Around my garden

It has rained so much in the last few days! We got more than 5" on Friday alone... I'm ready for us to get back to a normal weather pattern. So, since we've had a ton of rain and all of our plants are growing a lot right now, I thought I'd post some pictures of the yard. These were all taken with my iPhone, so they're not the best, but I think some are actually pretty good.

Rainfall in our area this month... way above normal! source

My roses are doing well, they have all already bloomed at least once, most are on to their second round of buds. I don't know why roses get such a bad rap for being difficult to grow. If you spend just a little time tending to them/dead-heading throughout the season and keep them disease free, they will bloom all summer long! Last year, my roses produced beautiful buds way into October.

Our new rose garden that we added earlier this spring

Although, many of my long stemmed roses and David Austin's don't like getting strong pouring rain, the blooms get heavy and they tend to face downwards after a storm. They'll perk up in a day or so with some good sunshine.

David Austin Heritage

Here are some pictures of roses I've cut and brought inside. They are so fragrant and really brighten up my kitchen!

David Austin Abraham Darby and Gertrude Jekyll 

About a year ago, we planted lamb's ear on the side garden area of our deck. It's doing awesome in that spot. I love the silver green color of the leaves and the contrast that it makes with the other plants in the garden.

We moved a hydrangea in our back yard earlier this spring, planting it next to the other that we have, and it is doing really well. When we replanted it, we gave it lots of compost and good soil, which has actually turned the color of the blooms slightly more purple/pink because the soil is more alkaline than the red clay that the other one is planted in. I'm actually really excited about this, because now we will have more variation of hydrangea colors this summer! I can't wait to cut a bunch of these and bring them inside! Read more about changing the color of your hydrangea here, if you're interested.

Our vegetable garden is doing awesome! We planted things a little too close together at the beginning (but we knew that when we did it- in case things didn't make it and because the seedlings were so cheap).  I've taken a couple of plants out to make room and it's still overflowing; but everything is thriving at this point, so we're happy. We have already gotten tons of cucumbers and the squash and zucchini are starting to produce as well.  There are lots of roma tomatoes on the vines which just need to ripen and turn red.  When they do, I'm excited to make lots of tomato sauce and maybe some fresh salsa! We've already made some marinated cucumbers/pickles with our crop of cucumbers, yum!

On our back deck, we have marigolds, zinnias, and herbs planted in our bay window planter. On the other side of the railing in this picture, you can see that the butterfly bush is growing like crazy. I think it's grown at least a couple feet since last week and still will at least double or triple in size by the summer. I love that is provides some extra privacy when we're hanging out on our back deck, in addition to the beautiful butterflies that it brings.

If anyone is curious how the grass in our front yard is doing after sodding last summer... well, it's doing great! That project, posted here, was so much work to do ourselves, but it really has paid off. It is so green and really feels like a carpet when you walk on it.

Well, that's it for most of the things we have growing around the house. Hope you enjoyed the garden tour ;)