This took me longer than expected since I went out a couple afternoons to take a picture and realized I needed to take the picture in the morning when the morning glories were out. This batch is so dark blue though they don't show up very well even when unfurled. Usually there's lighter blue and pink mixed in. Maybe they'll show up later.
This is the garden patch directly under the stairs to my balcony. Morning glories are growing up three of the posts. The white flower is a Queen Anne's Lace. This grew of its own accord. I ususally let one go and pull the rest, but this year only one showed up. Score another point for plant intelligence. Behind the Lace, but not really blooming at this point is a big spider wort plant which gave some nice flowers earlier. The little dab of yellow in the lower left is a small struggling gloriosa daisy. The pink flowers are purple cone flowers. Behind them and also to the right are a couple butterfly weeds. Their pink blooms have gone by at this point. In the very front and far right is a day lily which has already bloomed. My neighbor planted that. Alas the red hollyhock did not come back this year, and unfortunately I didn't get one blooming hollyhock this year.
The survivors are all very aggressive plants. The morning glories would strangle everything if I didn't pull them out of the ground and off their neighbors. Fortunately they don't show up until late in the spring. The spiderwort steadily marches outward. This spiderwort is the original plant that I grew from a little dried-out freebie that Gurney's gave me. Its flowers are interesting enough that I have transplanted it all around the house. The second year I had the plant, I was surprised to find sprouts in the back yard. Maybe the birds dropped seeds there? I've never seen it growing anywhere else in Shirley. The butterfly weed is grown from transplants. I don't see many of its sprouts here, but elsewhere there are plenty.
At the far right, out of this picture, there used to be a tensegrity obelisk which had morning glories growing up it. The materials I used to make the obelisk (garden stakes and nylon twine) weren't strong enough to resist the surprising weight of the morning glories and after the snow crushed it this winter, I took it out this spring. I hope to try again with different materials and maybe try to grow a different kind of vine on it as well.
I like the decadent, overgrown look the morning glories give to things, sort of like the look kudzu gives to things in the South. Their heart-shaped leaves and abundant flowers are very charming as well. They will grow even higher and thicker as the season progresses.
This little patch is on the ground floor in front of my neighbor's porch. There wasn't much there but the vines when I first moved in, though I imagine earlier there was something interesting as someone gave it a nice stone edging which I've restored. The vines are oriental bittersweet on the fence railing and virginia creeper climbing up the screen. There is also some wisteria mixed in there somewhere. I've wanted to encourage the wisteria, but have never gotten around to it. I've managed to weed out the poison ivy that was around originally.
Here the gloriosa daisies have made their strongest showing. The coneflowers are making their usual brilliant display. The two white flowers off to the left amongst the coneflowers are Shasta daisies. There are a couple red dahlias at the base and toward the front of the bed. These are the only dahlias of the ones I planted this spring which are still making blooms. And there are a couple of butterfly weeds with their long stalks of plentiful long narrow leaves.
In the center, but behind the other plants and not very visible is a patch of lady's mantle which is doing very well. It is another of the plants I got from a perennial push cart stand in Groton. I think this is its third or forth season and it's doing very well. There is also a lupine in there somewhere which I just put in this year. It hasn't bloomed yet. I'm not sure which way it's going to go at this point.
Originally I had the whole bed planted in daisies that I grew from seed. They made quite a show in their second spring. Gradually they died back to patches, but still make a show every spring. They aren't blooming now. The Shasta daisy I mentioned I got this year from the Gardener's Exchange. It is quite a robust thing compared to the others which in turn are more robust looking than the wild daisies that grow around the house.
So that's Part II of the garden story. You are very tenacious if you managed to sit through all of it. Thank you for letting me tell it to you.