It’s been a long spring with a ton of work put into my gardens.  So many of them were overgrown, and neglected last year when I spent most of my energy on my vegetable garden.

Months of tilling, planting and transplanting have gone into my garden beds this year.  I enlarged my test garden by about twice, transformed the vegetable garden into a combined perennial and veggie garden, and basically weeded my little heart out in the other beds.

Time to share some photos.  The gardens are still not fully blooming.  Next month should be amazing, but there is still a ton of stuff out there in flower, and the display is lovely.

Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the fruits of my labor for the last few months.

This Beard tongue pina colada has the most beautiful trumpet shaped flowers. Can’t wait till the hummingbirds discover it!

The bees and butterflies just love to hover over my purple coneflowers. Those orange centers just set the bloom apart, don’t they?  I leave the seed heads late in the year for winter appeal to the birds too.

I have several roses in bloom but I love the color of these pale peach knock out roses.  They flower from spring to fall and are very resistant to black spot.

The blooms on these balloon flowers are about as close to blue as I have in my garden. I love the shape of the blossom. The kids will love the way they look like hot air balloons before they open.

It’s easy to see where the common name of this plant Shrimp Plant comes from. This curling white parts to the flower give it that shrimp look.

This plant cracks me up every time I walk by it.  It is supposed to be a baby tomato plant. It is all of about 8 inches tall and has a huge tomato on it in relation to the plant.  I’m a bit afraid to pick it for fear the plant will go into shock, losing such a big part of it. Baby tomato my foot!

This lovely plant is called Tick seed “Early Sunrise.”  The color is so vibrant and it just won’t stop flowering.

This lovely daylily is called Red Vols.  It was given to me by a gardening friend of mine and I transplanted it to a sunnier location this year.  It loved the move!  I can sit on my park bench and enjoy it in comfort. The blooms are long lasting too.

This magnificent clump of orange and yellow lilies are the first of my Asiatic Lilies to flower this year.  (affiliate link.) I bought them for half price after the flowers had finished at Lowe’s last year and had no idea what the color would be. What a glorious surprise they turned out to be.  There were at least 50 buds on the plant.  (great buy for $6!)

I bought this perennial from a back yard gardener for $2 a few years ago.  It is planted at the back of my shade garden and gets a bit of filtered afternoon light.  The blooms are enormous!  I think (from the leaves) that it is a butterfly bush but he did not identify it as such when I bought it.  So pretty!

The blooms of my other hydrangea turned blue after a year. This one was planted in a different spot this year.  I hope it stays true to this color!

This is the flower from my lamb’s ear plant.  It produces the most delicate pink flowers about a foot above the plant.  So pretty….

I planted these marigolds in memory of my grandfather who loved them all his life.  They are great at attracting beneficial insects to my flowers.

I have several colors of butterfly bush flowers.  This deep purple variety was labeled as ruby red.  I think someone is color blind!

All of my hostas are flowering right now (I have about 9 varieties of them since they are my favorite plant.)  This one is the flower of a frosted mouse ears hosta that has HUGE leaves. There is also a miniature version of the Mouse Ears that was the hosta of the year in 2008 and is available on amazon.com.  (affiliate link.)

I have many colors of Dianthus Barbadus. This vibrant pink and white one makes a nice clump of smaller blooms into one big head.

This ornamental pepper seems right at home in my combined vegetable and perennial garden bed.

These purple star petunias are just one of the many colors of petunias in my garden beds.  Love the vibrant color!

I bought this plant when it was raining cats and dogs this year without looking at the tag.  It turned out to be a black eyed Susan which I have a lot of already but the variety is quite different and the blooms are huge!

I always look forward to the day when my gladioli start blooming. They are especially poignant this year, because they were my dad’s favorite plant and I lost him in February.  I planted a patch in his memory after he died, but they are not ready to bloom yet.  These are ones from my front border.

The head of these cana lilies are about a foot long and stand at least 5 feet tall.  So impressive!

I have about 12 feet of raspberry canes in their own border.  They are just about ready to pick.   nom nom…

The flowers on this peacock Phlox are just amazing. They form a huge ball about 6 inches wide.

The bees have been in short supply this year.  I was so pleased to see this honey bee feasting on my liatris flowers.

No garden would be complete without a few annuals.  My choice this year was both red and pink begonias.  They accent the edge of my border and surround the air conditioning unit too.

This bright yellow Asiatic lily salutes the sun with its turned up flowers.  So vibrant! (Find out the difference between Asiatic and Oriental lilies here.)

And finally, to end our tour, my blue Salvia flowers. They stand tall.  I transplanted several clumps of these this year as small plants and some of them are over 4 feet tall already!

I hope you have enjoyed my garden tour.  Check back late next month for the next installment. The show will be even more grand than this one!

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small commission from the sale, but the price is the same for you. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

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