mybristolhouse

Autumn greetings from Iowa! It's been more than six weeks since I last posted, since, as I mentioned in that last post , I've been overwhelmed with all the work of remodeling a new space for my retail store, moving everything into the new space, and organizing it all, but things are finally starting to get settled there. My house went mostly uncleaned and my gardens completely untended for more than six weeks, and blogging had to fall by the wayside -- but now things are once again tidied up indoors and frost has taken care of many things outside, so I have time to make a quick report. The big new addition to my gardens are the new greenhouse and cold frame that my handyman and I put together next to the garage. I felt that I really couldn't be a serious gardener unless I had at least a very small greenhouse in which to start seeds in spring, so I ordered one online last May, and finally assembled it in August: The shiny new greenhouse, back in August, on a paving stone bas...

Hello everyone -- I'm sorry it has been such a long time since I posted. Perhaps I haven't mentioned it before, but I own a small retail shop, and my one full-time employee has been on maternity leave since early July, so I've had to hire temp workers and spend more time there than usual. Additionally, the building in which my store leases space was sold and I've had to find a new space, which I'm preparing to remodel and move into in about a month. Not to make excuses, but I've been distracted by all this, and unfortunately, my gardens have been somewhat neglected this summer, as has been this blog. But one bright spot has been my new Scented Garden, which, perhaps because it's right next to my house, I have managed to look after, weeding for a few minutes now and then as I water the new plants. So even if the rest of my gardens don't look great, I can at least post about this one area that I've been enjoying all summer. Here's some background: ...

The North Border has been a riot of flowers. Hello everyone! July has been a very hot, and very busy month for me here in Iowa. Weeds seem to spring up and grow to chin height in just a few weeks during this time of year -- they are a constant challenge to gardeners, as is the muggy heat index that makes us want to avoid all work outside. But there have been some moments of beauty in our hot summer gardens, and I've been able to take a few photos of them, usually in the somewhat cooler evenings. Here are a few scenes: The new Scented Garden around our patio has been a lovely place to sit in the evenings. A closeup of scented sweet peas, petunias and snapdragons. Black-Eyed Susans in the Yellow Garden. And some with green eyes as well. The latest pot display near my front porch: Papyrus, a Mediterranean Fan Palm, Agapanthus, white petunias and blue-flowered Plumbago. The White Garden, with 'David' phlox, Casablanca lilies and white coneflowers. This is the first time I'v...

My patriotically-colored flower pot display in front of our porch. This is the first year these Agapanthus , which I have been overwintering for two years, have bloomed! I thought that they and the Cyperus papyrus looked like fireworks, and the red-white-and-blue pinwheels were fun to add to their pots. They compliment the white Petunias , red Alstroemeria and blue Plumbago . Festive fun! Happy Fourth of July! I hope you are enjoying high summer in your gardens. There are many things blooming here, and the extreme heat of a few weeks ago has moderated a bit, so it's been nice to spend some time outside again enjoying summertime. In my last post, I showed some Before and After photos that showed some pretty weedy, unkempt garden areas, before I eliminated them. I promised I'd only show nice, flower-filled areas in this next post, so here are a few flowery scenes: Volunteer hollyhocks in the Front Border, with farm fields in the distance. Bachelor buttons in our front yard. The...

Hi everyone! Before you read any further, I have to warn you that some of the photos in this post aren't pretty. I'm showing garden areas that were such failures that I got rid of them. My hope is that the "After" photos will make up for the ugly "Before" pictures.     ******************** I'm sure all gardeners must do it: make too many garden areas to take care of, get totally overwhelmed, and need to reduce some that aren't working. I've been reducing this year, as I've showed in some of my last posts. A couple of posts ago , I included a list of my 37 (!) garden areas, ranked from best to worst in terms of their beauty and ease of maintenance. Those that scored the worst were generally those farthest from my house, and this spring I eliminated or reduced a number of those areas. Those downsized areas are shown below on a map of my gardens, marked with large numbers on the map: I drew this map in 2014 (so it doesn't show two newer gard...