Miniature Fairy Garden

Seems everywhere you look there are supplies for fairy gardens, articles on how to build one and websites selling miniature furniture. I've wanted to create a miniature fairy garden for quite some time but I just couldn't find the right spot in my garden for it. With two toddlers running around, I knew it had to be out of their reach, yet accessible for the older kids to enjoy it. While on my trip to Portland, I saw a container set among the garden filled with characters to create a setting. I knew this was my best option.

So I purchased a saucer container (it's main purpose is to sit under a pot for drainage) and some potting soil. Next, I took the children to the craft store and purchased a wooden bird house, some colored river rocks and a few miniature furnishings. While my daughter painted the bird house with outdoor paint, my son laid the rocks in the soil to create a "river." It was so much fun watching them work together to create the setting they desired for their little world. I found a few seedlings in the yard, dried flowers, some acorns and pieces of bark to add to it as well.

This is how it came out:

So very easy to do and a lot of fun too! 

Do you have a miniature garden? I am always looking for inspiration!

What's Blooming: July

It's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day! Here's what's growing and blooming in my garden this month.

What a difference a month can make! Everything has really taken off and is blooming and growing well, despite the heat and humidity we've had recently.

The Morning Glory vines have finally taken off. They started out very vigorous indoors and then when I put them outside, they seemed to take a while to climb and look healthy. But now, they are climbing everywhere and some pink and purple buds are starting to appear.

I honestly thought my flower boxes were going to have some more space this year. But my Impatiens and Geranium cuttings have really done well. I love the deep purple Salvia and the bright yellow Zinnia.

The white Angelonia augustifolia (Summer Snapdragon) looks great here next to the pink Verbena. I love that lone pansy still holding on, despite the heat and sun!

The pink Impatiens are my cutting plants I created this spring. I am so happy with how they have bloomed and flourished! The hot pink Geranium is also a cutting and I think it looks nice peeking out above the purple Pentas.

I overwintered this Geranium plant for the first time this past winter. Last month, I honestly didn't know if it was going to bloom at all. But look at it now! It is like a hot pink explosion of color!

Probably planted too many annual Dahlias in this container, but oh well. They still look good and are enjoying all the sun. The yellow chiffon Superbells are getting crowded out though.

Another plant I overwintered inside was my Croton. What started as a small little desk plant has morphed into this huge beauty outside my front door. Just two weeks ago the new growth appeared and now it looks so healthy and happy.

I repotted the Columbine seedlings to a bigger pot. I doubt they will bloom this year, but there is hope for next year. I see some traces of Columbine leaf miner on some of the leaves. Anyone have experience with those? Simple removal of the leaves should help, right?

I love the color of this trailing Geranium. I looks like its peering through the vines.

The Ferns and Hostas I planted last month seem to be doing well, with the exception of the  Cinnamon Fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) on the left. For some reason, it just flopped open and has been like that for the past few weeks. It's being well watered and fertilized. Anyone have any ideas what's wrong with it? I've seen a few new fronds, so I know its ok, but it just doesn't look great. The Ostrich Fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) on the right, by contrast, is looking very happy and lush.

The Lady-in-Red fern (Athyrium filix-femina var. angustum) is also doing quite well and I like the stark contrast in color and leaf form of the Tradescantia zebrina.

In the backyard, the shade plants are also doing well. Under the maple tree, the Impatiens and Caladium are looking great. The Caladium on the right is not as large as the other two, but I think it's because it gets a little less dappled sun than the others.

This is the Impatiens' mother plant from which I took the cuttings. Blooming profusely.

These cute little pink begonias were in another box mixed with Coleus. But they were getting crowded out by the Coleus, so now they are in their own box and looking much better. I love the delicate pinkness of them.

The other two flower boxes filled with Impatiens and Lobelia have also come into their stride.

Hopefully everything will continue to do well despite the warm summer we are having here on Long Island. Next month I hope to see some Black-Eyed Susans I planted as well as more Morning Glory flowers.

Many thanks to Carol over at May Dreams Gardens for hosting the monthly Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

Colorful Containers

Outside a restaurant that's tucked away between shops, the outdoor seating area is surrounded by these big, gorgeous containers:

Each large, square container was filled with a fully blooming Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius) in the center, surrounded by Pansies (Viola), Sweet Alyssum (Lobularia maritima), Ageratum (Ageratum houstonianum) and Summer Snapdragon (Angelonia augustifolia).

Certainly once the Scotch Broom is finished blooming, it won't look quite as spectacular. Hopefully, someone will replace it with something equally as impressive!

What's Blooming Now

Walking around the yard yesterday I noticed quite a few things are still blooming. Here on Long Island, the night temperatures are hovering around the upper 40s and the day temperatures are in the low 60s. Definitely feels like fall outside!

The Coleus is starting to lose its bottom leaves, but this variety is holding on to the upper part of the stem very nicely. I love the rich brown in the middle of the green leaf.

Amazingly these Impatiens still look great. The leaves are starting to yellow, but they continue to flower and make me smile.

The red Begonias look completely at home in the fall landscape. The red flowers with the reddish-brown stem and darker leaves look appropriate for this time of year.

I have a natural wooded area along the south side of the house. It is very pretty this time of year with the Goldenrod and wild Aster flowers blooming.

