Close up photos of flowers

I had fun today taking close-ups of a lot of flowers. I will create a photo album on my Facebook page. Here are a few:

Oriental Lily

Tigridia

Double Delight Tea Rose

White coneflower

Liatris visited by a bee

Clematis Jackmanii

Agapanthus

Alstroemeria

Right plant in the right place

I scouted around my yard for plants in the wrong places, a I found a couple that were not getting covered by irrigation system, who were not going to survive without supplemental watering. I'd like to reduce my maintenance activities, so I am limiting my hand watering to pots. So I moved the plants to irrigated areas.

I had too many liatris in my perennial beds, so I dug a few plants out. Now I need to find new homes for them.

What else? Well, there continues to be lots of deadheading to do. And I need to get back on the hillside, berms, and streamside to hoe weeds.

Weeds!

The weeds grow so fast this time of year. We really have to be diligent in going through the garden to pull weeds. I hosted my Master Gardener group last night for our monthly potluck meeting. The Burien group is the best! We made flower arrangements with flowers and greenery everyone brought. What a fun evening. The weather was nice enough for us to be outside until after sunset.

We started the evening by touring my garden. I was teased by a couple members when they found a giant weed in the middle of my perennial bed!

The Federal Way Symphony Garden Tour is tomorrow. I am one of the featured gardens, so I need to do some last minute weeding and trimming. but it is raining. I'm glad I've been working on getting ready for the last few weeks.

Flower arrangements from the garden

You can't get much fresher than from the garden! I've found my arrangements last at least a week when I pick the flowers in the morning and put right in water. Then I trim the stems and strip any leaves that would be below water in the vase. I like to start with greenery to establish the framework for the arrangement, then add the flowers. These arrangements were for a baby shower.

Updated garden photos

Here are some pictures of some garden areas taken over the weekend. Lately I've been focusing on tidying up garden beds -  trimming, deadheading, staking, and weeding. One day last week, I did a lot of hoeing to remove tiny trees and other weeds from the entire hillside and berm areas.

Today I am going to deadhead my rose bushes, which needs to be done every couple days. And I remove all diseased leaves (black spot) and any branches with powdery mildew.

Later this week, I will pull horsetail and other weeds around the stream. I'm getting ready for a baby shower this weekend and the Federal Way Symphony Garden Tour on the 21st.

Flower arrangment from the garden

I wish I had taken a better picture of this arrangement I made, but I only have a partial cropped from a photo taken at a rehearsal dinner hosted at our house. The framework for the arrangement was branches of viburnum tinus 'Spring Bouquet' and of mock orange. Flowers included hydrangea, hardy fuchsia 'Pat's Dream', liatrus, zinnia, white astilbe,and alstroemeria.