Sunday Garden Stroll: Sunflower edition

The sunflowers are blooming, and as a result, today's Sunday Garden Stroll is dedicated to Girasole. My sunflower patch is filled with a variety of sunflowers, though certain quirky ones never popped up. There are a few Stella Golds, Jokers (the ones with stripes on the leaves), Moonshadows (lemon-yellow) and so far, only one Chocolate Cherry bloom. Here is my daughter, standing among the leeks and carrots in front of the sunflower patch:



Here is the singular Chocolate Cherry blossom among the other flowers:



And finally, here is the closeup of the Chocolate Cherry sunflower, appropriately-sized for wallpaper:



A Wrung Sponge has the Sunday Garden Stroll roundup. Cloudscome snaps gorgeous photos, and I've tried to absorb her photography tips.

You may wonder how my garden posts relate to the scope of this song and story blog. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Please let me know if you come up with a viable answer first.

My garden, in brief

Here is a link to some photos I took for the Sunday Garden Stroll:

Borage, nasturtium, and plenty more

Lucia has started eating more fresh green leaves and herbs as a result of our gardening efforts. She is a particular fan of borage flowers and nasturtium leaves, but will also gladly eat lettuce, mint and lemon balm.

You may see the roundup at A Wrung Sponge.

Sunday Garden Stroll: Shade Plants

Since we are leaving for California later than planned, I have a chance for one more post. (Someone is watching the house, watering the kitties and feeding the plants. Brigands, be gone.) Thank you so much for all of your kind words and prayers about my young great-nephew. I plan to gather them all together for my niece after our trip. The funeral will be on Wednesday, May 22.

I am glad that Cloudscome of A Wrung Sponge is doing her Sunday Garden Tour again. I took some photos of plants in the shade garden this morning. Please click on the individual photos in order to enlarge them.

A brand new plant is the Disporum smithii ("Smith's fairybells" or "fairy lanterns") that I planted yesterday in memory of my great-nephew:


Here's how the fairy lanterns look with dappled light shining through the blossoms:


Keeping company with the fairy lanterns are a number of trillium, including this newly-blossomed "Bashful wakerobin":



This is Solomon's Seal, planted in front of one of the fragrant sarcococca (and HipWriterMama, you'll be pleased to know the latter is a deer-resistant plant):



Finally, here is the overview of the shade garden:


For the majority of the photos, I had to crouch down low, hold the camera accordingly, and then crop the pictures so that the angles wouldn't look wonky. Those of you who are wondering about the green plastic pots may be amused to know that they are "beer garden" slug traps. They work surprisingly well, as long as my husband doesn't keep drinking all of the beer I save for the slugs.

Sunflowers and Lilies

It's been awhile since I've participated in a Sunday Garden Stroll. First, the weather was so hot that the sun scorched some of our blueberry plants and made everything fall over on its side. Then, the rains (blessed rains!) came, revived most of the plants, coaxed new crops of dandelions out of the ground, and made the flowers bloom:


I've forgotten the name of this type of Asiatic lily


Sunflower Girl with Mommy


Sunflowers of a traditional bent


Our first "goth" sunflower

Edibles and admirables

I'm heading on over to a wrung sponge for the Sunday Garden Stroll. In the meantime, take a look at the East garden these days:



In the South garden, Lucia's sweet-pea tent is flourishing:


And lo and behold, there are actually sweet-peas growing:


Lucia doesn't care too much for vegetables and salad-like ingredients unless they're actually growing in the garden. Several times a day, she clamors, "More nasturtium please!" and cheerfully munches on the spicy leaves of our nasturtium plants. She is going to enjoy picking her own cucumbers, too:



Unedible but fascinating to Lucia are the ginger-scented geranium and the orange coleus:


The orange coleus was a plant Lucia picked out herself. When I pointed out to her that the plant was getting bigger, she said, "The plant wants to stay little." That was a telling comment, I thought.