Saturday, July 12, 2008

Rainstorms and Suddenly, More Flowers

Today was the first sunny day after a few rainy ones. We didn't get any tornadoes or such here, though. Of course, there are always a few surprises in the garden after a few days spent indoors.

Delphiniums
(various colors of the Pacific Giants) are now blooming and leaning dangerously on their sides:

Project-wise, I am attempting to reduce the "catmint load" on the raised beds, as that stuff self-seeds over-abundantly and I am trying to keep it under control. I replaced it with Salvia nemorosa "Marcus". I also dug up some 3 year old tulips so that they can be replaced by new ones planted in the fall.

I tried this Phacelia "Tropical surf" for the first time and found it to be extremely easy. I think I threw the seed here around June 1 and now six weeks later -- flowers! I saw these on Arizona garden blogs, but after seeing that Kate in Regina had them last year, I had to try them for myself.

Beautiful, though distorted: Here's my first Scabiosa caucasica "House's Mix" of the season.

The Opium somniferum flowers showed up for the first time today. I love their crepe-thin petals and while the individual flowers don't last long, these self-seeded breadseed poppies have come back as a multitude and will flower for a few weeks. Aside from flowers, I'll have enough seed to make poppyseed bread all winter.

My first successful peas grown in the north. I direct seeded these outdoors in May. Yes, they didn't even get a headstart indoors and I will actually get food from these plants before frost!

Our salads should be colorful this summer. That is "Cavalry" red lettuce in the center.

4 comments:

Philosophical Karen said...

We have had rainstorms too. My delphiniums were leaning, so I bought a cage to support them. Bad idea. They flopped over the cage and broke. Your delphiniums are beautiful. I've never heard of Phacelia, but they look like a beautiful flower and they seem so easy to grow. The flowers remind me of hardy geraniums.

Anonymous said...

what a gorgeous sight!

arlene,
Lakewood florist

Anonymous said...

I like the Phacelia, I've never seen them before.I'm a great fan of annuals that you can sow by throwing the seed around!

O.I.M said...

leaning or not, those delphiniums look awesome. congratulations on the peas. that red lettuce looks great. makes me want to have a salad.
cheers
irena