Beyond Khaleesi’s Garden: The colors of fall

The gardens are looking a little sad as the days get cooler and shorter, but there is still some beautiful fall color to be seen - deep burgundy, bright red, yellow and orange featured on all different types of plants and flowers.

Sedum are a great fall plant for color, especially the beautiful Autumn Joy.

Coleus also have staying power as foliage plants with vibrant colors. A similar plant, the perilla, also looks great in a fall garden.

Color and height make zinnias a great flower for the fall garden – its colors compliment fall plants like sedum and mums, while taller ones provide a great color backdrop for shorter plants.

Dahlias continue to bloom in both tall dinner plate styles and shorter mum-like styles – the Dark Angel Star Wars dahlia totally reminds me of fall (and Mustafar…).

all photos: paulathompsonfreelance.com.

BfloGirlGarden: Khaleesi’s Garden wrap-up

This was my fun project for the year, and for years to come as well. From collecting “dragons” to finding the perfect wind spinner to telling the story of the garden to anyone who would listen, I loved my little corner of Sci-Fi/Fantasy in the garden (my kind of geekery!). Since this was the first year for the large garden (it was previously much smaller), I learned a few things, like:

Hedwig gets MUCH BIGGER than Lord Voldemort (remember, the “t” is silent!).

Hedwig (left) and Lord Voldemort (right)

The Red Witch has a BIG ego (she must go to the background next year – sorry, sweetie!).

yes, that is just one coleus plant!

Belarion was engulfed by these Black Dragon coleus.

there is a dragon in there...

Bunnies like the Dragon Blood sedum…1) must buy more, 2) must cover them earlier!

munching bunnies lead to...strawberry basket covers!
(I kinda miss those types of strawberry baskets!)

And a few more photos of the garden in its glory:

 

Apocolypse...sooooo need that movie already!!

 

King Peter's Unicorn protecting his end of the garden

Baby Dragon :)

all photos: paulathompsonfreelance.com

BfloGirlGarden: Proven Winners wrap-up

This is the time of year I both hate and love: I hate it because the gardens start looking a little shabby, but I love it because I can look back, see what worked and what didn’t, and start planning for next year!

Receiving the Proven Winners preview box was one of my garden highlights this year. Not everything made it, but it was a weird summer as far as periods of rain and dryness, and temperatures fluctuated from one week to the next.

One of my favorite plants was a sedum called Lemon Coral (available spring 2016), which looked great in the stone-like planter! In spite of losing one, I really liked it and will look for it in stores.

I also liked Superbells Holy Moly! calibrachoa – I added it to a couple of containers, along with Campfire Fireburst bidens (both available spring 2016). I love the colors of the cali – the pink and yellow flowers are very unique!

The three Meteor Shower verbenas (available spring 2016) were a little lanky for my tastes – they got tall and seemed to grow wild, with very little structure.

I was really looking forward to Summerific Perfect Storm hibiscus (available spring 2016), but it wasn’t long for the world – not sure what happened, it just stopped growing :(

The Magic Show Enchanted Indigo veronica (now available) landed in my Sci-Fi/Fantasy garden and did well, so it will be staying there for next year.

The Fun and Games Leapfrog heucherella (now available) is doing quite well in my “air conditioner” garden on the west side of my house.

I planted Tuff Stuff hydrangea (now available) on the east side of the house (my garden project for next year!), because my neighbor has hydrangea on the east side of her house – and they’re beautiful. I’m not sure how big it should be after the first year, because I have no experience with hydrangeas, but it looks full and healthy.

The Pink Mink clematis (now available) needed a little TLC after the bunnies wouldn’t leave it alone – it was placed in a container for the time being, and will be replanted somewhere else before the fall. It looked sad when it was replanted, but is flourishing now :)

Double Play Red spirea (available spring 2016) has found a home in my lilac/butterfly bush garden, but I’ll need to weed out some of the “volunteer” butterfly bushes that are trying to choke it out.

Proven Winners provided me with the above-mentioned plants. All ideas and opinions are my own.

all photos: paulathompsonfreelance.com (taken throughout the summer)

BfloGirlGarden presents Garden Week: Just flowers

I just love flowers – the process of growing them, their bright colors, the ability to pick them and brighten up your home as well.

I’m very fussy when it comes to picking flowers for my gardens and containers – I like certain colors, I like unusual combinations and I like certain types of flowers, favorites being impatiens, cannas, dahlias and calibrachoas.

Here are some of my beauties from this year: 

all photos: paulathompsonfreelance.com

BfloGirlGarden presents Garden Week: Container gardening

Container gardening is one of my favorite things when it comes to my gardens – especially on my front porch, where I have an awesome corner plant stand that fills in with lots of color. My favorite plants to use in containers are coleus, to which I add petunias, calibrachoas and exotic impatiens.

 

Garden experts always talk about “thrillers, fillers and spillers” when it comes to container plantings. I don’t always subscribe to that theory – I just like mixing flowers up and seeing what happens throughout the summer.

One of my go-to combinations for the last couple of years is Wizard Coral Sunrise Coleus with Fusion Peach Frost Exotic Impatiens – I used this on a few containers this year.

I’m always amazed at how “drapey” a Trailing Coleus like Chocolate Drop can get, easily filling out a shady area almost by itself.

This little cutie is part of the Proven Winners collection I received earlier this year – I just love the look of the Lemon Coral Sedum in this little faux-rock planter.

all photos: paulathompsonfreelance.com

BfloGirlGarden presents Garden Week: The big backyard project

A funny thing happens from late July to mid-August – life gets really busy. Trips, events, parties, just hanging out…you know how it is. So instead of trying to catch up on all the garden posts I missed, I’m just doing “Garden Week” (or at least four or five days!).

I’m going to start with the newest project first – my “back 40,” behind the shed. Ever since my fox family left from underneath the shed about 15 months ago, I figured it was time for a change back there – there was too much harborage for the fox family, and while they were cute, they did damage my shed (that was last year’s project!) and that didn’t make me happy.

It’s strange how you find a good thing – the owner of the company that did the backyard job (and later this year my front flower bed) is the step-father of one of our favorite former waitresses at our local pizza joint (she has since moved on :(). Lesson learned: it’s always a good thing to talk about random topics with people you kind of know!

Here are some of the before photos:

And here are a few after shots:

The orange line is for the new shade garden :)

all photos: paulathompsonfreelance.com

Khalessi’s Garden: Month Two

So, this is what happens in Buffalo in the summer: It gets to be July, it gets to be busy, and then, by the time I have a chance to actually write something, it’s a few weeks later – like, August!

The new garden has, thankfully, more hits than misses – and most of the misses are of the cute, fuzzy tailed variety! While they stopped picking on Lord Voldemort, they started picking on the Dragon’s Blood Sedum like it was the only thing in the garden…so what’s left now has berry baskets covering them…they demolished two of the four plants…they are SO LUCKY they’re cute!

I looooove the Leia Aloha Lilies – they look like pink pineapples!

Both batches of Dark Angel Star Wars Dahlias are doing well – they’re actually HUGE!

Balerion (the Black Dread) is surrounded by Black Dragon Coleus…

…and one Black Dragon Coleus joins Red Witch, Fire Dragon and Yellow Dragon Coleus.

Hedwig Coleus is doing much better than Lord Voldemort, but he had his problems…

The Veronica is doing beautifully…

As is the Apocalypse Coleus (I REALLY need a new X-Men movie, like now!).

And Darth Vader Coleus is backing up the Dahlia quite nicely.

All photos: paulathompsonfreelance.com