A Good Day in the Garden

Another warm day here - 90 degrees. And my roses are blooming. I think they are blooming earlier than usual because of the sudden warm spell. The first one to bloom was one called Happy Child - it's a beautiful sunny yellow. The next is one of my favorites - Secret - that was given to me after Willie's death, so it brings sweet thoughts of him. And the most recent one is Portlandia (named after Portland, OR) and was a gift from the Japanese visitors I hosted last summer. This is the first year it has bloomed and it's a beautiful orange-pink with lots of gold at the base of each petal. Here's a photo of the Secret and the Portlandia. You can see how small the Portlandia's blooms are, but it's a climber so you would expect that.



Recently I noticed that the majority of flowers in my front yard are pink, blue and lavendar with a little white thrown in. So, I decided that I would use that pallette in the window boxes that sit below the two kitchen windows in the front. They get only a little morning and very late afternoon sun. Got them planted today - a hot pink tuberous begonia in the center with some coleus on either side and a millions of bells in a bright pink/lavendar on one end with white bacopa on the other. They are mirror images of each other. It was too hot to put them out this afternoon so I'll probably do that either tonight or in the morning. I'll have to rephoto them later in the summer when they are full size.

Here's a close-up of the hot pink begonia. I think it's a real stunner.

Happy gardening.