Starting a Perrenial Garden

I think having cut flowers in my home is one of the biggest treats ever! It is expensive to purchase fresh flowers, so I've started growing my own the last few years. I was thrilled to purchase a peony last year (oh, how I love them!), and very sad to leave it behind when we moved last fall. Actually, I had to leave all my perennial flowers behind, so I was anxious come spring, to plant more at our new home. My mother-in-law is a gardener extraordinaire so I enlisted her help last weekend to start the new flower garden! She brought transplants from her own garden, which meant no cost for me (yeah!), and they are special/sentimental since they came from her! Her gardens are truly exceptional and she is very knowledgeable about the different species, etc.!

Here she is to help me.

I have been quite sick with this pregnancy and was having a particularly nasty afternoon the day she was here, so I wasn't as much help as I had planned to be (frequent trips back to the house prevented that!). Thankfully, Olivia was a sweet little helper. She is even wearing a shirt that says, "sunshine makes little flowers grow". Very appropriate. :)

We (or she) planted...

• shasta daisy
• rudebekia (black eyed susans)
• lamb's ear
• echinacea
• centaurea
• aster, dianthus, english daisy, junior sunflower (planted from seed packets I purchased)

I cannot wait until everything is in bloom! It doesn't look like much right now, but it will be beautiful! I'll be sure to post pictures later this summer. Thank you Judy!