Around here lately

I have been horrendous at keeping this blog up to date. And then I sat down this evening and started to think about it, what a great diary it has been in terms of remembering when we did what in the yard, when we did what to the house, and so forth. So I have a bit of catching up to do for 2014.

Let's start here.

Three years later, purple iris.

I purchased these iris bulbs the year we moved in, and they were supposed to be sky blue. Two years went by and I had lovely leaves on them, but no buds. They were evidently saving their energy up for this year, because these suckers just took off. 

Not exactly sky blue, but lovely anyway.

Gorgeousness, right?

They were just breathtaking. Which is good, because someone (we all know who) ate my delphiniums down to nothing this year, with the exception of one stalk that managed to hide in the iris. And my roses aren't happy this year at all. I have to move that autumn clematis out of there and give everyone some space. That plant has taken over!

Another new addition to the other side of the fence is a new herb garden. 

I've got some lavender, lemonbalm, anise, oregano, cardinal flowers (which are doing diddly squat for me) and some basill in there. Maybe something else too, but I forget now. I need to make some nice markers to stick in there so I can remember what everything is called.

And in the front of the house along the driveway, I hauled out a bunch of dead grass and places that are just determined to be dirt to add in a new perennial garden.

Not the best photo of it, but I will work on others. It took me an entire day to do this, and I seriously tuckered myself out. But I've got a good variety of stuff in there and it makes me incredibly happy. There's portulaca (one of my favorite words), daisies, brown-eyed Susans, a couple kinds of sedums, lupine, sage, butterfly weed, chocolate clover, hopefully some poppies and hollyhocks that will do something next year, and some other stuff. Oh, a rosebush. That one isn't happy either. Not a good year for my roses for some reason! Josh picked up some rose food/disease ridder for me and I need to spray them all with it. Maybe that will appease the masses.