Garden Pic Wednesday: Around the Garden

It's raining today, so any of my plans for working outside got put on hold. We scheduled a A/C system check for today and a guy is here doing that. I'm sitting here, freezing with the A/C on, while he's doing that. Burrr.

Also new is we added an ice-maker water filter to the back of our frig. Why? Well, the Pex pipe used to replumb gives the ice and faucet water a slightly plastic taste, kind of like water tastes after getting warm and sitting in a plastic cup overnight.  It doesn't smell. Just tastes. We hope it will wear off in time, but in the meantime--filtering. 

The garden looks so pretty in spring, when it's fresh and so much is coming into bloom!

So, I have 3 garden pictures to share today:

First, this beautiful trail of sunny yellow & white Million Bells  in my front container garden:

It's Latin name is Calibrochoa. Here in the Deep South, Million Bells can winter over. This plant did. They make an excellent "spiller" in either a container garden or along a garden wall. They get rather thickly layered with greenery & bloom and in my humid & rainy climate, their one weakness is a tendency to develop mildew disease in the bottom layers, so I find it advisable to treat them with Neem Oil.

Next, some minor landscaping with red blocks in front of the new Holly Tree.

I needed the blocks to retain the soil in front of the Holly where there was such a difference in height between then flower bed & the yard.  I do not intend to surround this whole bed with blocks, however.  I actually need one more in back and I put them in such a way they just disappear into the higher bed edges.

We don't have house numbers actually on our house anywhere, so some years ago I bought a gray block and painted our street number to put out in the front bed. This addition of red blocks, gave me a better, more visible place to put it! :)

Finally, a gorgeous looking Blue Salvia bloom!

The benefit of adding fertilizer last fall. It's made it's greenry lush & large and the blossoms huge!

The leaves resemble mint leaves--and what do you know--that's because it IS a member of the Mint family, which includes all the Sage herbs.  Red & blue Salvia can also be called "red sage" and "blue sage."

This blue is perennial, coming up from the same root year after year in the same spot. It doesn't seed; neither does it spread by root underground.  

And, yup, being a sage family member, the blossoms are edible  and can be used to decorate cakes, make herbed vinegar, herb tea, sage jellies & other things.
If herbal eating interests you, do look up the exact how-to before grazing in your flower beds. 

That's it for today! Stop back for Mama Kat on Thursday!