Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Favorite Garden Moments, Part II

Thought I would continue this post on New Year's Eve, but instead, we spent the long weekend playing with little Caterpillar. Afterall, she is the center of our life now. So, now it's all back to normal schedule, I can finish rounding up my garden adventures for 2010!

In July, some of my daylilies bloomed. I planted different varieties, so they can bloom on different schedule. My purple coneflowers, I started 5 years ago from seeds, still going very strong. As the asiatic lilies all faded, my Nicotiana took over the center stage. Love the star shaped flowers, and they smelled so strong. Even attracted a cute little hummingbird one day. Below the nicotianas, are my balsams, and four o'clock flowers. Even the sprouted potatoes I threw in the garden bloomed. Surprisingly pretty little flowers.In the flower bed faraway from the house, my oriental lilies and daylilies turned on the heat, added such strong colors and strong aroma to the garden. I also got some surprises. Some volunteer cosmos and patunia started blooming as well. Lucky me!Oh, I also got a couple of big surprises. I never dreamed to see my snakeplant and hen-and-chicks blooming, since I totally left them on their own. How I just love these tough plants. And for some reason, I never blogged about my gorgeous tiger lilies. I planted them from seeds, waited 3 years for them to bloom. They only gave me 1 little flowers the year before, but this year, they exploded. Absolutely worth all the waiting.

By early August, my snakeplant put out 4 spikes, tons of delicate little flowers. Two of my jasmines bloomed. My "belle of india", and a new pink one from AK. Look closer, you can see the pink edges.My Encyclia radiata also jointed the show. Its smell is so unique, all the jasmine and nicotiana fragrance couldn't cover it.

In September, all my summer annuals were blooming stadily, perfect background for all the BBQ parties and birthday party. We also took little caterpillar on her first ever vacation at Tanglewood.

October was another very busy month. Now think of it, every day after little caterpillar was born has been super busy, in the very best way. We went to a couple of farms for apple picking and enjoyed autumn colors there. The meantime, all the mums in my garden bloomed. I bought them 5 years ago as small potted ball of color, then planted them in the garden afterward. They thrived in New England climate, and gave me the heaviest blooms you can possibly imagine.

By November, it was already very cold outside. My garden quiet down, plants slowly prepared themselves for winter. But inside our house, the show was just beginning. I took all my potted plants back in, then the orchids started budding and blooming.

In December, as we were getting ready for the holidays, more orchids bloomed. So many lovely flowers in so many colors, I didn't even need to decorate the dining room. (That's where all my plants are)

That's it! Another excellent year for my plants and garden. I am so grateful for all the amazing colors and fragrances they shared with me. And since little caterpillar will be almost 2 this summer, I think it's time to teach her about gardening. I can just see the joy on her face when she see the little beans she planted start sprouting. Cannot wait to teach her how to water plants, pull weeds, and pick strawberries and cherry tomatoes. Oh, I better make her a couple of gardener's helper's aprons. Oh, we are going to have so much fun this year.

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