My mom and I started Bo’s Garden in the spring of 1998, with a lilac bush. The object was to have everything blue but we got into purple and even pink, somehow. When we bought the lilac, we bought some double tulips that looked like light pink peonies, and some meadow sage.
The following year, the double tulips didn’t come back up but the meadow sage did (boy, did it EVER) and the lilac bloomed. We added two blue and purple delphiniums.
Here’s what it looked like in June. The lilac had finished flowering, the delphiniums were in bloom (one is hiding behind the lilac) and the meadow sage was everywhere!
This is a close-up of the delphinium hugging the fence post. I love these colors!
2000
We added cornflowers...
...spiderwort...
......harebells...
...and larkspur.
I took this picture at the end of July. From left: catnip and portulacas in pot, cornflower and spiderwort with harebells in front (the only one left out of five), a larkspur against the fence, the lilac, and the sage, which we moved, at right with another larkspur sticking up behind it.
2001
This picture is a little strange...but the garden is in a state of flux right now. (Isn’t a garden always in flux?) We found a good after-Easter plant sale and stocked up. Clockwise from left: lily, larkspur coming back from last year, hyacinth, spiderwort from last year (divided and replanted in two clumps), two more hyacinths and in front, grape hyacinth. The hyacinth flowers were gigantic and really heavy. They broke off when we planted the bulbs, which is why they’re lying on their sides looking a bit messy. The little grape hyacinth look shaggy, too but my neighbors tell me next year they will stand up better.
May 2001
Under the lilac is creeping phlox (which I thought was iberis). They are supposed to spread out and fill in. There is another mound behind the lilac.
Someone needs to invent a way to send the aroma of these flowers out on the internet...
June 2001
After a long dry spell, we have had a good bit of rain over the past two weeks. This larkspur is called “Dwarf Butterfly Blue” and it isn’t supposed to need staking. My plants didn’t get the message. This larkspur is going nuts and falling all over the spiderwort, which is loaded with flowers and buds, and is much taller than it was last year.
Delphinium “Black Knight”, looking like it could use some help standing up!
This is sedum “Autumn Joy”. I started out with three small clumps of tiny leaves which were a gift from a neighbor. In the fall this plant will have bright pink flowers which look sort of like broccoli florettes! To the left in the photo are some of the white iberis, which have lost all their flowers but look better than they did a few weeks ago, when they were turning brown.
Here’s the far right larkspur. I edited this photo but the color is really this intense in person. I am finding that sometimes the digital camera washes color out.
July 2001
Sadly, this plant didn’t live up to its hype. The picture on the
card that came with it showed an impressive tall spike of deep blue flowers
with black centers. From the time the first buds appeared I could tell
it was going to be more purple than blue- pretty, but not what I wanted!
During a windy storm the crooked little spike of flowers fell over and
then broke off. The plant sent up another flimsy spike of flowers, which
did not have black centers!
I think it needed more sun.
2002
We had a very mild winder, and now have a bunch of confused plants. This daffodil came up a few weeks ahead of the rest! This flower isn’t in Bo’s Garden, but I liked the photo.<G>
This is one of the hyacinths we planted last year. They all bloomed but the clusters were small and close to the ground. They were nearly spent before I even realized they were there! Next to it is the phlox. The mound behind the lilac didn't make it. I dug it up thinking it had died, last summer. I should have left it alone to see it would come back. No big deal, I bought more this year.
Grape hyacinths, phlox, the lilac leafing out (with lots of suckers at the bottom :( )
The lilac has few flowers this year, but they came early!
Ab Bo
Foxy Gigi
Penny Quinn
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This page was last updated on April 29, 2002