Green Thumb Sunday Blog Roll

New Opens!

I spent the last couple of days cleaning up from last Sunday. But I did have time to take some pictures of my latest openings!


Climbing rose thats starts out with a light orange color and turns a dark reddish orange color. I have no idea of what type of climber this is but, it does grow fast! Less than 2 months ago it was half this size!
Both of my Clematis' opened this week. If anyone has any other colors or type II or III up for trade or gifting, please let me know. I am always on the look out for other types.



Purple Coneflower just opened! I have a bunch of seeds up for grabs. I will be planting some as season goes on. At the end of season, I will have many types of seeds up for trade!

Not a plant opening but its still an opening. My brother came into town. We cranked up the grills for some burgers and stakes. As from the picture we didn't forget the beers either.

Spring Cleaning!

Today I cutthe yard or I should say my weeds and moved all my over wintered plants from the porch to their new spots in the yard. As the season grows warmer I will move some things around until I find the perfect spot for them.

This bougainvillea is a surviver. Last summer when we moved in it was dead and looked as if it hadn't been watered in a year. I left it for dead and was planning to removed it. I am glad I didn't, sometime in October, it came back and bloomed through early January on my porch.

By summer this side of the porch will be covered in blooms. The hummers and the butterflies will just love it.

This plant was left behind when we moved in as well. I had just enough room on my porch and it was the last one I wanted to try and as you can tell it did not do to badly.

What a productive weekend...

This weekend was one of the most fun weekends I have had in a while. This weekend I attended the Fort Worth Garden Forums Plant Swap! Even though I am new to gardening and I have a very limited amount of inventory that I can trade for, I still got a lot of the plants I was looking for! After the swap I followed a fellow gardener back to her place in Copper Canyon to get some donkey compost from her.

Going to the Swap was a bit out of the way for me. Its about 50 miles away one way. Add in the trip to CopperCanyon and heading home I probably put a 150 miles on the truck this past weekend. But it was well worth it. Met a lot of great people, got a lot of new plants and eat some good food.

As you can tell I have been busy! About 3 hours before I took a picture, my yard was a lot worse. At about 2PM on a windy, cool Sunday afternoon I started my plantings.

I took a small section of yard where it was nothing but weeds and other yard trash and cleaned it up and dug out about 8 inches of top soil and mixed in a mix of EarthGro Topsoil, Donkey Poo, humus and landscapers mix to build a raised border less bed. I did my best to to keep the new organic soil off the the rotting fence. Eventually I will create some sort of border for this bed, I just have to find some recycled bricks or yard borders in order to complete this bed. I topped off the bed with a thick layer of hardwood mulch from the city recycling center. Before adding the Mulch I planted 5 large cannas that will reach about 10 feet tall and 2 rows of smaller red cannas. Now I have no Idea what these guys will look like. If it looks funny or does not go will I will move them next year. Once I see what they look like I will research and figure out more about these guys. Once the plants come, I will complete the layer of mulch and take a bag of decortive mulch and cover the decomposing stuff up if needed.

The bed is another small bed of canns. Now the cannas are a little close to my weeping crepe myrtle but I will deal with that when the time comes. I just do not have the room for both. I l figure I will be digging up some extra cannas when they get to large!

In this part of the bed I planted a Turk's Cap and several different types of red and orange daylilies
All the small 4 inch pots are new seedlings, I traded for. There are some Turk's Cap, Flame Acanthus, and several types of Salvia, that I can not wait to pot up!

In this group I received a Red Bud Seedling, Mock Orange, Purple Lantana, Salvia Greggii, and Salvia Guarenitica.
I also received 2 coral honeysuckles. I plan to let 1 run up the unused chain length gate for privacy and the other I am going to put it near my Cape Honeysuckle and let it climb and drap over a fence or a trellis.

And of course I planted a small amount of wood ferns. I plan to let this take of over this empty mud hole under my big tree. I will sprinkle some shade flower seeds and other types of seed that can handle more sun as it gets to the end of the shade areas. I will also let the vinca and ivy take over but keep both vines thin and trim.

