The Many Colors of July

Matt and I bought our house in the Winter of 2011 and when our first Spring rolled around I was disappointed to discover that there were very few flowers planted around the house. I decided that I wanted this Spring and Summer to be much more colorful so we’ve been hard at work digging new flower beds, planting dozens of bulbs, making our own compost, and starting flowers from seed. We’ve been rewarded with some gorgeous blooms so far this year and I’m excited to see how everything will continue to grow! Here are some photos that I took on Tuesday:

This lovely bright pink zinnia is growing in the new bed that we dug outside of our front door. I’m especially proud of it because it is one of the plants that we started from seed back in February.

We also started these painted daisies from seed. The bee landed on the flower as I was taking the photo.

These colorful little “superbells” are growing in a lime green container along with some pink blanket flowers and white Asiatic lilies.

I bought a few bags of Dahlia bulbs at Home Depot in the spring and about half of the flowers are this rich, deep red color. The other half are “peppermint” Dahlias… keep reading to see what they look like!

We planted this small purple-flowered tree in a container last Summer and, although it was supposed to be an annual, we kept it inside over the winter and it’s blooming again. I can’t remember the exact name of the plant but I think it might be in the Solanum family.

This clematis was one of the only flowering plants that came up in Spring 2011. It is planted under an overhang in a very shady spot and it’s “dirt” is a bed of river rocks… I don’t know how it survives without any water, sun, or soil but it seems to be doing well!