Chamomile girl

You may remember from a spring time post that my daughter has decided to grow chamomile from seed for her little 4 sqft garden this year.  It was a slow process like with all the seeds but we all learned new things from it.  Here is the post on seeds.

Out of the many seedlings that sprouted, Alexis planted only two plants in her bed and Nic (the other tea drinker) took the remaining ones and tucked them in a far corner of the veggie garden directly in the ground.  All plants grew large and flowered profusely.
Alexis is been picking the flowers to have them dried for tea couple of times this month.
I am very proud of my daughter. When she want something she will get it done (like her parents).  If only we can find the things that she really wants!

Picking the flowers with a friend

Why chamomile tea you wonder?  As children, we had to drink a lot of this medicinal tea during our many colds and sicknesses.  It is a very calming tea but I have to be honest, I do not like its taste much. In turn, I offered it to my children when they were babies and as they were growing for colds and stomach discomfort and

my daughter has fallen in love with the taste. She likes a little sugar added to her cup and a slice of lemon (who blames her for that?). 

For more information on why you may want to grow this wonder medicinal plant, go to this article.

July is almost over

I've been "missing in action" for a month and a half but I continued to take lots of pictures of the garden during this time.  My husband surprised me with an early birthday gift - a new digital camera which in my opinion gives my garden justice (:).
Here are some of my favorite garden views during the month of July.

But where are the day lilies you say? No hemerocallis in this garden?

Here is a bad picture of the daylily bed followed by a nice collage of all the day lilies that I grow.

Till next time, happy gardening!

Heavenly early June blooms

The most beautiful and active month of the year -May is over but June is richer with larger blooms and nice sunny weather.  Kids vacation starts tomorrow and they are so so excited! I am too as I am tired of waking-up early.
Let me show you some new blooms from the week-end and the beginning of the week. The most reliable and the most popular perennials grown in a garden are blooming now like Irises:

My favorite is the white one:

Japanese Iris

Here is a collage of my entire iris collection:

Counter clock wise starting with the white: Japanese Iris, Siberian Iris, Yellow Flag Iris, 3 German Irises all received as gifts-don't know the varieties, Iris cristata 

Simple Peonies

Double red

Love the red double peony as it transforms in a alien flower at the end of the bloom.

Below is a collage of my individual peonies portraits.  Three varieties are missing as the buds are still closed. If you do not grow peonies, you should!  These are the easiest plants to grow! That is not what I said 14 years ago.  I planted my first purchased plant (without flowers or buds -big mistake) and it didn't flower for 4 years.  Then I pulled it out and threw it in the trash.  It might have been a wild variety or I might have planted it too deep.  Every other one that I tried after that was fine  and grew bigger and bigger every year including dormant roots which is how I started 4 of the 5 varieties shown below.

Lupines

Oriental poppies going and going - Papaver "Princess Victoria Louise"

Tradescantia

Widow's tears or Tradescantia

I left the Clematis known as the "Queen of the Climbers" for the end.  There are so many varieties out there. So far I grow four that bloom at different times of the year. I am sure I will continue to add more as I mastered the pruning of all 3 classes of clematis last year.

Clematis "Marie Louise Jensen" and me

Last year by mid June this clematis got a lot of attention when combined with the red rose climber "Blaze"  I posted that combination here and it is by far the most visited post on my blog.  The roses all suffered after the past frigid winter and died almost all the way to the ground.  I have been lucky that all started to grow again including the climber which has buds on one of the stems.  It will take a couple of years to recover to its former glory but I am sure that it will happen.
What is blooming in your garden right now?  If you have a blog, leave me a link to your last post and I will for sure check it out.
I shared this post with Floral Friday Fotos where beautiful photographs are shared by bloggers around the world.