Changes!!

A new bed!!! YAY!!!

I finally got my motivation and energy up to fix another bed.  It started with a visit from some neighbors.  While Taylor was talking to his old roommate Trent, who now lives a block away from us, Trent's girlfriend and I spent some time checking out and admiring out respective gardens.  She told me she had purchased some yellow calla lilies like the ones I have (on the Right) and they progressively changed from yellow to orange to red.  I had admired the calla lilies in her yard as I was driving by in the past, and I am super excited about the possibility that my yellow ones may turn the same gorgeous sunset-esque shades of orange and red!! I'll keep you posted on any changes that may happen.
After we spent some time walking around and chatting, we went over to her yard and she showed me a few things. One of my favorite things she has is a very deep red calla lily.  They are so dark they are almost black, and I love them!!  The pic on the R is off the internet, but its exactly like the callas that she has.  She said she got them at the feed & seed in Toledo, so I think I will heading out there soon to see if they still have any.
She had also recently dug up one of her beds, and came out with a lot of iris bulbs, and she gave me a few of them!!!! I am very excited.  They are already done for they year, but they will be great for next year.  I am so excited.  I love irises.  I dont know what color they are, but she said they are bearded irises.  Here is the collection of bulbs she gave me:

I am thinking I will put them in the W facing bed once I get it all set to go.

Ok, back to the new bed.  After months of existing under black plastic, I finally tackled the middle bed under the South facing side of the house. As a reminder, here is what the area looked like on Saturday:

 I spent two hours yesterday pulling the dead grass, and turning half the bed.

When I laid the tarp down, the grass was about 1.5' tall, and so my first task was to pull all that extra length.
Here is what it looked like after getting rid of that extra length.

Here is all the junk that I pulled:

 I then spent an hour digging in with my shovel and another little hand tool ( I dont know what its called, its got a flat part on one side, and three-pronged part on the other side).  I got half the bed done before I was too tired and hungry to go on.

Renewed and re-energized I got in there again today, finishing up with the turning.  Here is the finished bed, all fresh and ready for new flowers :)

Here is the pile of roots I got out of there:

Once that was done, I rearranged the pots on there again, only adding a few in.  I put the others elsewhere in the yard.  I also planted one of the yellow calla lilies (the other is in a pot).  I dug up a sad little calla lily that was hiding under the hydrangea and planted it as well.  I guess I need to get to the store now and find some more  plants to put in this bed :) Yay!!

I put the white calla lilies on the Right, the yellow on the Left.  The Rose of course is in the middle ( I didnt want to mess with it, I am hoping it will bloom this year, last year it was only one 6" little stem)

In the pots, we have a Dahlia and a mauve calla lily on the Right, the Canna Lily in the middle behind the Rose and another Dahlia on the left.

Quick side note, last time I mentioned it, I didnt have a good pic of the Canna Lily, but I took one yesterday, so here it is:

Before and afters of the new bed:

In other news, my corner bed is doing great!! There are now three poppies blooming, two yellow and one white, and the alyssum and petunias are looking gorgeous!  I plated two freesia yesterday, they are in the back along the house, one purple one red.  The tigridas are still coming up, right now just look like long stalks of thick grass, but I am closely watching them to see what happens.  I think the sunflowers that got moved over here are going to be of the shorter variety, which is good, I dont want to have to put stakes in around this bed. 

 I love how the poppies are coming up amid a bed of white Alyssum!! Very Wizard-of-Oz-ish.  If you remember the scene where they are running across the field to get the the emerald city, and it starts to 'snow' and they all pass out from the poppies, the white Alyssum makes me think of the snow with pops of color from that scene.  I dont think I could have done it better if I had planned it that way :)

The red freesia:

 

I did discover a funny thing when I was digging up the calla lily under the hydrangea.  underneath it was a whole mess of tiny bulbs, and a few large ones.  I have never seen what a calla lily bulb looks like, but it seemed like there were far too many of these to be related to calla lily.  I am not sure yet what I will do with them. I'm sure I'll plant them somewhere, but I dont know where yet.  First I think I need to figure out exactly what they are:

Or, maybe I'll just plant them somewhere and see what comes up :)

I have not mentioned much about the roses up until now.  Three of the five rose plants are now blooming!!! I want to dedicate my next post just to roses.  There is too much to try and combine it.  So keep checking, I have some gorgeous pictures of roses to share!!!