Outdoor Wednesday:My Favorite Flowers

I'm joining Outdoor Wednesday this week, hosted by A Southern Daydreamer. I thought I'd share some pictures from my own gardens of my favorite flowers. Be sure to visit all the other submissions and see what the outdoors has in store for you!

Foxglove (digitalis) is one of my all-time favorite flowers, although I've had trouble with my plants surviving our winters. I'm hoping that my latest ones will make it this year!

Viburnum ("Snowball") has been a long-time favorite of mine as well. The big snowballs start out light green that gradually lighten to this bright white in late May. In the autumn months, the foliage turns a pretty burgundy red color before the leaves drop.

Here's the bush a couple of years ago before the blooms lightened to white!

Roses are always a favorite....this beautiful climbing rose was here when we moved in. It needed some serious pruning, but has bounced back beautifully and looks better than ever!

I transplanted peonies from my mother's house in spring of 2008. This spring will be their second year after transplant, so I hope to have more blooms this year. I only got a couple last year; it takes peonies a few years to get situated and start to bloom. The wait is worth it, however! I love the scent of peonies and they are so beautiful!

These white double peonies with the fuschia center were always my favorite. My mother also has light pink and dark pink double varieties. I transplanted some of the pink ones also, but had no blooms yet last year. My mom has tons of them, having transplanted some almost 40 years ago and they've multiplied so much. A family friend's parents owned a nursery and they were closing it, so her friend asked my mother if she wanted to come dig up whatever she wanted from their nursery gardens, for free!

Pink Old-Fashioned Bleeding Heart (Dicentra)

Hydrangea (hydrangea macrophylla). I had a sort of variegated pink and blue thing going on last year, despite the addition of a lot of alumnium sulfate to the soil!

Pink dahlias. I also have orange. I love dahlias! Here in Wisconsin they have to be lifted in the fall.

My jumbo Dutch tulips. I have more of the yellow and white than the purple-- even though I planted the same amount of bulbs for each color. Something happened to some of the purple ones. I think it was a water drainage issue.

Coneflowers! (Echinacea). I have lately become obsessed with them. I have several varieties; purple, double-decker purple, White Swan, Polar White and Green Envy. I also have ordered a new one called Twilight.

Green Envy (below)

Thanks for hanging outdoors with me! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!