Pine Trees, Great Drough Resistant Trees

I have noticed that pine trees in my garden has been thriving very well for these dry days.

New Bird Bath

A new bird bath for my back yard.

It was a surprise that I had a very hard time to find a new bird bath available near to my house.
Before, Home Depot, Lowe's, and other garden stores had many selections of garden statues, but not any more.
I was lucky that I could purchase the new bird bath shown above at Garden Country in Broomfield, Colorado.
Garden Country was a very nice store with wide selections of flowers, trees, and other garden items.
Besides, the store people were very friendly and helpful.

Garden Country:
4181 West 120th
Broomfield, CO 80020
(303) 466-6761.

Homemade Pesto

How is your summer garden?

My basils have been doing very well.
I made pesto with basil leaves harvested from my garden twice so far.
They were so yummy!

The recipe is as follows:
4 cups of basil leaves.
1 cup Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup walnut
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup olive oil.

Hope you can get a chance to taste fresh pesto, too!

Peony in Bloom

This year again, my peony is in bloom. The bush is still small but very healthy and strong.

Growing Potato in Compost Pile

I found a potato has been growing from my compost pile.
Should I harvest some potatoes this summer?
My compost pile has been maturing with rich dark soil and many earthworms.
It’s so relaxing to smell very earthy soil from the compost pile.
No bad odder at all.
When I keep kitchen garbage in the kitchen or garage for a while, they start to smell bad. But once I mix them with soil in the compose pile, they don’t smell bad at all. No flies flying around, either.
Is this because I live in a very dry climate?
My simple big hole compost pile has been a success.

Fresh Green Shoots

While staying in Japan, I enjoyed hiking almost every day.
It was amazingly green everywhere in Japan, many trees and many flowers. Green and green.
I just sat on a rock or somewhere available and enjoyed inhaling and exhaling fresh green air. It was wonderful!

Today, I was looking for fresh green shoots in my garden here in Colorado, U.S.A. and found a pine tree attached above.
It's a wonderful feeling to see fresh life energy.

New Tulips in My Garden

Here are some tulips bloomed in my garden this spring.
These were the new tulips added to my garden last fall.
I was on vacation in Japan for 6 weeks and my husband took these photos for me.


They survived snow.


My favorite classic pink and red tulips.


These were interesting pointy shaped tulips.


Ducks loved the tulips.


This was a surprise. My husband found a duck's egg near to the tulips. Ducks' mother had abandoned the egg and never came back to the egg. After 3 days, the egg was gone. Probably, a fox or raccoon took it.

Autumn Leaves and Composting Pile

We have been cleaning up leaves fallen from the big trees in our back yard for several weeks.
We have moved all of the leaves into a composting pile.
Our composting pile is just a big hole.



During winter season, we are keep adding kitchen garbages into the composting pile.
This simple composting hole works for us!

More Tulips and Narcissus

How is your garden?

I planted more tulips and narcissus in my garden as we had nice warm weekend.

45 Tulipa Darwin hybrid Van Eijk and 15 Tulipa Darwin hybrid Blushing Apeldoorn.


25 Narcissus large cupped Carlton and 25 Narcissus doble Bridal Crown.


25 Narcissus large cupped Sempre Avanti and 25 Narcissus large cupped Ice Follies.


The total number of new spring bulbs planted as of today is 215.
Hope squirrels don't dig them up!

Happy October

Have you started to plant spring flowers bulbs in your garden?

I picked up all of green tomatoes in my garden today.
I will give several green tomatoes to my friend who loves to cook fried green tomatoes.
For myself, I will try to pickle several green tomatoes with vinegar and sugar.
While staying in Japan last spring, I tasted pickled green tomatoes at a well known pickles store.

Regarding spring flowers, I purchased Tulip Ballerina & Narcissi Tripartite 55 Flower Bulbs at Home Depot.
I would love to fill my garden with a lot of tulips, narcissuses, hyacinths and crocuses.

Japanese Eggplant Flower

Do you like eggplants?

I love lightly grilled eggplants, curry with eggplants, Chinese style spicy eggplants, Japanese style fried eggplants with miso, Italian style tomato sauce with eggplants and etc.

This summer, I planted Japanese eggplants but haven’t been able to harvest any fruits yet.
Probably, no eggplants will be ready for me to eat but I am happy to see cute purple flowers in my garden.

Bad Summer for Tomatoes

Could you enjoy harvesting fresh tomatoes from your garden this summer?

