Every year, I can count on not knowing what is going to appear next.
Last year I was surprised by the super-tall sunflower and strawberries in the flocks. The year before that, I had a volunteer tomato plant in with the flowers.
There is always something surprising.
This year has been a whole host of surprises.
First was the pink Impatiens plant in the flat of red flowers the husband picked up for me.
Pink in a sea of red.
When I planted these guys, I noticed the first one. The second one was a surprise because not all of the plants had bloomed. The third one was placed in the middle of the red ones on purpose.
The next surprise was a plant I had never seen before, certainly did not plant and did not recognize until I did a search only to find it at an Illinois wildflower site.
Evening Primrose
I thought this was a Joe Pie Salad plant. Wrong!!! But it is lovely just the same and blooms in the evening. That was a nice surprise.
The other day I was looking at a new lily I planted. Could have sworn I order an orange-colored flower. But this is what came up.
It is not a Surprise Lily but what is it?
I was expecting a different flower than this. Problem is I don’t know what I have. Oriental Lily, yes. Variety, not sure.
While I was pondering this, I looked up and noticed another surprise.
Cream Hollyhock
A pure cream-colored Hollyhock. My other cream-colored flowers has veins of color running through them but not this one. I think I know at least one flower I am showing at the County Fair.
Right before I put the camera away I had been trying to get a picture of butterfly. Neither one of us was very patient for that. However, that is when this bright patch of blue grabbed my attention.
Bachelor Button Blue
This plant is hidden in the Obedience Plant and another Hollyhock. But here is it, so deeply brilliant. Makes me wonder what I might see next week.
What surprises are in your garden?
Notes from Rumbly Cottage 
Are they a surprise because you don’t know what you are planting or is someone surprising you with a little somethin…somethin… in the garden?
Surprise tomato plant? Wow! Lucky girl!
Some are surprises because I thought I planted something else. My hollyhocks are a product of cross pollination so I am never sure what I will get. The tomato and evening primrose are volunteers. I did not plant them at all. My other surprise that I did not include are my pansy which are still here despite some wicked heat.
Fun post!
I can only do container gardening on our 6th floor apartment balcony…but what really surprises me is the huge bed of clover (!?) that keeps re-embedding itself in the soil surrounding our potted Alberta spruce.
I also discovered a few years ago when we planted delphiniums that they attract Daddy-long-legs!
I have been in your position with container gargening. I had a back porch that was a wonderful jungle but another balcony off of the lake was difficult. Maybe I should have done a potted tree like you have. Do you have a lot of wind being that high up?
I am envious of the random sunflower that sprouted last year. I’ve been trying to plant them for years – literally. Still nothing.
We don’t have a flower garden, though I am always surprised at the strange weeds that seem to appear in the lawn. Some of the weeds are quite lovely.
I have volunteer sunflowers but we also have a bird feeder filled with them.
that cream hollyhock is amazing! have fun at the fair!
Love that bachelor button!
Now THAT’s a garden according to me – full of surprises and delights
Some of these are great surprises. But if i had known what the primrose was, I woud have moved it to a different spot.
The flowers are so gorgeous!. Loving the bachelor button – what a rich blue colour. K
And it is a color I can not quite duplicate anywhere else.
I like the primrose – not only because its pretty, but its a little surprise gift from nature!
Volunteer raspberries in the rock wall behind the garden. Picked 4 pints today. We don’t have a patch but our neighbor does soi guess these guys strayed from next door.
I have some of those in one of my flowers beds. I am giving it to a neighbr as we do have a raspberry patch.
All beautiful surprises and colors! Like winsomebella, I love the Bachelor Button!
If you throw veggie scrapes in to fertilize your bed than that is where you volunteer tomato plant came from. I get some every year. They did never were too great though. The one I let live this year though is giving me several huge tomatoes but they are taking forever to ripen.
I have tried to grow evening prim roses many times but coming up they look like weeds and I pulled them. Now that I know what they look like I have some in bloom right now. They grow wild.
What is a surprise to me this year is I got a hollyhock flower stalk but no leaves.
John,
That would certainly explain the tomato as we do compost much of our vegetable scraps. In the fall I have my husband bed down the garden with the remains of his compost pile.
I should have noted that the hollyhock can be a bi-ennial, meaning the plant grows one year and flowers the next.
I would like permission to use one of your hollyhock photos as the basis for a quilt I’m planning. My own hollyhocks are only inches tall, here at the end of July, and I don’t think they’re going to make it this year. (Mine are surprises, too. I planted a long time ago, and had completely given up having them come up at all.) To make the quilt, I’ll isolate one stalk and break it up into pieces in Photoshop, then choose probably entirely different colors for my patches.
Thank you!
Absolutely yes. But then you are going to have to teach me how you did it once the quilt is done.