Siberian Iris....

 I have to look it up each time to know that it is not a Japanese iris but it is a Siberian Iris.  I guess the Japanese iris is considered a water iris. 

I have two plantings of this that I brought from the old place and the one is in bloom.  The one that grows in full sun is not blooming yet. 

I was concerned because this iris had not bloomed yet.  It has a history of being one small rhizome collected  at the top of the hill of Murray Cemetery. I can visualize the location because of the ones that I knew who were buried there.  I planted it at the edge of our driveway at the old place.  I had planted it in two places as it spread. The cemetery iris all have the same pattern on their falls and this one has one of great contrast.   When we moved, I dug a large chunk of it to guarantee its survival.  The new owners, flippers,  have probably plowed it under by now. 

 

This iris is another one of my new purchases from last year.  This is the first time that it has bloomed. You plant them and wait and then when they bloom one is just surprised as to what it looks like. I think it was a rebloomer variety.

 

 This rose has doubled in size since I moved it out into full sun. It has many blooms on it.  It is planted among two iris and a day lily.  It is crowding out things and I may have to move some things.

I mowed my front yard yesterday morning.  My neighbor mowed at the same time so we would look more even side by side.  I will mow the back this morning once the grass gets dried.  Unfortunately the drying of the grass means it is going to be hot but I can do it.  The storms last night were short lived and I heard that we had a lot of lightening.  I did not see it as I was asleep.  I am awake this morning and I have lots oft hings to do.  Thanks for checking today.

Memorial Day, Monday....

 It is a hot day with gusts of wind periodically. The grass is still green from good rains and the day seems to be a quiet one with things slowed down for the Memorial Day.

The "knock out" roses are starting to bloom that grow in front next to where the flag is hung. I trimmed them back with so many dead stems but it has come back looking as healthy as ever.

Two out of three of the roses are more simply petaled than this one in the middle.  They are an ideal rose for surviving our winters.  They are planted around town at businesses and you see them often times when we are out.

The iris given to me by Sally is blooming now. I forgot I had it and thought it was a black iris when I saw its bud form. Sally was not a close friend but I remember she loved her dogs and makes lots of decorated cakes to enter in the State Fair cooking contests. 

 

One buys iris, plants it, and then wait for the second season to see its first bloom.  It am patient and this is a wonderful flower.  I would call it Batik but I will look it up and share the real name later.

We are for supper out so I will just stop the blog right now.  Thanks for checking in for now.

Things to Share....

 

 

 

 

 We had a short shower this morning and now it is very humid. We are suppose to hit the lower 80s today. It is still nice to see sunshine after such a dark cloudy morning. Thanks for stopping by this day.

Saturday Stuff...

 

 A fancy hybrid that puts out unusual colors.  The purple beards are so different than what are on most iris.

 

 The antique cemetery iris is putting on a good show. I got the start of this with one rhizome many years ago and it is now planted in three different places on the lot.

 

 

I shared a photo of all the dead canes on this rose.  They were removed and it really did recoup from the pruning.  I experimented by placing the small hostas in the corners of the box and it really does work well.  

 The long awaited blooms are starting to open on this rose. The bloom is hiding underneath a neighboring peony.  I have to pull foliage away so I can take the shot. 

The neighbors have a smaller dianthus growing nearby.  I planted the last shrub today against the fence. It was a variegated dogwood and looks good against the fence.  It took a while to dig out all the clay filled soil.  I replaced good topsoil around the new shrub hoping that will help its growth.  I found my ccontainer of glad bulbs in the workshop and planted two rows of them this morning.  I saved back enough for another row to be planted in a couple of weeks. I watered all of the new plants and shrubs planted the past two days.  We had strong winds and it heated up by the afternoon time. 

Thanks for stopping by....

Friday.....

 The sun is ready to heat us up today. It won't be severe heat but it will just be warmer. I worked outside all morning with me having to remove my parka in the middle of the morning.