I also received Blackeyed Susans and Giant Coneflower both are not ready for the camera.

Over the next few weeks I will be potting up the rest of my plants in the seed starting closest, prepping the last two beds and planting them. I have a very limited time, money and days left before it gets to hot work out here. I will post more updates as I work on the garden...

Thanks for reading...

More New Opening This Week Part 2

Even after all the hard rain and severe wind we had last night had some more rose openings!

Don Juan Climbing Rose. Purchase last year

Unknown climber. I found this guy at Lowe's and it wasn't tagged gave it to us for 5 bucks!

Double Knockout Red fully opened!

More New Opening This Week....

Double Knockout red first bloom with many new buds about to open

My daffodils are starting to bloom, but the rain ruined this one tonight.

My Light Pink Knockout w/ another beautiful flower.

Starting a Blog Roll

Well I have had over 250 views since I started this blog! Go me!

Anyways if you read my blog and want me to link your garden related blog please post a comment. All I ask is you please add me to your site. Just post a comment that you want me to add you. Thanks guys!

-Element

I have my first vistor of the year.

I found this little guy sitting on a patch of weeds I was about to pull.

I moved the ladybug over to an infected Hibiscus with spider mites and aphids.

She is hiding from me. She is just a little camera shy. At least there is some food in there for her!

First Rose Bloom Of The Season!

Today my light Pink Knockout Rose Bloomed. Such a pretty sight!

Landscaping pictures taken at Richland College

Over the last couple of weeks I realized that Richland College in Dallas TX added some spring color to their landscape. I have to save its looks pretty good. Just a warning, the tulips are just about spent.

Spring Is In The Air! Part 2

Went to the garden again today and I am starting to really see the spring time flowering to start!

Snapdragons 2 different types in an over crowded bed!

Another bud almost ready to open on my Knockout Rose. I hope this one makes it!

Another Snapdragon. Dang Tree rats..umm I mean the squirrels ate my others in this pot!

Lantana finally re sprouting. I can not wait till they all are up and producing flowers!

Blotanical - What a great graden blog Community

Blotanical is a gardening Blog community. I joined on March 30th and since then I am getting around 2o + extra views a day. There are a lot of features that you can use to gain more readers or find new garden blogs to read. With in the first day I had a posting from someone Oklahoma. The more points you gain from reading, posting and doing little things to help the community, your blog gets more visibility.

If you are looking for bloggers in your state, you can select what country you want to look at, then click on the state you want to view, then select the blog of interest or just start reading them all. Only thing I do not like is, when you have to many blogs in one area, you can not click on some of them because they overlap. I have spent several minutes trying to click on a blog and could not open it.

Word of caution..... You can lose all track time, while surfing this site!

Please Check the site out!

Spring Is In The Air!

Today I got off early enough to go in the yard and take some pictures of my plants that are starting to bloom and have a lot of new growth on them. I tested some macro settings and I think the pictures came out quite well!

Knockout Rose - Pink. Purchased last spring!

The Knockout Rose is one of my favorites. They come in pinks, reds, and yellow. I currently have a dark pink and a light pink. I am still looking for a red and yellow one to add to my collection. If anyone has one for trade, or knows where to get one. Please let me know.

Almost all of my are roses lined up on the walkway. Those empty looking pots have new Peonies that still have not put up new life. Not sure if they will make. If not they are going back to Home Depot.

Native Yellow Columbine

This little guy is doing a great and is a wonderful new addition to my plant collection. I love surprises. The columbine was a dieing plant that the previous owners left behind. I did not know what it was until about a month ago. I am glad I kept it. I now want some moreof these little guys.

Snapdragon - I forgot to log what kind it is.

I planted the snapdragons last August. They are survivors. I am going to try and baby these guys through the summer. I will post some more pictures when the whole bed is blooming.

Alpine Strawberry hanging patch.

Only three of the original ten of roots made it this year. I planted these guys in a 16 inch hanging basket. But for some reason they dead about 2 weeks after planting. I hope the runners will take root soon.