We accomplished one of the garden tasks I had on my list yesterday—cleaning out a flower bed.
The bed is at the back of the house right under a window. In the summer the evening sun really hits the area and anything growing there bakes as the heat radiates back from the house.
About 15 years ago my aunt shared many of her flowers with me. One of which was a Japanese anemone called September Charm.
I planted the flower in the bed up against the house and looked forward to seeing it’s beautiful pink hued blooms each September. In those days we had a monitor heater that used kerosene and the tank was right where the flower bed is. I planted flowers all around it: hostas, vinca, irises, and the anemone all grew right around the lattice and framework that held the tank.
Even though the anemones bloomed each year they never really took off, sort of staying in their same spot.
About three years ago we finally removed the old tank. We hadn’t used the monitor heater in probably 10 years. After removing it I delighted in planting other things in the bed since I had much more room. The anemones must have liked the extra room because they started growing by leaps and bounds.
The plant is pretty and the blooms are lovely, but they have started crowding every thing else.
As we worked we dug up several of the plants so there’ll be more room for the annuals I hope to plant when warm weather arrives. Not really having another place to put them I used one of the easiest methods of planting flowers. We dumped the roots on the bank and poured a bucket of mulch over them.
It’s not likely they will all live, but I’ve found this method to work surprisingly well for things I don’t know what to do with. The bank behind our house is expansive and too steep for most things, but there are flowers and bushes growing here and there from where I’ve “transplanted” them over the years.
Another easy way I’ve found to grow flowers is to scatter their seeds after they are finished blooming. I learned this method from Chatter and Chitter.
They used to gather my flower blooms and seed pods for their mudpie creations. Once they were done playing they dumped them around the backyard. It didn’t take me long to realize they were inadvertently planting the flowers.
After that I started either cutting down the entire stem after the flower had went to seed and laying it where I hoped it might grow next year or pulling the seeds off and sprinkling them where I wanted them to grow.
I could study on plants and seeds all day and not get tired of the miraculous way they are bound and determined to grow even when the conditions aren’t exactly perfect.
Last night’s video: A People and Their Quilts 6.
Subscribe for FREE and get a daily dose of Appalachia in your inbox
We love flowers, their beautiful bright colors. When you see the blooms popping out you know Spring is just around the corner. Something to look forward to. I planted my purple buttons awhile back and I hope they will come up. We are gonna have to rebuild our garden beds this year. Our boards were rotting so we are doing something different where they won’t rot.
Tipper,
I share your love for garden and flowers ! I have 8 standing beds. Normally I use 4beds for vegetables and 4 for flowers . I also have a lot of flowers all around our deck and anywhere I can plant anything. You may live on a goats bluff (like Matt calls it) but you have a beautiful vegetable and flower garden !! God bless you and your family. I am praying for Granny .
Please pray for my sister Irene who was diagnosed with breast cancer.She is done with Chemo Infusions and.is about to start Radiation .l
Hilary-I will pray for Irene. I’m sorry she has cancer.
When we lived in Canberra (Aust) in the early ’90s, the lounge and living areas, our work rental house, faced due west. Canberra has a range of temps average from -12C to 40C plus (drier heat). We had two deciduous Claret Ash trees that blocked the summer heat and allowed weaker winter sun in through the windows.
During her lifetime, my grandmother surely had a “green thumb”.. It always amused us when she would visit someone, she almost always came home with some seeds, tied in her handkerchief. She couldn’t wait to get those seed planted!! I may have inherited a little of her “green”!!
I love how you always find a place for something to grow. I am sure that bank will be covered with beautiful flowers! I’m so happy y’all can get outdoors and enjoy the weather.
Loved last night’s reading. Amazing how anyone could stand up and quilt over a bed. It would kill my back, but it looks like a great way to get it done and I can sure understand doing it that way. Now as for ladies giving birth sitting on their husband’s lap, I have never heard of that, but I found it very interesting.
Enjoyed Katie and Corie showing some of their baby clothes. Granny’s outfits she made were adorable! Treasures for sure. Both the girls are just glowing and seem so happy! Katie’s little one will be here next month. Can’t believe how fast time has gone by. I know everyone is so excited. Praying all goes well and continued prayers for Granny also.
I share your love for gardening and growing things. This post just took me back to a dear neighbor. She loved flowers, and had two enormous flower beds on her lawn, mostly perennials near the road. Through the years she weeded and carefully tended these beds tossing bulbs and tubers that became too thick. Since they also owned a lot across the road, she would throw the excess from her flower garden over the bank at our mailboxes. Such a beautiful site was that bank that included flowers from all her discards, but also the most divine flowers and fragrance from wild honeysuckle. After she passed, the young occupants quickly mowed down the flower bed, but the stubborn flowers resisted all attempts to eradicate them. Each year I would watched them stubbornly peek out each spring., especially the daffodils The bank to this day is never mowed and still sports a lovely garden. Sometimes the greatest surprises in nature are when humans have left unintentionally remnants of their love for flowers.
