steps down to the gravel path. Catmint (Nepeta) is blooming along the edge of the bed.

Clematis 'Jackmanii' is the vine that you can see in the bed above. It's just begun to bloom and it will be coated in bright purple flowers soon.

To see who else is flaunting their flowers on Fertilizer Friday visit Tootsie Time. Hope you all have good gardening weather this weekend!

A fruitful Fertilizer Friday.

I thought for this Fertilizer Friday I'd show some of the blooms that are starting on some of our fruit trees and bushes. Every year at about this time I start checking to see if there are flower buds. Growing fruit in our garden is one of my favorite things to do. For some reason they always seem to be a little easier than vegetables for me. I don't really fertilize any of them other than fresh compost around them in the Spring.

We have a dwarf 5 way grafted apple tree, there are 5 varieties of apples grafted onto a dwarf rootstock. While it's fun to have so many types of apples on one tree, it does make for a strangely shaped tree. Almost every year we have problems with worms in the apples and since I don't want to spray with pesticides, this year I'm trying Coddling moth traps to see if it makes a difference. The moths are lured to the trap which contains Tanglefoot. Tanglefoot is very sticky and the moths then aren't able to leave to lay their eggs.

'Duke' our most productive Blueberry. 'Bluecrop' has been by far the least productive. This year it seems to be the only with no buds.

'Jersey' Blueberry is just now sending out the flower buds.
We grew 5, now 6 varieties. The newest variety are Pink Blueberries! Can you tell we love Blueberries? To me there is nothing better than blueberries picked fresh from the bush. I was a bit worried earlier that there were no flower buds. Normally the flowers come first with the leaves coming after. This year it seems to be in reverse order for some reason. I guess I'll blame it on the weather ☺

One of our dwarf Pear trees, 'Comice'. The other is an 'Orcas'. When we learned about pear trees we discovered that like many other fruits you need two varieties to cross pollinate. It's important that the the varieties bloom at about the same time. We also found varieties that are known to do well in this part of the Pacific Northwest. This is only their second full year in our garden so we're hoping that this year we might get a few pears. They look so pretty right now covered in white fluffy flowers.

Currant (Ribes rubrum) 'Wilder Red' is actually growing under a Cedar tree and does really well there. Each year it produces lots of red currants, they aren't one of my favorites but they sure are pretty when they are bright red and hanging in clusters.

We also grow a Fig 'Desert King' which has just barely begun to show leaf buds and strawberries which won't have flowers for another month or so. The Meyer Lemon tree which we brought indoors when the weather got cool still has a few lemons left trying to grow. One of them is about quarter sized, and I'm crossing my fingers it can hang on until I put it back outside in a couple of weeks.
Fertilizer Friday is hosted by Tootsie at Tootsie Time each Friday. Visit her to join in or to see who else is "flaunting their flowers."

Getting the fruit and vegetable gardens ready.

I always love getting the side yard cleaned up and ready for planting. It's usually an all day job but one of those really rewarding ones where at the end of it you can see what you accomplished. To me it always looks so "pretty" all clean and neat with newly amended black soil ready to be planted in.
This is our side yard which I first showed in the post Moonscape Makeover. Here is where we do most of our fruit and vegetable growing. It's also the area we put the Littlest Gardener's playhouse recently. I thought it would be a fun place for her to play and be able to watch our food grow.

The entrance to the side yard, the gate is kept closed so our dog doesn't go in and help herself to what ever happens to be growing here.

If we were to do this over, I know that we would've used crushed gravel instead of pea gravel around the beds. Pea gravel is difficult to walk on and impossible to roll wheelbarrows or the yard waste can on. I raked and weeded the raised beds. Then I mixed in steer manure (store bought) with a pitchfork. Every year I add some new nutrients to the soil, some years it's compost other years steer manure.

Sweet Peas garden ready to plant. She's going to plant her Sugar Snap Peas on the trellis.

This is where our Blueberries all grow. They are too close together, but that hasn't stopped them from being heavy producers. I mix in peat moss around them every other year or so to help keep the soil acidic. Here is some good information about growing Blueberries.

This is looking down from the other end of the side yard. The closest bed has a Fig tree 'Desert King' and strawberries. They seem to do really well together.

I have the tomato seeds started inside, we're trying two new ones this year; 'Black Krim' (thanks Ginger) and 'Tigerella'. Every year it's fun to decide what else we will grow here. Some years it's broccoli or potatoes. We've also tried corn, pumpkins and zucchini.