We found this plant that was very tall.  It is a roma tomato and it now planted in my raised bed garden.  I got the cage on it and staked it so it will just have to be watered and watched as it makes us some tomato.  The soil was actually damp from the two days of light rain.  I emptied the water gauge that had an inch and a half of rain. 

I keep working at pulling out the water grasses from the cottage garden. The chive in the background have blooms of color that are similar to the iris in the foreground. The Japanese iris that sits to the left is loaded with buds ready for great blooms.

I got to view the cemetery iris this morning while I finished removing the second dead dogwood shrubs.  I had to cut up all of the branches into smaller pieces and place them in recycle bags.  That is a discouraging job as that is what you have to do because we live in the city.  I have five big bags of twigs and sticks from the two shrubs.  I did muscle dig a hole for a burning bush and planted that in place of the empty space.  I have another shrub to plant there but I will have a day of recouping for me before I can dig that hole. 

I moved iris to this property the past four years and this one is a special one.  It grows among the old fashion antique rose that grew at our old house. The rose was there when I bought the place which had growth of it all along the kitchen.  That iris was one that I got from my parents house years ago.

I survived changing my diabetic monitor yesterday.  It is quite a process of removing the old one that doesn't want to be removed from my skin. That was so painful.  The device that is used to place the new sensor to my skin is a push button thing that pushes it back onto my skin and pushes a needle prod into me.  It stopped hurting 24 hours later so I won't complain anymore.  I can look at a receiver the size of a thick credit card and know instantly my blood numbers.  The trade off of changing that every ten days is the elimination of pricking my fingers three to fours times a day.  Once I get use to it I will be somewhat happy with it.  

It is Friday and have a good day.  Thanks for checking in.....

Quackers......

 

Our neighborhood visiting ducks were back this morning. I went out on the deck to get clearer pictures by not shooting through window screens.  I have a concern that they may be I  nesting in the area. No hatched baby ducks are going to make it into that pool. I don' know the behaviors of duck and wonder if there was a nest if the hen would ever leave a nest for a short time. 

An older fashioned iris is now blooming in the garden. The rain is so hard on them and I had to stake one stem up after it bent to the ground.  I am thinking this is my cemetery iris but will go back and research what I shared about it last year.  It looks bigger than the cemetery iris collection.

The reflection ball is doing a good job again out inthe sunlight. I always admired them when I was a kid seeing them in peoples gardens.  I move mine to different areas in the gardens each year.

My wife had to renew her drivers license today.  We had to make an appointment and get there early.  Of course they didn't stay on target.  Afterwards I wandered up the our nursery to buy two new shrubs and a roma tomato plant.  I will be digging holes once we decided the best place to plant them.  It is still damp and misting once in awhile out there.  It will get hot in another day. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Rainy Days....

 Globe Allium is such a good spot of color in the spring garden.  I am always glad to see them there and usually forget that I had planted it there. 

I give them the name of cemetery iris because one rhizome did come from the Murray Cemetery.  It is the oldest iris of its kind in the country in which the hybridizers turned in to much larger blooms.  I see they are sole as dwarf iris even though they are taller than a dwarf iris. 

Another cemetery iris from the same cemetery.  Notice the patterns of line design on the falls really are similar as the one above.  These iris are not as striking in colors but their history makes up for that.  I remember when my Aunt Lois would gather bunches of them and put them in glass jars with water and placed them on graves on Memorial Day.

Another one of the same variety has the darker purple falls and standards. The beards of the blue ones are white but notice the top one has a yellow beard. I have one more of a different color of the cemetery iris but it is not in bloom right now.  I will be moving it after it blooms as I think it is in a wet location  that will eventually rot it.

I have planted a fern leaf peony on my parents and brother's grave.  It comes up each year and increases in size but I never see it bloom.  It is in southern Iowa and they are a few weeks ahead of us in spring seasonal temperatures. 

We need the rain but it is coming in slow spells.  We are told that we are still two inches behind in rainfall.  It is soggy again today but not raining so much.  It is cold and damp and I just don't feel like being out in it even though have planting to do.  Maybe Friday will give me a great day to plant. 

