Flower Garden Update

It's been awhile since I posted an update on the flower garden. HOURS of time have been spent weeding all of the crabgrass, dandelions, thistle, and other wild plants in the tiered beds outside of the front door.

The front row is virtually weed free, except for some very persistent ditch lilies that refuse to die, and consists of a large butterfly bush, Black-Eyed Susans, Dutch Iris, Coral Bells, Columbine, and petunias. A large portion of the space was occupied by zinnias, but I dug those up on Monday and replaced them with an assortment of dwarf coneflowers.

The butterfly bush may end up moving to the end of the second tier. It's too big to have smack dab in the middle.

I also planted a Pow Wow Wildberry Coneflower on the left side of the bed, along with three blanket flowers, and a Coreopsis.


The second tiered bed is still quite a work in progress. There is either a)one very large colony of ants or b) many colonies of ants in that bed, so the weeding usually stops once the little buggers are disturbed. I'm confident it will get weeded eventually. So far, about eight feet of the bed is weed free. I transplanted the pink Dianthus plants that were growing in front of the house to this bed. I wanted something with color, but I didn't want anything too tall so the rocks behind the flowers would still be visible.

I also succumbed to temptation at Lowes earlier this week and bought a couple Coreopsis. There was a void in the front garden bed left by an ornamental grass that never thrived, so the new addition was planted in with the day lilies and the Hot Papaya coneflowers.

LOVE soaker hoses. I don't love the brick red mulch, but the local store was out of the mulch.

One of the few inconveniences of transplanting (especially during a drought in August) is water. I have cut down on the amount of time I need to physically be outside watering by utilizing soaker hoses in the vegetable garden. I had an extra hose lying around, and decided to use it in the flower beds with the new plants, and it works wonderfully! I also found that mulching plants really helps cut down on the amount of supplemental water they need.