Today in the Garden...

OH, what a BEA-YOU-TEA-FUL day it is! It's cool, cloudy, drizzly, and windy. I LOVE days like this in Oregon! When I looked out and noticed a break in the sprinkles, grabbe my camera and headed out for some update photos!

This is the perinneal sunflower in my herb beds. It is now 9 feet tall!
Ummm...horseradish! We'll harvest this Fall!
A few hydrangeas under our kitchen window. I have loved watching them grow! Originally, when we bought the home, there was a horrid, huge white Rhodie here. I cut it back HARD each year and planted 3 hydrangeas around it. There's also a Pixie Lavendar hiding in there.
Black Locust in a pot on the old back patio!
Ooooo....Ahhhhh
Cardoon! It's now 14 feet high! I dry the flowers. Yes, it is in the same family as artichokes, but you don't comsume the fruit. Instead, you boil the stalks/stems.

Dood and Jim Dandy follow me everywhere, waiting patiently!
This is a Sea Buckthorn I bought in 1998. I carried it with me to this home in '01. Now, it is soaring in a back corner, at over 21 feet! It helps create shade to protect a bunch of hostas!
A view into the backyard from the gate. This is my hummingbird garden. It is right beside the new French doors to the dining room. Hubby and I open the doors in the morning and read the paper while hummers buzz within inches of hte doorway. This garden includes:

giant blue hyssop, cape fuschia, purple salvia, perinneal fuschia, pulmonaria, lamian vines, and more!
Here is a "Little Giant" fuschia.

I planted this Deador Cedar only 3 years ago. At the time, it was in a 4-inch pot! It's expected to rise to 80 feet with a 40-foot expanse!
Penstomen is a favorite with bees and hummingbirds.
Under the 70-foot oak is a small bed which includes columbine, 5 varieties of hydrangea, lavendar, hosta, pineapple thistle, beebalm, and lilac.
Pretty coneflowers, aka echinacea. Below, you can see he tips of a variety of flower called "Valerie!" Yep, it's named after me!

This is a sprig of Obedient Plant. It got its name from the fact that it grows straight up!
This is a nine-bark shrub. I love it very much.
Penstomen caught by a fish!
The famous "Flower Bed." It's filled with herbs!

This trumpet vine hides part of the compost area and provides a nice barrier to block out the home behind us.

A beautiful example of "baby blue" lacecap hydrangea.
This is called a "Turtle-Head Lily." When it is in full-bloom, all of the flowers look as though they are little turtle heads peaking out of their green shells!
The climber in the side yard. It is growing over the top of one of my favorite arbors! The arbor is rusty and old and has welcomed the flower invasion for many years. In the foreground, you see Persian viburnum.

My "sort of favorite" plant. This is a Himalayan Honeysuckle. It is now about 8 feet tall. In the winter, it dies back completely to the ground. Today, in spite of cool rain, it was covered with pretty little bumble bees.
A sad, wet clematis.
Spirea, coneflower, hydrangea, and iris in back of our tea area.
I can't even get into the compost area right now! It's been taken over by a volunteer squash of some sort! We decided to let it grow so we could see what variety it will be!

Joe Pye Weed peeking around the bottle tree! I originally got this plant from my grandmother, Dorothy Gilmore in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Oak Leaf Hydrangea. It LOVES its location!

These 2 love each other very much.
This is our little tea area. I made the patio many, many years ago. I honestly built it in less than 2 hours. Gravel, bricks, tah-dah!

Jim Dandy is sitting in front of the volunteer rudbekia that settled new our front door. Most know it as mini-Black-Eyed-Susan.
Hydrangew that are turning as Fall approaches.
Cherry-Bell Companula
My absolute favorite hydrangea. This is called "Black Stem Hydrangea." I've had it for years. It's gone through some very tough times, but this year it has BURST into bloom!