Tag: alyssum

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Barbie's garden Gardening Home page features Miscellaneous Perenniels

New additions for 2012

I guess my New Year’s resolution is to have more colour in my garden. I have so enjoyed the nursery outings that Christine and I take on regular intervals and the temptation to buy more and more flowering plants has taken hold of me. I will share these new additions with you and how I have added them to the garden.

Here is Gerbera Garvinea (the daisy-like orange flower) and white cosmos and red Dianthus with my favourite Gaura Belleza in the background.

[one_half]Gaura Belleza ready for planting[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Dianthus, Cosmos and Gaura looking pretty[/one_half_last]

[one_half]The Gaura now in my buckets[/one_half]

[one_half_last]I think this is a perfect spot![/one_half_last]

I had the lavender in the buckets, if you can remember, and I found that I needed to replant those in a more suitable environment (I haven’t done this yet!). The gaura are just perfect here – they play in the wind and seem to love this sunny spot! They are light and pretty, so I have improved this area. I’m chuffed!

[one_half]Here, I have combined the Cosmos and Dianthus[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Festuca Glauca and Calibrachoa ready for planting[/one_half_last]

[one_half]Calibrachoa and alyssum in the grass feature[/one_half]

[one_half_last]I have added the Festuca Glauca here[/one_half_last]

I had a few gaps in my grass feature and really wanted to add Festuca Glauca. I found some so – yeay! You can see it here next to the bird bath. The calibrachoa and the alyssum found a home next to my Miscanthus.

[one_half]Gerbera Garvinea Orangia – very cute![/one_half]

[one_half_last]Gerbera in my barrel combo[/one_half_last]

I am very pleased that the Gerbera Garvinea looks fabulous in my barrel bucket with my Artemesia and spring bulbs as a threesome. The alyssum just finishes the pretty picture.

[one_half]Grass feature looking just great[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Another view from the deck[/one_half_last]

I had to add the last two photos of the grass feature. It is really coming on beautifully and I’ll keep you updated on this because I see that it is really starting to grow!

I wish all of our garden blogger friends a GREAT 2012 and Happy Gardening  xxxxxxx

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Christine's garden Gardening Home page features

Bee-ootiful

Bees

Bee-ootiful

I love seeing the bees buzzing around my garden. When I see them busily buzzing around from flower to flower then I know I am doing something right by providing them with nectar and pollen to attract them to my garden. The sun came out for a short while today so I sat in a puddle when the drizzling stopped to watch them buzzing from flower to flower in the Rose Bed. The only flowers they seem interested in right now are the Alyssum I planted here. I never realised Alyssum had any fragrance until I sat there waiting to capture at least one photograph of the bees and realised they do smell – quite pretty actually when nothing much else is going on in the garden. It was a lovely half hour spent amongst the flowers and the bees before it started drizzling again and I ran for cover.

Oh … and in case you are wondering, I only managed to get one half-way decent photograph of the bee in that half hour. Photography, like gardening, takes practice. But as they say, practise makes perfect. I’ll get there, one day (I hope). If nothing else, I’m learning to be patient!

Happy gardening
xxx

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Annuals Christine's garden Home page features

Sweet Alyssum

Alyssum

AlyssumWhen we had the “new” garden planted I was left with lots of bare patches to contend with whilst we wait for the plants to establish themselves. Although we put down bark-mulch (which is more attractive than bare soil), I still wanted to see some more colour, especially over the the December / summer months. So I decided to plant fast growing annuals, just for a few splashes of colour whilst we wait … waiting for the garden to grow is not quite like watching paint dry, but I’m not the most patient of people so some instant colour was called for.

This is the bed just above the pool from which we had to remove the Banana Tree. It looked really ugly after everything had been removed and in December we had the new plants planted there. Its a fairly shady area so Camellias and Star Jasmine and Carex “evergold” were chosen. And I was left with lots of bare patches! So I planted some petunias for instant colour. They’ve done ok, but the area is pretty shaded so the petunias have not done as well as the ones in the pots out back. Pretty, but nothing great. At the same time I planted Alyssum. They are such an unassuming little plant aren’t they? Hardly noticeable until they actually start growing. Today I was quite surprised to see how sweetly they are filling in the blank spaces without detracting from the other plants around them. And I have to add … they must be the easiest thing in the world to grow! I’ve done nothing to them. In fact, I’d forgotten all about them.

Here they are …

[one_half]With the Petunias & Carex evergoldAlyssum[/one_half]

[one_half_last]More PetuniasAlyssum[/one_half_last]

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Annuals Christine's garden Gardening Home page features

Alyssum in little pots

Alyssum

Just before Christmas, Stefani (my daughter for those who don’t know) talked me into buying this crate with the little pots in it for the garden. It’s been sitting around for a month now “waiting” for me to plant something in the pots. I was going to plant herbs in it, but then decided it would look pretty straight away with something that’s flowering, so yesterday I planted some of the Alyssum seedlings that were meant for a border into the pots. And I think it looks cute!

What I love about gardening is that things are always changing and can be changed. If a plant is not thriving somewhere it can be moved to a better position. If a patch is not enchanting, one can add to it, subtract from it, move things around, heck, maybe even add a garden gnome for effect! (I don’t have any yet but I do have a metal frog!). And whilst there is so much for me to learn about plants and taking good care of then to get them to thrive, gardening allows me to be a bit creative with colour and form.

Hope you are having a great week!

xxx