Archive for the 'Jasmine' Category

Flower Gallery 2010

The gladiolas I’ve planted in the ground in past years have been hit or miss. This year, I bought a few small purple gladiola bulbs from a nursery and planted them in one of our raised beds, which is amended with compost and gets watered every other day. They seem to love it there. The flowers look perfect today when I took this picture. Gladiola flowers are beautiful when they are in bloom, but unfortunately, each plant only blooms for about a week.

We have 7 hydrangea plants, but the hydrangea shown in this picture is growing better than the others and has the most flowers. It’s growing under our yellow peach tree and only gets a little filtered sun for a few hours a day in that spot. One of our older hydrangeas is getting sun all day. That plant often looks wilted and the leaves tend to get sunburned. We have added aluminum sulfate around the roots of the hydrangea in this picture for the past few years. Aluminum sulfate is supposed to turn hydrangea flowers blue. Its flowers used to be light pink and now they are more purple, but they are still no where near being blue.

The white star jasmine that is growing up one of our backyard fences is in bloom now. Its flowers have a wonderful summertime fragrance. We often open the bedroom windows next to the jasmine to let the fragrance come into the house.

This picture shows one of our pink roses. It was at its peak bloom about a month ago when this picture was taken. I love this particular rose, because its flowers last so long. The flowers just started to fade a few weeks ago. Many roses open and drop their petals in about a week or less. But these flowers hold their petals for weeks without dropping them. In fact, the flower petals stay on for so long that they start to turn brown on the plant before they fall off. I don’t know what variety of rose it is, because it was planted by the previous owners and there’s no tag on it.

June 26 2010 | Gladiolas and Hydrangeas and Jasmine and Roses | Comments Off on Flower Gallery 2010

Jasmine Fence

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The star jasmine growing up one of our side fences is in full bloom right now. The fragrance of its white star-shaped flowers is exquisite. The flowers have a wonderful sweet smell that pervades the air. We often open the windows near the jasmine fence so we can smell the fragrance from inside the house. The jasmine growing along this fence has 2-inch thick trunks that must be decades old.

Jasmine is a great plant to grow along a fence. However, once jasmine gets established, it grows very fast, like ivy. When we replaced this fence 3 years ago, I cut about 2/3 of the vines off to make way for the new fence. Within two years, it had grown back completely.

Jasmine really needs to be pruned severely every year to keep it in check. Our Jasmine grows quickly up the branches of our nearby cherry tree. After a few years without pruning, it almost completely covered the tree with vines, blocking out most of the light to the tree’s leaves. Now, I cut off most its new growth each fall.

May 31 2009 | Jasmine | Comments Off on Jasmine Fence