It’s a gorgeous day here in southwestern North Dakota! I finished planting the dusty miller this morning, now I only have a few more flowers to go. I worked on my blue buffalo drawing when I came in from the garden. Here are a few shots of irises from last evening towards sunset.
Blue Buffalo
Here we are on one of the nicest days in one of the nicest months of the year! I plan to get out to the garden and dig up just a little more grass so I can plant just a few more sunflowers. Then I will touch up the lime green patio, some flower pots, and buckets with fresh paint. It won’t be long now before all the buying and planting is done, and I can just relax and enjoy the beauty. Well, along with some weeding and watering, naturally. Hope you all have a great time today. It really doesn’t get any better than this!
It was a marvelous day in June, with plenty of sunshine, the singing of birds, and the fragrance of lilacs in the air. I finished planting marigolds, created a couple more short blue trellises, touched up the patio chairs while I was at it, and put more vine seeds and orange sunflower seeds into the garden. Here are some lilac photos from this afternoon.
I spaded up a little more grass today to make room for sunflowers. By now, I have a mixture of orange tithonia torch Mexican sunflowers, lemon queen sunflowers, vanilla ice sunflowers, mammoth Russian sunflowers, moonshine branching sunflowers, and teddy bear sunflowers. What wonderful names! Who knew there were so many kinds of sunflowers? I sure didn’t, and I can’t wait to see them spring to life. As I sat on the patio for a rest, I noticed how bright the marigolds in pots looked. They really made the lime green and lapis blue patio colors pop. I decided to go get another flat of them to give the gardens some zing while the other flowers get up and get going. It will be good for my budget when the plant places close!
The wind came up in the afternoon, so I went inside to have a break. While putting my feet up, I paged through a garden book, and was inspired to see roses mixed with daylilies. So, back out I went and transplanted some old daylilies alongside the new rose bushes. Much better! Tonight I’ll soak some more heavenly blue morning glory and white moonflower seeds so I can plant them behind the roses and below the new blue trellises.
I’m still gardening away, planting seeds and flowers in the front yard, backyard, in pots, wherever I can find a spot that needs some color. My father helped me create a couple of lath trellises yesterday, and I think I’ll paint them lapis lazuli blue to match some of my patio chairs and tables. Blue morning glory vines have started to emerge, and they will need a place to climb fairly soon. For the past week or so, I’ve been looking at roses in catalogs. They’re one of my very favorite flowers, and yesterday I planted two of them, Morden blush rose and Morden sunrise rose. They have buds on them, and it’s really going to be fun to watch them blossom. A variety of orange and yellow marigolds and zinnias are brightening up the gardens until the lilies and irises get going.
It’s springtime in North Dakota, and what would it be without our friends Rain and Wind? Here’s a shot of the tulip garden through a window this rainy afternoon. Sounds like lots more wind tomorrow, so I may actually have a day in the studio. It was nice to take a break from all the spading, planting, weeding, and watering, I must say!
It’s a lovely evening, with everything fresh and green, even if it’s still a little breezy. I’ve put my drawings on the back burner so I can get things planted. Things like flower seeds, coleus plants, wave petunias, tomatoes, radishes, bleeding hearts, lilies, etc. etc. The wind might have been a little hard on the orange butterfly weed transplants. Hope they will “North Dakota Up.”
An Evening in May
Well, the sky is partly blue, it’s 39 degrees, and we have a bit of spitting snow. A lot of the snow has already melted, and that is a very good thing! Here’s a photo of the church and hills north of Bowman.
I looked out the dining room window just a little while ago, and I could still see the iris and tulip garden, although it looks quite a bit different from yesterday. Snow seems so much more attractive in the very early days of winter, don’t you think? Maybe it’s because of all the Christmas songs…
Snowy Garden
I looked up the weather forecast this afternoon, and saw that we may be in for another heavy snowfall. I sincerely hope they are mistaken, but just in case they aren’t, I went out to the backyard and photographed tulip buds and their curvy leaves. I’m not exactly sure what eight inches or more of snow would do to these tender young flowers, but I hope they would manage to pull through. It was a pleasure observing them at this stage, anyway, and I got some interesting results. The first batch is without filters, and the second batch is with different filter effects.
