How Do Your Flowers Grow?

I am not a gardener.  I think if anyone reads my blog for more than five minutes you would know that. However, this year I wanted to make a real effort to add some flowers around the house.  It started off promisingly enough. I bought some beautiful daffodils and hyacinths and tulips and more and planted them in the two planters we have in the front of the house.  They were beautiful. Until they stopped blooming.  And then it froze.  I bought some flowers for the back deck and another few flowers for another planter we bought for the front.  So far so good with all of those. They are growing great. 

 

We took another look at the flowers we originally planted in the front and decided to move them to where our cedar trees are.  Side note: we planted two cedars in the hopes that they were grow tall and strong and block out some wind. They got wind burned and the one is nearly dead.  The other one is fine (relatively speaks).  I also planted a number of cala lilies and lilies of the valley around them last summer.  Everyone warned me that they spread like weeds – which is what I wanted! Of course, they haven’t grown at all.  As I was planting the daffodils/hyacinths/tulips etc I moved some dirt and noticed a green shoot. Lo and behold, there was a lily growing! And a few others beside it.  There was also another couple shoots growing in another spot in that area.  

 

I bought a few more annuals to replace the ones we moved to the back. If they last longer than two weeks I will be happy.

 

As for my raspberries... I started with 10.  Then it looked like all but two died.  By the end of last summer it looked like all but two survived.  I even got some berries off of them. This spring it looked like all of them died.  Then only a few weeks ago, a few leaves started peeking through.  

 

Lessons Learned:

Never plant anything before May Long. Even if the weather is really nice and I really want to. 

Plant a perennial along with annuals so you don’t have to plant as many every year.

Plant flowers that bloom all summer or at least don’t only plant flowers that bloom just for a week all together. 

Have patience.