Our Garden Dirt: Baby Garden Dilemma

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Wow! Is it really June already? Yesterday and today were the first really insanely hot days here in Florida this year so far. (Where we live anyway.) The Garden is starting to show stress from the heat and drought. We have been hand watering in addition to our regular irrigation just about every day and things are still dry. We are also having trouble with some moles or voles. It's very disappointing. There are tunnels all over our yard. It's like the NYC Subway. They eat off the roots of plants while searching for earthworms in their tunnels. This of course starts to damage the plant and it is starting to show especially in some of my rose bushes in our Baby Memorial Garden. I went out this morning to do some planting in the Baby Garden. All I managed to plant were 3 Pink Gauras. I just couldn't figure out where I wanted to place things. The whole garden is starting to look so hodge podge to me. I haven't thought it out well enough. As my husband says, I am an impulse plant buyer. I buy it because I like it and then I try to stick it in somewhere. But I think that's an okay way to garden. Hey, plants can always be moved, right? It's all about trial & error. The Baby Garden theme is pink for Olivia & White for Quinn. At first I had trouble finding alot of true pink plants. Now I seem to be coming up with an abundance of them. So far, these are the plants that we have in the Baby Garden:

2 Pink Serissa, Belinda Rose, Abraham Darby Rose, Our Lady of Guadaloupe Rose, Moonstone Rose, Sexy Rexy Rose, The Fairy Rose, a miniature garden rose, a Conversation Azalea, Mansize Camellia, Kitty Camellia, Pink Perfection Camellia, a Sioux Crepe Myrtle, Near East Crepe Myrtle, a Cameo Quince, a Blush Quince, a Pink Althea, Flowering Almond Bush, Hoshima Flowering Cherry Bush, Loropetalum, 2 Sago Palms, a Callaway Crabapple Tree, White Muhly Grass, White Nemesia, Nicotiana Flowering Tobacco, Appleblossom Pennestemon, White Four O'Clocks, Pink Four O'clocks, Miniature Mallows, Pink Hollyhocks, Liriope, Narcissus, Indian Hawthorne, Pink Celosiana, Evergreen Giant Liriope and Vygie Sedums. There are also 15 Marcia Faye Daylilies planted there that I am going to dig back up and move to another garden. They were not as pink as I was led to believe. They are very pretty but alot of orange, peach, yellow coloring to them. This morning I planted some Dauphin Gaura. I still have a Siskyou Pink Gaura to plant, August Beauty Gardenia, Pink Muhly Grass, Pink Cleome, some Zinnias and a few more roses. It sounds like alot but everything is basically small so the garden still doesn't look like much yet. I have a wish list of alot more plants that I still want to add to it. We also have a bird bath, two little statues and 2 little baby wrought iron chairs. I am just having such a time planning this layout. I think it's just soooooo important to me because it's my daughter and sons memorial garden, that I am not able to make it perfect enough.

As I write this, Bruce & I are sitting out on the back screened in porch watching it rain and listening to the thunder. Haven't seen any lightening yet and I guess that's a good thing since I am sitting out here with my laptop plugged in on the porch. Probably not the brightest thing I've ever done. We really need the rain but I don't think it's going to amount to much. It's coming in waves. The thunder is getting louder RIGHT now! Funny though, there are still birds chirping.

I joined Blotanist which is a collection of worldwide garden blogs. I am really enjoying it. I get so excited as I look at other gardeners blogs and read their stories. I have to say though that I realize that my blog really pales in comparison to most of the ones that I see. The photography on some of them is absolutely gorgeous so I find myself daydreaming about getting a really good camera so I can improve my garden photography which is something I love to do almost as much as the gardening itself. Also the blogs are so interesting. I find that most have a really good sense of humor, are very talented, and much excellent writers. I have a long ways to go here but I will improve over time. I am starting to really enjoy this blogging thing!

I didn't get to take photographs this morning because my husband had the camera at a job today but I will take some picture this week and show the perils that I am having with the baby garden. Does anyone else have a memorial garden like this that they've created? I would love to look at some pictures, layouts and ideas.

Well, my blog wouldn't be complete without some pictures and I just happen to have some that I took the past couple of nights.