A Winning Combo: Bloom Day + Foliage Follow-Up

I do love my combinations... but what's "winning" about these is that I can use them for both Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day and Foliage Follow-up! Since I'm late on both counts, these front yard garden pics are definitely a win in my book.

Clearly, I am incapable of taking a straight picture in my front yard. Oops.

Above you see my view when I pull into the driveway... now that I usually get the second spot. 'Red Rocks' penstemon, the short but flower-covered lemon thyme, the last fragrant sea kale blooms, and the first white torches of the oakleaf hydrangea. The faded purple ninebark blooms are my favorite of their many stages--a rich crimson pink.

 Below, the view from the sidewalk:

Oakleaf hydrangea blooms dominate here, but you can also see the first few amsonia blooms in the shade at left.
I ADORE the bright spiky yucca leaves... the flowers will be a bonus.

A close-up of the penstemon, and the fat hens-and-chicks at its feet:

Okay, you got me. I just wanted to show that stipa/nassella tenuissima again.
(The beauty and gras of that grass just floors me.)

Another poorly disguised shot of the stipa--but, really I was trying to show the bright-hot green in the light blue sea kale leaves. These photos look a little burned out, but the colors really do look this bright in real life, so I didn't bother to correct them at all:

Shaded from the light, the burgundy eucomis leaves, peachy-wine heuchera leaves and brown carex buchanii add a calming, anchoring effect:

And that's all I've got for now.  For more flowers, visit Carol's June 2013 Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day post.  For more fantastic foliage, check out Pam's Potted Plants and Stripey Foliage post--and click through the comment links.

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What else is blooming in the garden right now:

'Vodka' wax begonias, golden creeping jenny, salvia lyrata, 'Caradonna' salvia, verbena bonariensis, lonicera sempervirens, 'Zweiweltenkind' goatsbeard, mom's passalong pink lamium, 'Purple Dragon' lamium, red snapdragons

Alternative Harvest: When to Cut Your Cherries

Yes, you read that right. To harvest my first tart cherries of the year, I used a novel tool:

When would you want to use a garden scissors to harvest your cherries?  Well, there are actually a few drawbacks to its use, so I would really only recommend it when you have to deal with this: 

Look closely, top center. There's a telltale tangle of twigs...

Mama Robin (I think) is hanging out in the nest that you can barely see above, while Papa Robin visits intermittently. He will "yell" at me incessantly - usually from the safety of a nearby wire - if I'm hanging out near the tree when he arrives, but she prefers to ignore me as long as I don't get too close. Or shake the tree.

That last thing is the reason for the scissors. When I harvested the first few cherries, she rose up out of the nest and squawked at me in a high-pitched tone that I think made me just as distressed as she seemed to be. I beat a quick and hasty retreat.

Today I grabbed the scissors and took them outside with me, thinking that I might be able to at least get a handful or so of cherries before I upset Mama. Surprisingly, she didn't seem to care one bit about my presence, just so long as I was cutting instead of pulling and rustling. So I'm thinking that I will need to continue my harvesting-with-scissors approach for the rest of this season. It seems like a win-win to me!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Thai Pink Lipstick Plant

Aeschynanthus 'Thai Pink'

I managed to capture the bloom (ridiculously outsized compared to the foliage) before it faded, as promised... but only because Greenbow Lisa expressed some faith in me. I couldn't let her down!

May 2013 Foliage Follow-Up

I love my front yard garden.  I know that it's not good for house resale to have so much garden, and I also know that when we do finally move the person who buys the house will likely get rid of most if not all of the plants here.  But when I come home, seeing this garden makes me happy:

(Excuse the slant. I clearly had trouble standing up straight and taking a picture on this day!)

With this front yard garden, I was aiming for 3 things:

1. Year-round interest through texture, form and color contrasts.
2. A drought tolerant, low-maintenance garden.
3. Taking advantage of the backlighting that I would get every evening as the sun set.

I am very happy to say that I mostly managed to hit on all three counts.  Here are some detail shots:

Japanese maple. Its fiery burn eludes the camera, unfortunately.

Mexican feathergrass and sea kale is a favorite frothy combo.
I like to think that the oakleaf hydrangea grounds them a little.

Grandma's variegated iris, brown carex, 'Bressignham Ruby' bergenia, heucheras, sage and grasses.

The view as I exit my car.

The front yard isn't the only place with good foliage interest, though. Here are a few shots from the backyard:

Heucheras might be my favorite plant to view backlit.
I thought the little-leaf-shadow inside the blazing bigger leaf was cool here..

Another heuchera, this one nestled at the foot of a just-emerged chocolate eupatorium.

My newly planted urn, featuring a softleaf yucca in the center. (You can see it hanging down from the top of the frame.)
Ivy geraniums, heucheras (dug up from the garden), and white licorice plant ring the outside.

 That's probably enough for this month's foliage post! For more foliage links, visit Pam's May Foliage Follow Up post and check out the comments.  :-)

Better Late Than Never? GBBD May 2013

Aaaarrrrgh. :-( I just logged in to write a late May GBBD post and realized that there were 12 legitimate comments waiting to be approved--and even more good comments sitting on my April post with no response from me. (There was also a bunch of pending comments that needed to be sent to spam, which explains my reason for having a time limit on comments.)

I suck. Please accept the "bouquet" of pretty purple alliums above as an apology.

Moving on, I'll try to be better about watching out for comments. (Maybe even about posting, too--but no promises there.)  Here are some actual photos that I took on May 15th to showcase the blooms on this month's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day:

From top to bottom, you see a clump of NOID crimson tulips in my front yard, one of the dozen or so 'Black Hero' tulips that wave in the wind (hence the blurry pic) above my lamium and carex bed, my deep red (newly planted) ivy geraniums, and the dangling bells of a fuchsia hanging basket.

Also blooming this week are my brunnera ('Looking Glass' and 'Jack Frost'), bergenia, 2 kinds of lamium, my hoya, alpine strawberries and a random lipstick plant.  I really should take a picture of the last, because it's comical.  The diminutive little thing is in a 3 inch pot and has 3 small strands of leaves that each might measure 3/4 of an inch at the longest.  And yet, it has this ridiculously large--no exaggeration, it might be as big as the pot!--bright pink flower that looks completely out of place!

While you're waiting for that pic, please go check out blooms from around the world, courtesy of the May 2013 Garden Bloggers Bloom Day post over at May Dreams Gardens.