{festival grass}

it began unintentionally but the area in our front yard has kind of become the "purple zone". in this photo you can see that the phlox looked very pretty in april. a little later (probably early may), the purple dianthus were blooming nicely as well. this area is also where the purple irises are.

we always plant some type of purple decorative grass. this year matt purchased "festival grass", which looks similar to what we had last year, so it might be the same thing.

"Festival Grass is a compact, clump-forming Cordyline, with shiny ruby/burgundy strappy foliage that cascades into a round ball shape. It has large sprays of fragrant small, showy, star-shaped blush pink flowers in late spring and summer. Festival Grass is ideal planted either singly in pots or as a stunning color highlight with other plants in gardens and landscapes."

details: low water use, compact 3'x3', container or garden, easy to grow, full sun to part shade, grows well in most soil types, needs to be protected from severe frosts.

Details:

• full sun to part shade
• compact 3'x3'
• grows well in most soil types
• use slow release fertilizer in spring
• protect from severe frosts
• low water usage
• container or garden
• easy to grow

{new palms}

last year we had ferns in these urns and i was perfectly content with doing that again this year. however, matt got obsessed over finding some palms to use instead. i wasn't pleased with the hefty price tag ($30 each), but whatever! they are cute. i wish they were a little larger. they will supposedly live year after year as long as we bring them indoors (what?????). again...whatever. i guess this is matt's pet project :) they are called "palm king sago" or "cycas revoluta". they are very slow growing (and i'm not a patient person). take full sun and can take temperatures from 15 to 100 degrees (makes me wonder why we have to bring them indoors - it never gets below 15 degrees here).

{new japanese maple}

this japanese maple was actually a father's day gift last year, so it was planted in june of 2008. i just never posted it here. it's in our front yard. i was a bit worried about it for a while but it looks nice and healthy now (just small). photo was taken in april.

{iris update}

every year i say i'm going to separate the iris bulbs. and every year, i don't. anyway, they are still doing pretty well with some very pretty purple blooms in the spring. i'm sure they'd do much better if i actually did separate them.

{hanging baskets of petunias}

matt was making a trip to the nursery so i asked him to get me some hanging baskets with red flowers. he brought back two baskets full of red petunias. i transferred them to our iron hanging baskets. they were planted in late april or early may (??). they are doing well as long as they get plenty of water when it's super sunny.