Thanks for checking in today.

Tuesday......

 The great white is now in bloom. It has less blooms this year so I will need to dig it and spread it out some. 

The vine honeysuckle was not blooming.  I thought it was going to be a lost year but then it rained.  I was so surprised to see it  go into full bloom.

The blooms are made up of about a dozen small trumpet flowers.  It really is doing well even though it is on the dry side of house.

It has been planted with a lot of different kinds of flowers.  It is early so it isn't so showing.  I have a canna planted in there to that hasn't shown any visual growth. 

I planted some new dianthus in the front garden>  I had only one of them winter over this year so I thought I would new ones.  My mom called them "pinks" and some call them small carnations. The plant will grow much larger if I keep them watered. 

This yellow columbine has spread seed all over the garden.  I grew the wild variety at one time but these greenhouse created ones are still fun to have. 

I mowed the back yard this morning and cleared out the one almost dead dogwood shrub.  I ran out of time to do the other one as it is mostly dead too.  We can look forward to go to Earl May Nursery and pick out new and maybe different kinds of shrubs for that area.  I had a good neighborly visit with the guy next door and we really hadn't connected since being closed in all winter.  He likes to ask me questions about flowers and also weeds.  He and his wife planted vine vegetables yesterday and he was installing support screens for them as they grow.

Thanks for stopping in today.

Water Fowl Visitors.....

 I looked out at my neighbor's pool seeing that they had removed the black plastic that covered it all winter.  I saw a form of a mallard and I thought they had a decoy out there floating.  Then the decoy came alive and was dipping its head in the water and spreading its wings.

There could have been dead bugs on the water but otherwise there was nothing there for him to eat.  He did like the water and was splashing water all over himself.

I did not see her at first but then she flew up on the edge of the pool and preened her feathers.  Eventually a neighbor to the north came out and saw them.  She yelled into the door to tell her husband to come look.  She scared them away. 

The white iris is going to bloom but there won't be many blooms. I need to dig it and spread the rhizomes.  They are too crowded and it has been two years or more since they were planted there. Judy who gave the white iris passed a couple of years ago but I will always remember her  when I see the blooms. I will dig and move things after they bloom. If it is too hot I will have to wait until fall.

 Some of the dogwood shrubs are blooming. My person who mowed last year notice that I had poison ivy along two of these shrubs and he was not going to mow there.  I got the poison ivy killer and sprayed just the ivy.  So I see now that it still killed parts of the red twig dogwoods.  I spent this morning cutting out the dead part in most of one of them.  I will have to return another day to do the next one.  They are dead enough that I may take them completely out and plant something else. 

I mowed the front yard today and watered new flowers and tomatoes.  It isn't too dry but I think the new things really need to be encouraged.  It would be nice to get all the roots established before the really hot weather hits.  I has been a busy morning and I will take the rest of the day off. It was a cool morning and I wore a stocking cap while working outside but this afternoon we will warm up to upper 60s.  

Thanks for stopping by today.

Sunday's a Cool Day......

 

The Peruvian lilies have a special shape and color. The daisy flowers are always good filler for a bouquet.  

A few weeks ago I shared the sight of the maple with medium developed leaf buds.  The tree has really leafed out now.  When we bought this place the maple was shorter than the blue spruce.  It is going to be taller.

Counties west of us faced a frost.  It was supposed to be beyond the date of fear of frost but it did get really cold.  My fourteen hardy geraniums  did not get frozen.  These are called seed geraniums so one has to wait a few weeks to see them take off and really grow. 

I have a few birdhouses sitting around on the inside of the house.  I mailed a birdhouse to our younger son and his wife in Maine.  This weekend I sent home another one with the visiting older son.  I had planned to give them each one but it just didn't happen until this past week, Our son returned home this morning and we had a great visit.  He sent photos of himself home this afternoon surrounded by h is wife and three kids.  I sent also rhubarb home with him too.  I was nice to find some place to share it. 

Have a good rest of the day.  Thanks for stopping by today.