Beneath the Cherry Tree

Remember when I began revamping my garden bed and it started out looking like this?

Well, now it looks like this:

Finished product? Naaaah!

I had put in a bunch (Where "bunch" = hundred or so.) of plants a couple of weeks back, and then when Heather came over again, stuffed another bunch in there. Then I had Eric fix yet another sprinkler head (Those suckers seem to break every year. Not the same ones, mind you, but some random number of sprinkler heads, all around the yard. It's as if they're built to randomly self destruct. Planned obsolescence anyone?) in order to get everything happily watered after a group of plants died off mysteriously. Well, OK, not so mysteriously.

Section detail.

As usual around Chez Hatchet, these plants were started from seed and were originally intended for the cut flower scene. However, since I was running out of time and energy to put them into a bed that needed more work than this one did, it was easy enough to poke them into soil that didn't need much more effort than making holes.

And we made a lot of holes.

However, we aren't the only ones making holes. I discovered green bees also making holes in the soil of this bed. Turns out that I have a lot of native pollinators zipping around through my property and that there are certain bees that are ground dwellers. This one just happened to be the easiest one to find.

At first I thought the piles of sand meant ants, but as I was standing there watching, a small green bee flew up and crawled in.

Bee butt.

Can you see its itty bitty head in the picture below?

Bee head.

By the way, did you know that ground dwelling bees don't like mulch? Me neither! But I do now!

Scarlet zinnia unfurling its petals.

Dahlias poking up from below.

The random Portulaca seeds started here (First image, second to last row in the tray.) have grown up. Considering that they were all supposed to have been started from 'Sundial Peppermint', they have bloomed in a wide range of colors. Of course, there was that one apricot colored one that showed up last year...and the rose pink one....

Watermelon pink.

Orange and light pink.

Orange and white.

There's always something goin' on around here!

I'm looking forward to seeing how the new bed fills in, but since most of what I planted are annuals, I'll have another chance next year to try something new. Hopefully going with annuals this year will mean it will fill in like mad, quickly.

Still debating mulching the top, though. Gotta keep the bees happy.

How about you? Any new flowers in your yards?