GIANT ALLIUM: MY NEWEST GARDEN ADDITION

Last Fall I purchased  allium bulbs from Holland Bulbs.  I planted two under the windows on either side of my chimney and a third Giant Allium in a side garden.  They did not disappoint.  This first image is before it bloomed.  I planted it in front of a vintage chimney pot.  I use chimney pots as tall planters in my garden. 

GIANT ALLIUM BUD

You can see it in the lower left corner of the side garden.  I can't wait for it to multiply.

GIANT ALLIUM IN THE SIDE GARDEN

This is what it looked like in full bloom in front of the chimney pot.

GIANT ALLIUM IN FULL BLOOM

MIXING IN WITH FERNS

Do you add to your garden every year?  

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MY PERENNIAL BEGONIAS

Did you know that there are perennial begonias? 

 I had no idea there were until a friend shared some begonias from her garden.  They have been a part of my cottage garden for many years.  They continue to spread and bloom.   Here's a close up of the flower.

PERENNIAL BEGONIA

They look very similar to the annual begonia.

They totally surrounded the base of my Mugo Pine tree.

BEGONIAS BELOW MY MUGO PINE AND MY FERN IN A CHIMNEY POT

They encircled my bird bath too.

BEGONIAS AND BIRD BATH

Lantana is another plant I use in my garden.  It's only an annual, but it manages to spread into a large flowering ground cover that adds color all summer and into the fall.  This Lantana is yellow but it comes in many colors.

MY YELLOW LANTANA

It can quickly spread and fill a large area.

I've written about my Climbing Cardinal Vine before.  Every year I plant it from seeds and it climbs my trellis, my arbor, and my iron fences.  If you'd like to see my post about this vine, go here.

CLIMBING CARDINAL VINE

If any of my readers live in the DC area, let me know.  I'm always happy to share my begonias.

Landscaping With Seed Packets

This is one of my absolute favorite garden posts.  I'm sharing it again during my August garden month.

 I've been searching for a non-invasive climbing vine.  I learned the hard way that perennial climbers like to take over, so I decided to select an annual for the geometric trellises in my garden.  I'd never heard of a Cardinal Climber vine before, but I loved the picture on the seed packet and decided to give it a try.  Here it is in bloom.  I love it.

Cardinal Climber in My Garden

The leaves look very much like palm fronds and the bright red flower surprised me

 with the tiny white bud in the center.

If you missed last year's post, my dilemma was a large expanse of wall along the driveway with an extremely narrow bed.  I planted some Japanese Pencil Boxwood in the space.  I chose them because they were tall and narrow.  I'm not sure about the choice.  They look scraggly and thin.  

Expanse of Wall to Fill

I found some geometric lattice at Home Goods and added it next.

Geometric Lattice

Lattice Panels and Dog Photobomb

I planted some small boxwoods and the Cardinal Climber seeds in front of the panels.
The boxwoods haven't grown much, but the vine climbed and covered the trellises.

You can see how narrow the bed is from this angle.  This is the view from the street.

Side Street View of Narrow Bed

Divided liriope from another bed fills the space between the brick and the driveway.

Liriope Fills the Space

This was the perfect vine for the trellises.

Climbing Blooms

Blooms and Japanese Pencil Boxwood

It was impressive when the vines reached out to each other, intertwined, and formed
 a garland between each trellis.  I told my son that they were holding hands.

Intertwined Vines

The vines are holding hands and forming a garland across the wall.

Holding Hands

The vines left just enough open space for the geometric lattice pattern to peek through.

Vine, Lattice, and Japanese Boxwood

I'm so happy with my vine choice.  I bought my seed packet from a display in a hardware store,
but I checked and you can buy Cardinal Climber on Amazon too.  They're supposed to attract hummingbirds, but I haven't seen any yet.

If I do this next year, I definitely will start the seeds indoors first to get a head start.
 It took a long time for them to grow to this size and bloom.

Some Landscaping for the Screened Porch

Completed Porch

 
This is the second post in the screened porch saga.  If you missed the first one go here.
I really needed to add some plantings to the porch.  Let me remind you what it looked like when the porch was completed. 

And, a reminder of the horrible embarrassing before.

My son's baseball game was very near a Home Depot.  In the past I'd found very good deals on plants there, so we decided to stop by.  I couldn't believe that  they had one of the main shrubs I use in my yard, Cherry Laurel (technical name Otto Luyken).
They're usually very hard to find at a good price.  

I couldn't believe the size.

And the price was only $24.95.  I've never paid less than $35 each for them.

I couldn't wait to get them home and put them in the bed.  Here's the result.

I added a fern, also on sale, to the planter box.  If you notice at the corner of the porch is an old clay chimney pot.  I always look for these for the garden.  I'll do a separate post about these.   On top of it I used an armillary.  I also have used  the chimney pots as  tall planters and as a stand for a sun dial.

Here's a side view.

Now all I need is for the grass to grow.

Since I wrote this and took the photos, I've already made some landscaping changes.  No surprise, huh.  So now I'm changing up posts before they're published.


I added a column and put an annual (Mandevilla) in the planter.  My Black-eyed Susans are starting to come up again along the bed beside the sidewalk.

Also, the area next to the porch was a mud pit that needed some erosion control.  Sorry, no before pic. Trust me, it looked bad.  I actually had to shovel some of the mud off the lower patio after a rain storm.  I added rocks, divided and added my perennials from other gardens-hostas, sedum, coreopsis, liriope--along the walkway, and added some new Nandinas. I also planted some annuals in my bird bath and in the garden for some color.

This is another view looking down from the porch area.

I'm planning on putting some flagstones in the walkway and dividing my Sweet Woodruff from my other garden so it can fill in around the flagstones.  Here's what it looks like blooming in the spring in another of my gardens.  Sweet Woodruff is a perennial ground cover.  

It will look so pretty surrounding  flagstone on my now semi-muddy path.

What do you think so far?

Kathy

Thanks