I’ve done a lot of throw-away iris around our property. You can’t give iris away here but when they grow too thick they stop blooming. So I just pull them up by hand & toss them around the edge of our yard. They root with no care at all & bloom. I’ve done this with lots of daffodils & narcissus too.
The sun has been shining for three straight days here in KY and that alone put me in the gardening mood. It’s still too cold to be outside working in the garden so I keep my sanity by looking at seed catalogs and gardening sites online. I ordered a pound of solid red cosmos and a half pound of red candy stripes for my quarter-acre flower garden. The seed company estimated each pound to contain 100,000 seeds that should be heavy re-seeders. I’m so excited to have them before they sell out again this year, even though it will be three months before I can plant them. I love anemones in my round flower beds closer to the house.
Tipper, anytime you write about your flowers, it brings back memories of my precious Mother. She never had many material things in her life, one of her great joys was working with her flowers both on the inside and outside of her home. She had a house full of African Violets. I think that is the correct name. My youngest grandson has some autism that mainly effects him socially. He called his Great Grandmother MeMe, He was 5 years old when she died. He dearly loved “helping” MeMe with her flowers. Thank God we all lived beside one another and he could spend a lot of time with her. Remembering them being together doing this is another happy memory that cuts like a knife.
When those roots sprout out that bank will be covered with a blanket of the most beautiful flowers. Wouldn’t that be sight to look at!
Tipper, did Granny get the card I sent with the two widow’s’ mites inside? Everyone get outside today…take advantage of this beautiful weather. Blessings to all.
Brenda-I’m not sure has it been a while since you mailed it?
It’s probably been three weeks. I used your P.O. Box #.
Brenda-okay. I don’t ever open the mail for Granny, but next time I’m at her house I’ll see if she has it 🙂 Thank you for thinking of her!
It is mostly really nice to have some self-seeders and spreading plants. It is also a bit frustrating and disconcerting to have discards outperform the plants carefully babied along. You all have done wonders with that little clearing. It has taken a lot of dedication and hard work I know. But one of the “crops” it has grown has been encouragement, instruction and inspiration for others with little plots. And who knows whereunto that will grow.
It’s time to start setting out seeds already to grow plants for the garden. January went by fast!
Tipper, I think your gardening fascination is just a beautiful and marvelous thing! I can’t get over you throwing roots with mulch on them getting volunteers growing just everywhere on that hillside! I bet it’s a lovely and interesting sight to see as different blooms and fauna surprise you all summer long. Aren’t children wonderful the way they pour their little hearts and souls into mud pies for their dear mother who they are certain is sure to love those pies with little blooms, seeds, stems and twigs stuck in there? The love and devotion in a tiny soul warms me and make me smile! I’d LOVE a mud pie, but probably won’t see anymore made for me by little hands and hearts this side of heaven….but a mom can dream and throw herself in the WAY BACK MACHINE! Lol I think it’s LOVE that holds this world together and I mean that literally in every sense! So I send each reader here love and blessings in the name of the Lord Jesus that He would sustain and lift you up! To me, He is my reason for living! He’s everything to me!!!
I have tons of purple iris growing in the woods from cleaning out flower beds long ago. They are a beautiful surprise each year, and the girls and I saw that they are popping up already. We have a frost this morning, but there is a bird just singing away out my kitchen window—maybe he thinks spring is on the way and he’s happy! After all, according to French Creek Freddie (our local weather groundhog here in WV) spring is on the way in 6 weeks! Hope everyone has a beautiful day.
Looking forward to seeing your garden grow this year. Since your name is really Mary, It reminds me of the nursery rhyme: Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver Bells and cockel shells and little maids in a row. Except you are not contrary; you are very sweet! Also, since everyone knows you as Tipper, it’s hard to see you as Mary. I’ll bet Granny only called you by your full given name when you were in trouble. I know mind did!
I’ve taken up one of your sayings! I told Robin, “Tipper says plants WANT to grow!” I don’t know if all of mine are as determined as yours but they are trying! Have a blessed day!
You have me all excited about getting out in the garden. It will be months still for us here, but I can be excited for you.
I am enjoying so very much your reading A People and Their quilts! I truly couldn’t pick just one of the stories last evening, but perhaps next to the top was the where she never sat down! Oh my aching back, bless her! Now I would say, What? The women having their babies sitting on their husbands lap! I read extensively and have never encountered that; how intriguing! I watch on my tv so cannot comment, but thrilled for you all to be out in the garden. Continued prayers for Granny and the girls and their babies to come. I pray for you and Matt, and all your family. God bless you and yours. ❤❤
Flowers and seeds are indeed little miracles of God’s glorious creation.
Hearing about other quilters and how many they have made is something that I am sure I will never even partially achieve. I have just finished working on my 8th one and am cutting the pieces for yet another one. I also love seeing patterns that are old but then again new as seen by other quilters. I was also envious of all the quilts you have. I am up to 15 myself and was gifted last Christmas by my Hubby of one he purchased in Virginia. I do have several displayed and will try to send you a picture of how my Son-in-Law created the display. Thanks for yesterday’s read, it was great. Prayers for Granny…and God Bless you guys…keep on gardenin’