Garden Glories in the Morning

The garden called me from my bed this morning at 6:45 am. Yes, on a weekend. Garden photography is generally better this time of day and I needed to catch some photos of things that are shaded by the afternoon. I was rewarded by my first morning glory bloom! I have never grown these before and the seeds had been sitting in the basement for a few years before I finally decided to plant them. They are one of these seeds you are supposed to either soak or chip (cut a hole in the seed coat - I use an exacto knife). I did both and had very successful germination! I am growing the vines up some support columns for a deck and a rain downspout.

Ipomoea purpurea "Star of Yelta" (Morning glory)

My delphiniums are coming into full bloom. I am impressed that they haven't fallen over despite a tremendous rainstorm two nights ago.

Delphinium x elatum "Summer Skies"

Malva moschata: first blooms 4 days ago. I started this plant from seed 2 years ago. The plants got so big I removed all but this one. It grows about 3 feet (90 cm) tall and 3 feet (90 cm) wide. It's one of those informal "cottage garden" type plants and self seeds a bit.

The "Rock Garden"

I like how the creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum) has filled in the blank spots and now has delicate purple blooms. The creeping thyme grows so easily that I wouldn't feel badly if I decided to rip it out and plant something else in its place. I works well as a "filler".

Planting Rocks in my Rock Garden

I decided to do some rearranging of the rock garden this week based on design principles I've been reading about. Besides that, I'd always been dodgy about calling the sloped flower bed a "rock garden", mostly for the lack of rocks. Actually, my real dream would probably require large mechanical equipment and aim for some small recreation of the rock gardens at Kew, so I'll stick to what I can do with my hands and a spade for now.

Principles in rearranging my rock garden:

• less "currant bun" effect, with rocks looking like they're just sitting ontop the dirt
  rocks should look like icebergs, meaning that nine-tenths of the rock is buried out of sight


• blasted rock looks more like natural stony outcroppings than rounded fieldstone (which can be better used for Japanese styles)


• align the rocks so any striations match directions


• use local rocks (resident-lawnmower-man hauled blasted rock in from a construction site)


• use similar-type stones, rather than a collection of novelty or multicolored stones
  
• plantwise, I removed dead or raggy-looking plants then moved some narcissus into the bed from elsewhere in the yard
  

Okay, so the picture shows that the little rock garden probably violates half those design rules, but settling of the dirt and planting a few more rock garden plants should help it out. Another gardener gave me some alpine Arabis, Gentiana verna and Gentian septemfida today! Within 2 weeks, the phlox and muscari should be in full bloom and should make the bed look beautiful. Or maybe I'll be out there tomorrow adding more rocks...

Flowers blooming now: Scilla siberica, a hardy bulb that produces these deep blue flowers: Muscari armeniacum "Dark Eyes" (Grape Hyacinth) , which is different from the regular bulk-purchased grape hyacinths in that there are little white rims on the bottoms of each "grape". The planting of this new variety really wasn't worth it in my opinion:
This is how far my single-flowered peony has come this spring. Yeah, I know those of you in warmer climates are probably staking their peonies to prevent their blooms from flopping over...and I don't really want to hear about it! But if you're growing peonies north of my latitude, please do tell.