From the Garden...

I took a short stroll around the property after a windstorm blew threw. I checked to see if any branches had fallen and if the plants were damaged at all. Fortunately, everything was good. My walk was cut short by another downpour of rain.

Above is a shot of a Centaurea montana bluet flower. I really love the bluish-violet florets coming out of the top of what looks like an armored bud. It's actually one of the first things we planted here. I had gotten it at the annual plant auction at the Botanical Society of Westmoreland County and it came in a plastic grocery bag. By the time it was put in the ground, I was not overly optimistic that it would survive. Luckily though, it held on and is growing well.

Yesterday, after the field trip to Duff Park in Murrysville, we came home to do a little planting. When we had stopped to pick up some mulch, I saw a forlorn hydrangea that was left over from Mother's Day and deeply discounted. It came home with me and we put it at the base of the porch. The flowers can turn various shades of cream, green, blue, pink and purple depending on the acidity of the soil. I'm considering going back for some of its brothers and sisters to experiment and get the full range of colors.

We also put in another circle. Last summer, we put in a circle of hellebores. This time, we put in columbine flowers. I know that technically, as far as garden design goes, it's a bit of a faux pas to put only one kind of plant in a flower bed. When designing flower beds, it's more aesthetically pleasing (and sometimes more beneficial) to plant a variety of companion plants for year-round blooms. However, I sort of like having each little circle devoted to a certain type of plant. There are twelve different varieties of columbines, but they are segregated from other plants I might have put in with them. I like that I can go out and monitor each circle, knowing exactly what I'm looking at. It's almost as though we're creating our own botanical gardens one circle at a time.