Flower Garden

We have a beautiful Butterfly Bush here in the yard.  It's just beside the driveway and sits in perfect allignment  with my daughter's bedroom window.  I thought it would be great to encourage more butterflies by creating a little flower garden. So this is what I did.

Here is a before picture of the area:

See that bunch of Daffodils there beside the rock on the last picture??  I dug all of those up:

Then i dug up the new garden area:

And replanted the Daffodils:

Now the garden is much bigger!!

I also planted three seed packets worth of flowers in here.

One seed packet was Hummingbird Haven by Botanical Interests:

The second one was Bring Home the Butterflies by Botanical Interests:

And the third one was Grandmother's Cut Flower Garden

This should be one wild and crazy colorful garden!!

Check out Botanical Interests here.  They are family owned and really seem to be doing things right!!

The "Corner Garden"

I don't think I have before pics of this area of the yard.  It was overgrown with this thorny, thin, wire like vine that would drive me NUTS.  There were 2 hydrangea planted here that were getting very sick looking.  What to do??  Well, as I was working on this the same day as I pruned the "magnolia", I did what would only come natural to a newbie gardener with no experience....I dug those bad boys up and moved them.

So this is the only picture I could find that gives you a "before" view.

Ugly, huh?
So, last year I had pruned these bad boys.  This year I dug 'em...and made 2 bushes into 3.

So, this is what the "Corner Garden" looks like now.

Whew!!  Much better!  The stool was a left over from the previous tenants.  There used to be a cool little elf dude but one of the workers threw him away.  I was bummed to discover that.

So, IN THIS CORNER (insert boxer announcer like voice) I will be attempting to grow:

AGASTACHE Lavender Hyssop (from Burpee seed packet)

Chamomile, German Matricaria recutita (from Burpee seed packet)

And, for a bit of drama......
Bells of Ireland Moluccella Iaevis (from Burpee seed packet)

This is the seed layout:

The little green circles are the Bells of Ireland.  The yellow circle on the left is the Chamomile, and the purple is the Lavender.  This corner of the house faces SW, so it gets full sun in the afternoon.  I water it daily.  There are little sprouts coming up but I think they are weeds or something.  But, since I have no real idea,  I have to wait and see if it becomes something wanted or unwanted before I pull it.

Ugghhh.  I have SOOOO much to learn!!

The Magnolia that wasn't...

So, when the sun started to shine...I just wanted to be out in the yard getting my Vitamin D infusion.

The first thing I did was prune the trees just to the left of the front porch.  One is a hydrangea and the other was what I THOUGHT was a magnolia bush.  So, I pruned the HELL out of both of them.  The hydrangea seems to be rebounding.

Ummm...can't say that for the non-magnolia bush.  Turns out it is a rhododendron. I found that out by using this link from VA Tech.

Sooooo, instead of looking like this 

Mine looks like this

Uggh.  I have a lot to learn.

Tap, Tap, Tap...is this thing on??

Ok, I've never blogged before.  I've never gardened before.  I have NOOO idea what I'm doing on either of these fronts...so this should be an adventure!!

Here in VA we had the 'WINTER OF THEEEE CENTRUYYYYY" (insert echo sounds)

When the sun started to shine and unemployment provided unexpected free time, I got the gardening bug.  I started small and easy...and then fell into the bottomless pit of that which is my Victory Garden.
I hope I have fun along the way. (I would have said we...but I'm the only one who knows about this blog at the moment...so I'll just stick with that)  If nothing becomes of the blog...no worries...at least I have proof SOMEWHERE that I grew something.  Now...for any of it being edible is yet to be seen.!!!  LOL