Flower Garden Spring Clean-Up & Morning Glory Sprouts

I was going to say Happy Cinco de Mayo, but then I realized that it's 2:45 am and Cinco de Mayo is over... Oh well, Happy Belated Cinco de Mayo? lol Hope everyone had a great one! I had a nice relaxing day myself. I started out by spending an hour in the flower garden doing a Spring Clean-Up. The above picture is from last fall and I never did get around to doing a Fall Clean-Up. The closest I got was taking out the tomato & pepper plants, and the herbs that were in the back right of the garden last year (they will have their own garden this year between the houses).  So in the fall all of the Annuals died off and were left in the ground, the Morning Glory's on the trellis died and were never taken down, leaves were all through the garden... Needless to say it needed a clean-up. 

Today I went out before the temperature rose too much and got to work. Let me just say, the weeds were out in abundance! There was a lot of dead leaves to take out of the garden, but there was a TON of weeds too. I didn't get to the trellis today but I will be dealing with that tomorrow. I did get the leaves out and the weeds pulled though. And got a little surprise in the process. My Summer Nights Larkspur re-seeded itself! :) I thought it was Annual but it came back this year. I'm quite happy about this as the flowers on it are GORGEOUS! In the above photo you can barely see the bright blue flowers in the middle towards the back. Here's a close-up I took last summer of the flowers.

See what I mean? I love them! I also learned that my Impala Roses survived the winter as well! YAY!! Below all of the dead leaves I found new little red leaves. :)

Also back are my Daylily's which were transplants last year and never bloomed for me (except the Stella D'Oro which was in bloom when I put it in the garden). Super excited to see those bloom this year. Irises that also didn't bloom last year. Two types of purple ones I believe. 

My gorgeous white Dwarf Asiatic Lily "Tiny Nanny" is also coming back up as well. :) Here's the new growth.

And here is what it looked like last year in bloom. 

Now I just have to wait and see if my Red Dahlia comes back and the rest of the space is open for new plants. :) And as you can see, now that the clean-up is done, there is plenty of space for more.

Oh and I almost forgot. My Morning Glory seeds are starting to sprout! I planted them on Friday and checked back today to find each variety sprouting away. YEAH! Can't wait!!

I haven't decided yet but I may go out plant hunting tomorrow. I want more Roses for sure. And if I can find Mandevilla again I'd definitely like more of those too. My Hummingbird & Finch Feeders will be going up tomorrow too. Here's to hoping we attract some birds this year. :)

Ciao!

~Kay

Planting Morning Glory Seeds (And other flower pics from last year.)

Long time no see! Sorry folks, I know I haven't posted in a long time, been dealing with some stress lately and have had other things on my mind. Back now though! :)

Alright, here we go. Weather here has been great lately and I've got a few Perennials coming back to life in the garden, so I figured it was time to start my Morning Glory seeds. 

I grew Heavenly Blue Morning Glory's last year from a starter plant, but this year I wanted to try to grow as much from seed as possible (including the new Veggie Garden that we'll be starting to put in this weekend). So I went to Wallmart a few weeks back and bought one of those little starter greenhouse things (Can't remember the actual name but they have little round dirt "pod" things (again with the technical terms, lol) that you add water to and they expand to hold the seeds. As well as a few different colors of Morning Glory seeds (including the Heavenly Blue). Today I had some free time in the afternoon and decided to start the seeds.

The instructions said to gradually add 5 1/2 cups of warm water until the pods expand. I was quite surprised how quickly they soaked up the water.

In the above pic I had added the first little bit of water but the pods hadn't expanded yet. I didn't actually measure out the water as per the directions. Just used a cup and added water until I thought they had expanded enough. Next it said to pull the mesh away from the top of each pod slightly and fluff the soil before planting seeds, so I did that and then got to work with the seeds.

Here I had planted some of the seeds (the 3 rows on the left), and the pods on the right still needed to be planted.

Once all the seeds were planted, I labeled the side of the tray (using painting tape because that's what I had lying around) with the variety of Morning Glory and the date so I would remember when they were planted. I loved having the Heavenly Blue ones last year, they were oh so pretty!

Here's a few pics of last year's blooms. How could I not want them again?

View from standing on the porch behind the garden.

From the front.

And finally, a close-up of the flowers. I love the purple that they get when they start to close up. :)

So as you can see, the Heavenly Blue's were gorgeous! Of course I wanted them back this year. But I also wanted more variety's as well. So I also planted Chocolate, Flying Saucer and a mixed package called Mixed Ipomoea which I spelled wrong on the label... Oh well, lol. The links on the names of the variety's are pictures that I found online that show what each should look like. The Mixed Ipomoea image is the exact same image from the package.

The directions then said that you are supposed to put the top on and place the flat out of direct sunlight. We have very few windows in our apartment, let alone windows that get good sunlight, so until I get the clear plastic I need to turn the back porch (which gets western afternoon/evening sunlight) into a mini Greenhouse, I put them in a small window sill in the kitchen that faces north. We'll see how it goes. I'll be back with pictures once they start to sprout. :) 

 I'm also going to share a few pictures from my garden from last year. I'm very curious (and impatient! lol) to see how my garden does this year. I didn't know our landlord would let us have a garden until half way through the summer last year and didn't get it started until part way through July. For a garden that was started so late I was quite impressed at how well it did (I did?). So this year I really can't wait for everything to start coming up. I didn't get a chance to winterize ANYTHING in the garden last year and had quite a few Annuals and some Perennials. So far my Daylily's and my Iris (neither of which bloomed last year), that were given to me have both started to come up. My Winnipeg Parks Rosebush has tons of leaves starting on it. But nothing else has grown yet this year except for weeds. I really hope that my Impala Rosebush comes back to life soon though! I like the Winnipeg Parks Roses, but the Impala's were my favorite flower in the entire garden last year so I'm a bit disappointed that it hasn't got any buds on it yet. :( Fingers crossed though. 

So I'll start with the Impala Roses to give you an idea of why they were my favorites. :)

Right? Ok maybe you don't agree with me, I know everyone has their own taste when it comes to flowers. But I personally LOVE these! Leaving the blooms on the bush after they start to fade and die off does take nourishment from the rest of the plant as they still try to suck nutrients from the plant as they die. I left the two blooms in the back right on long enough for me to get a picture of the progression because it really is pretty.

I love this picture too. One of the blooms opening up. 

Ok, now the Winnipeg Parks Roses.

The day I bought the bush, before I put it into the garden.

Later in the season, the second flush. Pretty. :)

The last few photo's I'll leave you with are from one of the Annual's that I loved and intend to find more of this spring, My GORGEOUS Red Mandevilla. 

The day I planted the starter plant. I love this picture!

A close-up right before a rainfall one evening.

And finally the same day as the previous picture after the rainfall. 

I hope I've left you with a decent post here to make up for being MIA the last little while. :) I promise I'll be back MUCH sooner this time! And I'll definitely be sharing tons of pictures and hopefully some gardening advice, as well as a bunch of recipes, crafts and other things this spring/summer. I hope you enjoyed the pictures and I'll see you next post. 

Ciao!

-Kay