Early Morning Garden Work.

This is a photo of my Chrysanthemums. They are a fall plant, but begin growing in early spring. Usually I only have to cut them back about 3 times before fall, but this year has been a good growing year for them and I've already cut them back 3 times. That is what I did this morning, cut all the tops off. I had a bag of tops by the time I was done. Some things I've learned about Chrysanthemums, they need to have a lot of fertilizer. Perhaps that is why they are doing so well, I put some nice new fertilized soil around them this spring. You need to make sure they get enough water. After they bloom in the fall, just leave the dead plants in your garden. I made the disastrous mistake of cutting some down one year and they did not grow back. But if you leave the dead bushes in, the new leaves will begin to grow from the bottom of the plant. Also the seeds will fall from the plants and you will get new plants. Next year I'll take some photo's of what the baby plants look like to share. I started with three small plants a few years ago and now my front yard garden is almost filled with them.

Here is a photo of the Cone Flowers from my front yard garden. These plants are very interesting in that the new flowers start with very thin petals and as they get older the petals get wider. A huge bumble bee was gathering pollen from them today. They are a very tall plant, I actually took this photo from above on my porch.

This is a young Cone Flower.

Here is a mature flower with a bee having some breakfast.