Neglected

Neglected, that's how a lot of things have gotten over this summer.  My garden being one and my blog has been getting more and more neglected too.
Family things going on, as well as kid activities have given me very little time to be out and take care of the garden.  What free time I've had has been spent on watering.  It has been an unusually dry and warm summer.  I'm not complaining and neither are the tomatoes though!
I thought I would give the blog a little attention today with some of what the garden looks like right now.  Luckily weeds are smaller than the plants, although there are many, many of them.  There are wilted things and crispy things, but luckily for the most part neglect hasn't bothered the garden too much.

 The pond was refilled yesterday so it looks nice right now.

 With the pine tree now gone the plants in the garden and on the deck have gone crazy!

 The arbor has filled out more, with three different types of Clematis and a climbing rose it should be!

 Lots more sunny perennials have been added to the backyard.  They have attracted more bees, butterflies and birds than ever.

 A new Aster.

 The sun is very bright which makes the colors very washed out, but believe me there is a lot of bright color.

 With full sun here now the window boxes are overflowing.

 Lots more sun has made everything explode (and I also credit all the chicken manure from the coop that I spread here last fall).

 Sadly the neglect and lack of water has caused my Flowering Currant to completely dry up.  It didn't seem to matter how much I tried to water, it's still crisp.  I do think I see a bit of green though where new leaves might be trying to grow.

 The blueberries, raspberries and figs are having a very productive summer.  They have really been neglected and luckily don't need too much water.

The chickens are doing great.  You can see the three new ones here that we got as chicks in April.  They all three are laying eggs now.

                           

 Containers on the back deck.

 There's a wagon under those flowers!

 We've seen so many more butterflies than usual this summer.

 Lots of pears getting ready to be picked.

 One of the raised vegetable beds.  We've had tomatoes, carrots, beets, turnips, garlic, chard and Kale already.

Spinach, squash, basil, blueberries and even eggplants!

 Lots of color!

 From the street.

The driveway bed.  It has gotten actually more attention than usual because it's getting some water.  I get very lazy dragging hoses around even in an uneventful summer, but this year I'm making sure that this part doesn't get ignored.

 This baby wren is from mid-July.  It's the first time we've ever seen the babies leave their next.  We had several birdhouses that hosted not one, but two different families this year which is very unusual.

Maybe once the girls start school in September the blog won't be so neglected?  Maybe I'll have more time to spend in the garden?  Well, one thing I've learned this summer is that the garden will go on despite the neglect it's gotten which has been something that makes me happy.  Nothing like a tough day when I can still look out the window and see flowers and birds and butterflies still going on without any help from me.  Another gift from the garden.  It doesn't need me, I need it.

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

Early spring in the front yard.

The sun was out and birds were singing early this morning.  I love this time of year when I wake to the birds.  There is a pair of ducks that continue to fly across the school yard over the fence every morning, sometimes they have an extra guy with them.  He seems like kind of a third wheel because they appear to try and lose him as they swerve around the sky.  I've seen pairs of birds near almost every birdhouse in our yard.  Plum and cherry trees are blooming and you can really smell them when the breeze is blowing.
It's still a bit cool outside but I wanted to get some pictures of how some of the front garden is looking right now.  There are so many different colors of green (and red and orange) on the new leaves.  It won't be too long before many of these plants are blooming.

 You can see a picture of this garden on the sidebar to see how it will look later in the summer.  I'm always amazed at how much it changes over the year.

 We put this birdhouse up last summer and angled it so we could see it from inside in hopes that birds would use it.  Well there is already a pair of Chickadees making a nest in it.  They don't seem to mind the activity of kids and the dog around them.

 From the front you can see all the moss that has grown on the edgers this winter.

 The flowering cherry tree is blooming and the bumblebees are loving it.

 Spirea has already leafed out.  There's some empty space to fill in this bed this year, not sure what will go in it yet though, but I do love empty garden space!

 The water garden was cleaned out this weekend.  I trimmed all the plants, dumped the water and will let the rain fill it back up.

 Pink Hyacinths that were planted last fall are blooming.  The slugs have been terrible about eating them.

 I planted this container last year and am so happy with how it's doing.  The Pieris is blooming and the Clematis on the obelisk is quickly climbing up.

The entry bed is full of color, it's difficult to tell in the lighting here though.  Hellebores, Crocuses, Tete-a-tete daffodils and Heucheras really brighten it up.  The moss has gone crazy here this winter.

It looks and feels like we are returning to the cooler and wetter weather that we had most of the month.  I'm hoping that the daytime temperatures will stay above 50, but I see some days of upper 40's predicted.  This time of year I guess you just have to enjoy any dry and sunny day that we have because you never know how long it will be until the next one.

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

Container plantings for some color.

After several nice days of enjoying the sun and some temperatures in the low 60's we ended up with a rainstorm that brought the amount of rain in one day that we normally get for the whole month of May.  The upside to it was that it watered many of the seedlings that are finally sprouting and kept the newly planted containers watered.  Normally I have planted most of my containers by now, but I wasn't feeling very inspired too because it had been so cool.  But my inspiration arrived at the beginning of last week when my winnings from a giveaway from Heather at Dusty Bay arrived.

Heather hosted a contest by Proven Winners and the winner (lucky me) won $100 worth of Proven Winners annuals.  The plants came packed really well, each huge and flowering 4 inch pot was individually wrapped in brown paper.  The whole box and wrappings went right into the recycle which I loved, many mail orders plants come with plastic and packing peanuts.  Every plant was healthy and loaded with flowers.  I was sent Calibrachoa Superbells 'Blackberry Punch', Euphorbia 'Diamond Frost', Lobularia 'Snow Princess', Mecardonia 'Gold Dust', Supertunias 'Vista Bubblegum', 'Royal Velvet' and 'Pretty Much Picasso'.  I've bought their plants many times at nurseries, but after seeing the great quality the mail order ones were I wouldn't hesitate to mail order from them either.

My husband and I had lots of fun planting our new flowers in all the containers I've been collecting.  This is a small galvanized washtub we found at a flea market.

A row of containers between the two big beds in the front yard.

The large washtub I found at an antique mall awhile ago full of water garden plants.  Two of the plants are just emerging but will be tall with flowers later in the summer.  I'll share pictures of how this changes during the seasons.

This year I decided rather than buying a hanging fuchsia already planted I'd make my own using the starts I found at a grocery store.  I love how this hanging basket looks compared to the plastic or pulp pots I usually find them in.

I went outside to find my husband planting this shade container by himself, usually I do all the containers and he helps carries them to where I ask him to put them.  Now if I could just find him outside weeding one day I'd really be happy!

You can see how huge the plants were by how they already fill out the window boxes.  Normally I fill them full of lots of different flowers, this year there was only room for three each.  One day I'm hoping my husband will build a wood window box for this window.

I still have several planters to fill and others that are still holding on from last year, but the now there are lots of spots of color until the perennials finally get a chance to start blooming.

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