Roses no More

Yes, the peonies have finally bloomed!  I'm so excited to see the huge, lightly fragrant, riot of color standing outside our back screen door.

 

 The white peonies were the first to bloom and now I know that there are 2 different white peonies next to one another.   The blooms are huge and have just a faint perfume to them.

But the one that really "wows" me is the hot pink bush.  The pink one kept teasing me because it took so much longer to bloom than the white ones, but when it did, what a show stopper.

After doing some reading about peony bushes I found out they only bloom in early summer here on the plateau.    Still, I think I may have to have a whole bed dedicated to these lovelies, even if they don't bloom all summer long.   For years, roses have been my favorite flower to grow.  But these enormous, showy blooms may well have replaced roses in my heart.

And then I still have these mystery plants growing on the left side of the screen door.   They keep getting larger and there are two different types of leaves, but I have absolutely no idea what they are.   I guess I'll just have to wait until they bloom to find out what type of flowers have popped up here.

I thought I'd show you the herbs in the potager garden.  They're getting bigger by the day and soon I'll be able to harvest them and dry them out in my dehydrator.   And I just love the little chair I found at the thrift shop.....the cane seat was all busted out and no one wanted to buy her.  But I brought her home and primed her and gave her two shiny coats of bright red paint and now she is serving a great purpose once again  She holds a large pot of different type of mints that will soon be dehydrated for tea.

And check out how much the lettuce has grown.  Tonight will be the first night I go down to the potager and cut lettuce for our salad.   And the fennel is growing by leaps and bounds......I can hardly wait to roast some in the oven for dinner.

 Who would have thought that the grape arbor would become completely covered in heavy vines so fast?    Each morning when I walk out onto the rocking chair porch, the gardens urge me to come and see how much they've grown.   I can hardly stand to be inside these days because there is just so much to see and do once you step outside our doors.

Well I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse of what we have growing here on the farm.    There will be plenty more to come in the days ahead.

Flexing my green thumb,
Debbie