Even though my tomatoes could survive from a heavy hail storm, I haven't gotten any ripe tomatoes.

It is still sunny but is getting cooler every day.

I am sorry that I didn't get a chance to make delicious homemade salsa with my tomatoes this summer.

Happy Mums

I planted several mums last fall.
All of them came back to bloom this year.
They are beautiful!

Cosmos in Bloom

I love cosmos very much!

Sun Flowers and Bees

I planted 3 packages of sun flower seeds along with nasturtium seeds this summer.

As soon as several sun flowers started to sprout, some bugs or something started to eat them and I lost all of them.



It seems to be true that nasturtiums help other plants to grow without being bothered by bugs.
After several nasturtiums started to sprout, the next several sun flowers started to grow and had flowers.

Suddenly over night, all sun flowers’ flowers disappeared.
I assume that squirrels quickly harvested them.




For myself, I have only 3 sun flowers.
I was so happy to see bees flying around my sun flowers today.

My Cats' Favorite Weeds

I have 3 indoor cats.
I picked up the weeds from my garden for them to play with.
One of my cats doesn't show any interests in the weeds.
Two of them just love to eat the weeds so much.
It's a mystery to see each cat's preferences.

Hydrangeas and Rainy Season

Do you know that hydrangeas are native to Japan?

I grew up with enjoying hydrangeas in June and July in Japan.
To me, hydrangeas were blue flowers.
I was surprised to see hydrangeas in pink in the U.S.
It was a new finding for me that the soil makes the different colored flowers.

About 3 years before, I planted 3 hydrangeas in a shady spot under big trees along with a gulch in my back yard.
Two of them didn't come back last year.
The last one came back this year with a few fresh leaves.
For some reasons, squirrels loved to play with the hydrangea, dug up the root and totally destroyed it.
I was so disappointed to lose the hydrangea but could give it up as I knew hydrangeas were not good fit with my dry garden.

The websites below are my favorite places to visit when I go back to Japan.
I would love to share the native Japanese hydrangeas with you!

• Meigetsuin (Meigetsu Temple) in Kitakamakura, Kanagawa,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoONurKAPc
• Hasedera (Hase Temple) in Kamakura, Kanagawa http://www.hasedera.jp/10_hana/index.html
• Hakone Tozan Tetsudou Ajisai Densha (Hakone Mountain Train, Hydrangea Train) in Hakone, Kanagawa
http://www.hakone-tozan.co.jp/ajisai/index.html

Horticulturist Luther Burbank & Shasta Daisy

A Shasta Daisy in my back yard reminds me of renowned horticulturist Luther Burbank.

I was very fortunate that I lived in Santa Rosa, California and got chances to visit the Luther Burbank Home & Gardens and Luther Burbank’s Gold Ridge Experiment Farm.

I appreciate Luther Burbank for his great development of so many different kinds of plants.
Santa Rosa plums harvested from my own back yard were so delicoius!

I also respect Luther Burbank for his great humanity.
According to a reading at the Luther Burbank Home & Gardens, Luther Burbank talked to cactuses that there was nothing dangerous for them to have thorns. This was how Luther Burbank could cultivate thornless cactuses.

I am going to take great care of my garden with love.
Happy Gardening!

Carbon Neutral Landscape

Article picked up from
National Wildlife Magazine April/May, 2009 Issue
P46 How Green is Your Garden?
National Wildlife Federation

Summary:
“With proper planning, native plants and some appropriate actions, homeowners can create carbon-neutral landscapes.”

Key Points:
• In order to make gardens carbon-neutral, we have to accumulate biomass-to grow a lot of plants and maximize the planting area.
• Reduce the size of lawn and replace lawn with a native wildflower meadow which will provide habitat for wildlife and require no watering after its young plants are established.
• Plant most of your property with low-maintenance native trees and shrubs.
• Use compost and mulch produced from garden trimmings to enrich your soil.

Useful Websites:
• Landscape for Energy Efficiency by U.S. Department of Energy www.eere.energy.gov
• NWF The Gardener’s Guide to Global Warming www.nwf.org/gardenersguide, www.nwf.org/personalsolutions & www.nwf.org/backyard

Purple Flowers and Bees

Can you see a bee flying around the purple flower shown in the picture above?
It’s cute to see bees go inside of the flowers and show up again like a hide and seek game.

Happy honey bee garden!