In the flower box on the front porch, I recently planted purple Ornamental Kale and some sweet orange colored Violas. I love the contrasting colors.

The yellow Lantana is still blooming nicely in the hanging container on the front porch. It's doing amazingly well considering its not getting full sun anymore.

I've freshened up the front containers with fall plants such as Mums, Pansy and Ornamental Peppers. This container also shows the lime-green Coleus and the Euphorbia "Diamond Frost"still doing well.

 These Geraniums were the best thing I bought this year. The vibrant pink with the lush green leaves were gorgeous no matter where I moved this container. And they are still looking great in mid-October!

 The New Guinea Impatiens didn't really do much this year. Maybe they didn't get enough sun. However, I'm enjoying their lush foliage for now. Especially when everything else is dropping their leaves.

Colorful Containers

I came across these containers at Sesame Place in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago. I love the color combinations - especially for this time of year. They look so vibrant!

The red/orange Lantana mixed with the purple Petunia is quite striking, both cascading around the red Hibiscus in the middle. 

Upon closer inspection of the Hibiscus, I found it was inhabited by a bee.  Hello little bee!

The purple container and the yellow Cannas are a nice anchor to the purple foliage and yellow flowering plants cascading along the rim. 

Though these containers are way too big for my yard, I love it when I stumble upon a cool looking one, as it gives me such great inspiration for my own garden and/or containers!

My Garden

I live in Port Washington, NY. It's on the north shore of Long Island with the Long Island Sound to its north (and Connecticut further across the Sound), New York City 17 miles to its west and Montauk Point about 100 miles to its East. Long Island in general is in hardiness Zone 7 (according to the USDA), but according to the National Gardening Association, I live in hardiness zone 6B. There are a lot of microclimates on Long Island and Port Washington seems to be one of them.

The USDA planting zones are regions defined by a 10 degree Fahrenheit difference in the average annual minimum temperature. To put the definition in layman's terms, the higher the numbers, the warmer the temperatures for gardening in those planting zones. To find out what zone you live in, check the map here: http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html

Anyway, I live in this great house. But its a rental, so I am hesitant to invest too much time and money into a permanent garden. Instead, I have a bunch of containers and flower boxes that are overflowing to the brim. The house faces east, so I get a lot of morning and midday sun in the front. To the west and south sides of the house, there is a lot of shade from high canopy trees.

Last year I tried planting vegetables and kept them mostly on the back patio. However, they didn't do too well and I think it was because they didn't get enough sun. So this year, I moved most of the containers and boxes to the front of the house and planted annuals (and some perennials) that require part sun.

Here is how they looked the day I planted them around May 15 this year:

The 3 boxes were positioned next to each other in effort to look like a raised bed. These are the plants I used (all boxes are left to right in the front of the house):

Box 1: Digitalis purpurea "Camelot Rose" (Foxglove), Ipomoea batas "Bright Ideas Lime" (Sweet Potato Vine), Dahlia (annual), Dianthus "Super Parfait Raspberry" (Carnation), Nicotiana "Saratoga White", Antirrhinum "Rocket Bronze" (Snapdragon), Verbena "Tuscany Lavender Picotee", Lantana and in the back, 2 Morning Glory (pink/purple mix) and 1 Moonflower (Giant White) vines.

Box 2: Salvia guaranitica (Black & Blue Salvia), Lobelia "Superstar", Nicotiana "Saratoga White", Dahlia, Verbena "Tuscany Lavender Picotee", Antirrhinum "Rocket Bronze" (Snapdragon), Rubeckia "Tiger Eye Gold" (annual Black Eyed Susan), Lantana, Campanula rotundifolia "Thumbell Blue" (Bluebells of Scotland), 2 Morning Glory Vines (pink/purple mix) and 1 Moonflower vine (Giant White) [Added Lychnis coronaria in early June]

Box 3: Salvia guaranitica , Nicotiana "Saratoga Red", Euphorbia "Diamond Frost", Dianthus "Super Parfait Raspberry" (Carnation), Ipomoea batas "Bright Ideas Black" (Sweet Potato Vine), Argyranthemum "Butterfly Yellow", Coleus, Heliotrope "Fragrant Delight", 2 Morning Glory (pink/purple mix) and 1 Moonflower (Giant White) vines

My 4 year old son helped me plant the morning glory and moon flower vines indoors in late March. It was fun to watch them grow inside on stakes and it will be even more fun to watch them grow up the trellis and the railings.

In the back of the house, where there is part-full shade, I like to plant containers of coleus. I love the different variety of foliage colors and think they look great when planted together. They are so easy to grow and if they get too big or if a stem breaks, I simply put it in water for a few days, let the roots grow and then plant them with the others again.

Here is how the coleus containers looked in May:

One final spot is right at the base of a maple tree. There is not much soil there and lots of shade. So I placed 3 pots - two pots have pink and white caladiums with pink impatiens and the other has a big leafed Coleus with chartreuse colored Lismachia.

That's my garden, in a nutshell. I'll post some updated photos of what they look like in July, as they have really taken off. It may not be a sprawling perennial border, but it makes me smile and that what I think gardens and gardening is all about.

If you have a favorite garden you'd like to share or want me to comment on, let me know!