Butterfly Garden

I love butterfly bushes! Ok, I love flowers in general but seeing butterflies flock to a bush in my own backyard is just awesome. I'm also really enjoying seeing all the hard work we have put into our gardens come to fruition! My flowers are BLOOMING like crazy!!!

This photo is from the first year we planted our butterfly garden, ordered for $29.99 from Spring Hill Nursery. 

And here it is two years later, wow! I have already had to seriously trim back the blue butterfly bush, the pink one is uncut still. The bee balm took off like crazy, I moved half of it up front and I still have probably 30 blooms in each area. I did lose a few plants, the dianthus never came back and the coreopsis came back but never bloomed again after the first year. I have added some verbena to cover up the dirt, it's tiny but it should take off nicely. I moved the lilies to the front garden to make room for the lantana (keeps coming back every year!) and bee balm to spread. Woohoo! I love it when gardens work!

Butterfly

This little guy spent most of the day on our blue bush yesterday. That has to be comparable to a year at least for us, butterflies have such short life spans! I was honored to be able to witness his beauty :) This is why I was so supportive of Big Kid planting a butterfly garden a few years ago. I cleared a good sized area for him and helped him order two butterfly bushes (pink and blue), scarlet and magenta bee balm, and some dianthus. The dianthus didn't make it through the year, and never came back. Three years later the blue bush is HUGE, the pink one is doing alright! The bee balm is just lovely, and comes back thicker every year. They attract tons of butterflies, it's so fun to watch!

Chinese Fringeflower Bushes (lorepelatum)

We found these in various places on our property when we bought our house, and two years ago moved them to our foundation planting. I know they'll get big, that's ok! Right now I'm trying to trim them so they will thicken then they can get all "army" and pretty :) I looove these bushes! They bloom like mad in the spring, and then again a few times between now and fall. The leaves turn a deep purple on and off, and never fall off - so I have purple or green bushes out front throughout the winter. They happily bake in the sun all day long, just the perfect low maintenance plant for me :) They look really nice as a backdrop for my daylilies too!!

Daylilies

I have had daylilies blooming for well over a month now out front, and I just had to post a picture! These were all free from our local freecycle list, and wow are they wonderful!

Wow - flowers!

A bunch of my daylilies have started blooming at once, yay! I am so so happy to see them finally doing well and getting established. If you can't tell yet I love gardening but am used to northern climates, all this southern heat gets me confused on what can be planted where! I have covered the front with chinese fringeflower bushes, which I just love, and daylilies. So far the bushes bloomed magenta little fringy flowers in March, and are now a plum purple! LOVE IT!

Pretty Flower, FINALLY!

Ah yes, the first flower finally opened in my garden! I can't wait to see the gardens in full bloom, we worked so hard on them over the last two years, the payoff is finally here!!!

Gardening

This weekend I moved the last of the Chinese Loropelatum bushes into our new garden, phew that was hard work! I also moved a bunch of grape hyacinth and daffodils, freecycled what I wasn't going to use. Freecycle is amazing, it's craig's list but all free! It keeps so much out of landfills, and has saved us tons and tons of money by reusing what others have outgrown. I'll try to put together a list someday of what we have received, I could never remember what we have given away it has been so much! I like helping others, and we always appreciate what we are "freecycled"! I really like the fact that when I'm done with an old picture frame or table or couch I don't have to take up space in landfills, I can find someone who will use it!

I love to garden, and am now awaiting delivery of my son's butterfly garden. We ordered from michigan bulb co, so it'll all come bare roots but hey it's affordable! We get 17 plants, various butterfly attracting ones, and I can't wait. I am talking it over with hubby about where to put the garden. I'm considering creating a garden out back towards the middle of our yard, so we can see it from the house and so our neighbors can enjoy it too... but that is a lot of hard work and I'm not sure I have it in me. I have been painting the interior of our house on and off, and that is physically trying on it's own without adding gardening to it! Ah well, it's a great payoff when everything's done - the house will be beautiful and the gardens will be so wonderful in bloom!


*Update 6/6/10
The butterfly garden is coming along nicely! I had to reorder two bee balm and two sweet william plants, but the blue butterfly bush is a foot high and already blooming, and the pink is at least a foot and the thicker of the two. The rest of the plants are coming in nicely, even in the nasty clay they are sitting in! WOOHOO! Come on over butterflies :) Michigan bulb co has impressed me!