Time to Start Planting

It's that time of year when my travel blog seems more like a gardening blog.

The last couple weeks have been spent cleaning out my flower beds, but up until today I have not done any planting.  Here in Ohio the traditional wisdom is that annuals should not be planted until Memorial Day.  By that time, the likelihood of frost is minimal.  However, it is not too early to plant hardy perennials.  It is my goal to eventually fill my beds completely with perennials so that I don't have to buy so many flowers each year.  I would only have to buy annuals for my flower box, my hanging baskets, and the pots that I set out on the patio.

Yesterday, and then again this morning, I went to a nearby nursery and started buying some new perennials.  Here are some of the plants which I bought.

This is called a lirope.  The variegated yellow-green leaves make it a nice foliage plant, but it also is supposed to have lavender flowers in the summer.  Since it tolerates both sun and shade, I bought several of them for various spots in the garden.

This foliage plant is called Japanese Blood Grass.  The tips of the leaves are red.  It does well in full sun or partial shade.

In my previous post I wrote that I have been removing some overgrown shrubs.  This has opened up a lot of room for planting flowers.  To the left is a Carpathian Bellflower, which will have bell-shaped blue flowers in the summer.  To the left is a Beard Tongue or penstemon.  It already has flowers and it is supposed to bloom until fall.  Usually perennials bloom once and then they are done.

This is a variety of erysimum called Limoncello because of its yellow flowers in the spring and summer.

This is a New England aster which will have purple blossoms in August and September.

I have not had any luck with the traditional bearded iris in my garden.  However Siberian iris has done well.  I found this, a Japanese iris, at the nursery today, and decided to give it a try.  It has nice variegated leaves, and unlike most iris, this variety blooms in the summer.

All of these plants are now in the ground.  Hopefully they will be happy in their new home.