Growing & Blooming {garden photo gallery}

Growing flowers and plants is really growing on me. ;) And it seems Hub and I attempt to grow more each year. This summer is no exception with the huge landscaping project we did to the front of our house in May and my new little garden in the woods. It's fun to watch the plants flourish and grow and bloom...to see them bloom for the first time!

The photo above shows the trellis I recently made from twigs & sticks to support our newly purchased Pink Champagne Clematis. I just hope it lasts through the summer!
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Along with the joys of gardening I'm daily learning about the defeats and frustrations as well which seem to be all too often. We had a strange bug boring holes right through the center of otherwise perfect rosebuds...we've had spittle bugs (gross little green bugs that create a mess on your plants that, yes, actually looks like spit)...a deer ravaged one of my Astilbe plants...not to mention the new Plum Pudding Coral Bell plant I bought that doesn't seem to want to do anything but shrivel and perhaps is silently pleading for me to move it to a more shady spot...and despite the awesome ;) little trellis I made, the Pink Champagne Clematis also doesn't want to do much of anything either...like just growing would be nice...so perhaps it needs more sunlight?

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Below, a few more photos from around my garden (although a couple weeks delayed as things seem to be growing and changing faster than I can keep up with!)...

{Chives} The flowers on my Chives as they are about to burst open...I grew these from seed in a pot about 2 years ago...you know, one of those itty bitty little pots about the size of your thumb that you can get from Target...and at the end of summer I threw the practically dead thing casually into the woods to get rid of it. Then, last spring I noticed it alive and thriving! And this year they are flowering! Nature is so resilient!

{Moss Roses} I adore Moss Roses for their laid-back beauty and variety of colors...I bought these this spring and planted them in few different spots...here they are in my little garden in the woods growing over some large rocks.

{Hen & Chicks} I was adamant that I wanted to plant some Hen & Chicks in our landscaping...anywhere. I love them. They send off new little rosettes that sprawl and crawl out over the rocks.

{Roses} Our roses are now all opening...we bought 3 rosebushes to put in our landscaping and this was taken when the buds were just starting to come. I'll have to take some new photos of them now in their full glory. I ooh and ahh at them each time I walk past...despite the few that had holes bored into them.

{Pink Beauty Potentilla} Another of our landscaping plants... a flower just about to open.

{Pink Beauty Potentilla} When fully opened...they lose that rich, saturated pink hue they had when just opening but are still very pretty nonetheless.

{Wild Strawberry Plants} Dainty, pretty little flowers...I had many of these blooming around my garden in the woods that I just couldn't bear to weed out because their flowers and foliage was too pretty...even though they're too small to really get berries.

{Jack-in-the-Pulpit} One of the sweetest plants ever, I really do think. So exotic, almost tropical looking... We often see these growing wild around the trails & creek nearby our house but have yet to find any on our own property...until yesterday. I spied the 3 big showy leaves poking out on the edge of the woods and hoped instantly that it would be one...to my delight it was!{Salvia} Mum brought these up when they came up to visit a few weeks back. She is one of the big instigators in expanding our garden, by the way. She likes to get dirty and happily planted them for me up by the road.
{Salvia + Dianthus + Nasturtiums} An arial view of the little plot she planted...I added the rock...looks to me like one big smiley face right now, don't you think?

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P.S...And if you've made it this far on this LONG post (sorry ~ but I hope you have), you'll have to hop over to Little Lovelies right now!...such a sweet, pretty, & inspiring blog that I LOVE visiting each day...I have a little animated ad/badge thing on her sweet blog and I couldn't be more pleased with how Nadine put this together! (Merci, Nadine!) And while you're at it, go take a look at her brand new fabulous Etsy shop too...this girl is talented! :)