Gpers

It's one of those mornings.  You know, the mornings where you can hardly get out of bed.  It's a sleeping kind of day, and if it'd been up to me, we would've slept all day.  Alas, Ira's in school and Ruby's not real fond of spending the entire day in her crib, so up and at 'em we are.  And the title of this post?  Well, that's what happens when you try to type "flowers" and your fingers would rather be in bed still...

Anyway, this past weekend, I added 12 more plants to my perennial flower bed that I started this year.  I have never been one to do well with keeping flowers alive (I like to say that I have a black thumb.)  But the front of our house was in desperate need of something, and after devouring the book "Prairie Lands" from my Mother-in-Law, I decided to make a go of planting prairie-friendly perennials.  Boy, did I pick the year to start a flower garden!  Luckily, thanks to these awesome soaker hoses (and a nice deep well) we were able to keep everything except one plant alive (which is pretty good considering I planted 34ish plants in May.)

The garden now includes: 3 Mums, 3 Salvia, 3 Rosebushes (already there), 1 Butterfly bush that is not there anymore, 2 Blanket Flower, 5 Garden Phlox, 3 Aster, 4 Black-eyed Susans, 3 Stella de Oro day lilies, 3 Purple Coneflower, 3 Sedum, 1 (beautiful) Russian Sage, 7 liatris spicata, 5 Yarrow, and 5 coreopsis.  I cannot wait to see it grow and spread from year to year.  This first year wasn't too impressive flower-wise, but that's normal with perennials, and I was pretty much thrilled with the fact that they stayed alive all summer (perennials are an INVESTMENT!)  I still need to find something to replace the Butterfly Bush with.  I may just replace it with Russian Sage because I love how it looks so much (it's the fuzzy purple at the far end of the garden in the pic below.)  The honeybees and butterflies LOVE it (seriously, the plant buzzes when you walk past)  and it's just such a pretty color and texture.  (Look at me talking like an actual gardener! he he he)

Here are some pics of the garden that I took this morning while it was RAINING!!!  I liked the first pic because all the flowers that I planted are in focus, but I had to include the second one too because I love how only the roses are in focus.