Planting flowering annuals and perennials in the landscape. New posts are Florida gardening with the hydrangeas and some others being from the north.
I added some bonemeal around the base and will eventually add new dirt too. Right now I am busy readying my vegetable gardens for planting – hopefully this weekend. Once the fabric pot raised beds have all the dirt they need, I will add what’s left to the flowers. My Pinky Winky and Limelight hydrangeas all look fine too. In a couple months I’ll see some flowers. Can’t wait!
It’s May and I have been getting outdoors to check on my hydrangeas and do some yard clean up. This photo of my Pinky Winky hydrangea plant was taken about a week ago, but it still looks about the same. Some leaf buds are forming along the stems, but that’s about it. The Limelight plants look about the same.
I decided to prune them in late Fall last year instead of waiting until Spring. The reason was mainly that when I left the dried flowers on the long stems of the limelight variety, the snow would weigh them down. So I pruned them for the winter and hopefully they will still bloom nicely.
My endless summer plants have larger leaves protruding up from the base of the plant and the Blushing Bride has little baby plants that are rooted. I plant to dig them up and transplant them once I have a spot for them and the weather has warmed.
All but the Pee Gee are still growing and looking good. I can’t say as much for some of my other perennials. The rhododendrons that I was hoping would get big and beautify the yard are practically dead. Apparently deer consider them a delicious meal and they chew off every leaf during winter. Even with netting over them, they have been devoured. If the plants survive the summer I will try covering them with burlap next winter. Don’t want to think about winter yet though!
Buy your potted hydrangea plants soon. The nursery will have a large selection of hydrangeas, along with other plants, as Mother’s Day is on the horizon. Many people forego the gift of expensive cut flowers for something that will last much longer. Moms who garden may appreciate a new perennial for the yard. (Offer to plant it for her too!)
Flower shops will have blooming plants or cut flowers, but nurseries will have shrubs to be planted with flowers appearing later on this summer. Planting them now will get them ready to bloom soon. Even small plants usually will have blooms the year they are planted.
We’ve had such a cold April that it’s been a little difficult to believe it really is Spring. Of course it’s still too cold to plant most things outdoors, but I’m almost ready to buy seedlings and set up my little deck green house. I won’t be purchasing anything big to add to the yard this year. The deer have eaten all my rhododendrons, and any new hydrangeas I put it will be propagated from the old ones. I will be concentrating on growing as many vegetables as I can. I bought a new raised bed made of black fabric and can’t wait to get some dirt to put into it. Then the soil can warm up and be ready for planting by the end of the month.
The hydrangeas in the picture above were some I bought in Spring of 2012. Last year they looked wonderful – the flowers in the bouquet below all came from my yard last year (2013). And I hope that this year they will be even bigger and better.
Color changes in the hydrangea flower as the season progresses brings green, pink and blue blooms.
This page is about growing hydrangeas in my New England yard. The soil is naturally acidic and it is not difficult to grown blue flowering hydrangeas. However, as the season progresses, those blue flowers turn into pinks and greens and even unique blue colors.
My beautiful blue Endless Summer hydrangea flower turned to light lavender as last season progressed. Sometimes the blues turn pink, or even green. It’s what makes growing hydrangeas so exciting, the fact that flowers will start out one color and turn to something completely different.
I love this gorgeous light purple flower. The newly planted shrub is not very large and last year it had only about 5 or 6 blooms. The heavy weight of the flowers on the smaller stems weighed them down, but each year the plant will do better.
Right now it’s too early to see much happening with my hydrangea bushes. I keep coming across pictures I took last summer and fall, so I’ll have to share those for the time being.
I won’t be buying any more new plants, as I am currently on a very tight budget, but I plan to propagate hydrangeas from the plants I already have.
Propagating from the endless summer and mop-head varieties is easy, but it takes time and some planning. Some people start plants from cuttings, but I have not had luck with that.
Another flowering hydrangea in my yard is fun to watch. The Pink Winky has elongated flowers that turn from white to pink. It is a gorgeous bush.
My newer blog posts are about gardening in my Florida backyard.
The unique lenton rose flower will poke out of the snow in early spring.
This is a photo blog post showing some images of the two Lenton rose (hellebore) plants growing in my yard. This is a new plant for me to grow, but I love the fact that the buds form and flowers bloom in mid-April. Sometimes there is still snow on the ground!
It’s a pleasant thing to find flowers blooming after a long, cold winter.
Besides blooming early in Spring before most other perennials, the flowers of the Lentos Rose are unique.
Flower colors can be pink, beige, white, light green or spotted. The flowers will stay on the plant and turn color too.
The flower is unique and comes in a variety of colors. The light green flower is coveted by brides for their wedding bouquets. Finding green flowers in nature is always a treat, but the light pink and spotted varieties are stunning as well.
This is one plant that I would like to have more of in my garden. This perennial is easy to grow and blooms profusely. As you can see, the leaves are nice and green even after being covered in snow all winter! After the flowering stops, the green leaves continue to grow all summer and add interest to the landscape.
I’ll keep my eyes open for other varieties when I visit the local nursery this year.
April has been a pretty cold month for us in the northeast. It seems like it’s unseasonably cold, with just a few really nice days so far. Plants are pushing up through the ground even though we had a few inches of snow about a week ago.
I got this photo of my tulips that were growing nicely when they suddenly had to endure a coating of the white stuff. The heavy snow in this late snowfall clung to the trees and made for some opportunities for good pictures. I went outside early that morning to get some local photos before the wind and warm sun removed the snow from the tree branches. I really didn’t need to hurry as the day never warmed up all that much and there were snow patches left the next day as well.
The lenton roses are blooming as they do in the early Spring, but so far not much else is providing color other than green.
It’s a good time of year to clean up the beds, before the black flies show up. So I cleared the back garden of stray blackberry briers that constantly try to invade my tiny garden space. And I removed the leaves that have been covering the dirt.
Next I will order some garden loam to fill my fabric beds and get them ready for planting in about a month. I just hope the weather will eventually get nice and warm, and I suppose it will.
Hydrangeas Blue 