Working in the flower garden:)

Praise the Lord--He gave us yet ANOTHER sunny day!!! Wooohoooo, it has just been like the best weather around here lately. Oh how I wish every day of the summer could be like the last few days...not too hot or humid, not too cold, but just about perfect!

Well, after 7 1/2 years of living here and looking at the same yellow daylily year after year, I finally took the plunge and cut it in half/divided it! Oh, I just hope it lives LOL. I've always wanted to do divide this daylily and a couple of hostas that I have, but I've been too afraid to try for fear of killing them. I do not have a green thumb whatsoever and I seem to kill almost every plant I try to grow LOL.

I even got brave enough to prune my LARGE, overgrown Rhododendron. I really hope I did it correctly and that I didn't damage it LOL. I researched it online and read several different articles on how to do it, so I do hope it'll turn out alright.

After church, my daughter and I went to a local floral nursery and bought some flowers! I bought one "flat" each of annuals and periannuals, but oh how I wanted to buy more, more, more! LOL, it really is hard to limit yourself! If it weren't for the money, I would have bought a lot more LOL. I really like to grow flowers that hummingbirds and butterflies are attracted to. We even got them all planted and boy was I surprised at how long it took!

I want to share a tip that my mother taught me about container gardening. If this tip is not new to you, please forgive me. I'm still new to flower gardening and never thought of this and wanted to pass it along, but some of you more "experienced" gardeners may already know about it. You know those Styrofoam Peanuts that are used for packaging? Well, use those as a "filler" mixed with your potting soil when filling a container. I have two of those plastic swan plant holders that sit in your garden and they are so deep and it would take a lot of soil to fill them up. So, she mixed some of the Styrofoam Peanuts with the soil and it really reduced the amount of soil needed. They still allow the water to drain through too!

You know, I am shocked year after year as to how much a pretty hanging basket costs! Yikes, I mean they are gorgeous and I'd love to have a few of them hanging in my yard, but not at $20-25 each! I wouldn't mind trying to make my own, but I don't believe our summers are long enough to achieve the same length and fullness that these baskets have. A few years ago I did "attempt" to make my first hanging basket and it was just pathetic LOL. My friend came over and took one look at it and burst out laughing. Sigh, maybe someday.

I planted my divided yellow daylily and hostas in my small, front flower garden which gets about 80% shade, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens.


The Chipping Sparrows and a few other types of sparrows have returned for the summer, but still no hummingbirds, orioles, or rose-breasted grosbeaks yet. They should be appearing any day now. My feeders, oranges, and grape jelly are out and waiting for them. :)