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Had a wonderful weekend in the garden. All the work I did in the fall and winter is paying off....there is not too much to do now other than routine weeding and maintinence. The most fun, of course, is watching all of the plants doing their spring things! On Friday, mom and I stopped by the nursery and I picked up 2 more georgia blue bells. They went along the street side of the front bed along with the other one. The blue of their bloom is so nice in contrast with the hot pink of the creeping phlox. The redbud is really popping out and looks so wonderful right now!
The tulips are all coming up nicely (I was afraid a lot of them had been hijacked by the squirrels). Some of them have formed their flower buds! They will look so nice blooming around the bridhouse :)
The hostas are starting to show themselves as well as the peonies! I always wonder about these late arrivers, but they have yet to dissapoint...you would think I'd learn! I also spotted a fun surprise while perusing the garden...One of the autumn ferns that I dug up from mom's yard had a little piece of Japanese painted fern in it... Once it gets bigger, I will dig it out and find him a home of his own.
On Saturday I mowed the backyard and weedeated by the creek, just in time for a fabulous rain storm that lasted well into the evening. So nice to sit on the porch and watch the plants in the drizzle!
We had another spring freeze last night. It got down to about 28 degrees! So, of course, when I heard the forecast, I knew I had to take action. As soon as I got home from work, my hubby and I set out to cover what we could. Hubby was GREAT help and tied together the sheets to go over the azalea bed. We also covered the newly planted tree peony, the hydrangeas, the fruit trees, the lilac, and the japanese maples. I also wanted to cover the larapedulums in the front, but they are huge and I didn't have sheets big enough. Once we had it all covered, hubby said it looked like a homeless camp! Once in got dark, the backyard looked like it was full of ghosts!
As you can imagine, I couldn't wait to get those covers off today and see how everything did! I am very happy to say that everything is OK! Although, the Saucer Magnolia definitely got all its blooms zapped, but we had a chance to enjoy those for a few weeks. Also, the laurapedulums are looking a bit sad, but they will bounce back nicely. I was also a little worried about the uncurling fronds of the autumn ferns, but they look unscathed. Even the daffs made it! Hooray! I am going to keep all those sheets handy in case this happens again before april 15th (our last frost date)
We have had a wonderful Easter weekend in the garden! Yesterday, i was able to sneak away to my favorite local nursery to check out their spring inventory. It was SO exciting! Everything looked so wonderful it was very hard to control myself :) But, I was a good girl and only picked up 2 small single knock outs- hot pink variety and 5 small sized creeping phlox (2 lavender and 3 hot pink).
The knockouts have been on my list for a while. I have been wanting to plant them at the base of the new "sculpture" at the front window seat bed. Not only will they add nice color all season, but they will give some interest to that bed during the winter when all the perennials are dormant:
See them on either side there? I know...they are small now, but luckily those guys are fairly fast growing!
The Creeping Phlox went in the berm in the front yard along side the driveway. I just love the little punches of color and I know they will fill in nicely and provide great weed supression:
That was all done yesterday. Today, after Easter service, we had a wonderful little egg hunt for my daughter in her grandmother's back yard:
She has such a wonderful yard for that and my little girl had so much fun!
When hubby and I got home, he finished up the veggie bed fences - now they are all ready to plant up come April 15th (our last frost date)
Speaking of frost, it is supposed to get down to about 32-34 degrees tonight...not too cold, but enough to make me worry a bit, so I attempted to cover the budding azaleas, my newly planted tree peony, the lilac, and the 3 Japanese maples. I do hope this helps....I guess its worth a try, not sure if I needed to bother but it makes me feel somewhat proactive.
Hope everyone had as nice of an Easter as we were blessed with!
The last couple of days have been full of wonderful spring gardening activities. We have had the most beautiful weather here lately! Highs around 70 and lows around 45, GORGEOUS! On Thursday afternoon, I had a chance to stop by home depot and check out their spring shipment. Most exciting was that I found 2 more green "giants" to replace the piddly little things from the mail order (which were starting to look like they may not make it). So, I picked those up and 3 creeping jenny plants which were such a good deal that I couldn't pass them up!
Of course, when I got home...I got to planting!
Here is a shot of the trio of green giants. I do hope they live up to their rapid growth rate I have heard so much about:
I can see them from the kitchen sink and it is nice to look out there and dream of what they may look like one day ;)
The creeping jennies went along the pathway in the back, by the nandinas:
I think they will look great mingling with the rocks and bottles too!
The next day (Friday), We had lunch with my mother and grandmother...4 generations of ladies all at one table! After a nice lunch, I got to dig up some goodies from my mom's yard. I got a nice sized clump of solomon's seal, which I have always wanted. They found a great home to the left of the newly planted camellia and will be a great addition to my shade garden in progress:
I also got 2 Viburnum Seedlings. One went just behind the existing one that is mature and the other went in the back of the azalea bed along side the newly planted lilacs. I wasn't able to get the best root system, so it will be interesting to see if they make it.
I have also been taking some time to really think about and make a list of things that are "missing" from my garden this spring and that I would like to have next spring:
More creeping phlox blooming
Add Hyacinth Bulbs in with Daffodil Plantings
Add Double Daffodils
More Crocus?
I saw some wonderful double hyacinths in the Van Bourgondein Catalog that I would like to add to the garden.
And, of course, amidst all the work, I had to take some time to have fun with my camera:
Clematis Armadii:
Spring Growth appearing on Autumn Fern:
New growth on Juniper:
Blueberry Bush:
Mardi Gras Honeysuckle (I think?)
Wax Mahonia Berries:
Lorapedulums:
Anyway....thanks for indulging my shutter bug!
Hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed Easter!
We have had quite a few rainy days here lately (great for the drought) and today was no exception. I just love the way the garden looks after a good rain! I was planning on plant shopping this afternoon, but it was raining so hard...my girl and I sang songs and watched the rain from the front porch. So lovely! In between rain showers, I was able to get some nice picts of the garden as of late:
View from the front porch:
Various views of the front of the house as seen from the street:
Looks like the redbud will be in its full glory in no time :)
The lorapedulums are doing great and I love the contrast of the Junipers. The one shrub has a piece of it that grows with the white blooms. I have long debated as to cut it out each season, or leave it be. Sometimes I think it is fun and unexpected, other times I think it looks like a mistake...I can't decide.
Saucer Magnolia survived one of the late freezes and is in its glory! I just love it...when the petals start to fall, it looks a bit like a summer snow.
All the front perennials are starting to come up and I look forward to adding even more this season!
These seedlings were easy to spot in the wet mulch...I think they might be poppies. I threw out a bunch of poppy seeds in this bed (not expecting much)...if they aren't poppies, then they might be a weed, I am not sure:
The Japanese Maples are budding out nicely. They were severely affected by the late freeze last year. Looks like this year will be better:
The creek is doing its thing...and all the moisture should be wonderful for the newly planted Great Gunnera Bulb
Nice view of the back yard today (hubby has promised to have all the veggie bed fences done and installed by april 1st for planting time :)
The persicaria is coming back :)
And finally...a view of the back, from the back ( I enjoyed comparing this picture with the same shot from last summer....its nice to see the progress)
I am so enjoying watching spring unfold! Maybe I will get to my plant shopping in the next couple of days. I have so many things on my list to add to the garden...and our home depot landscape supply just stocked up, so I can't wait to check it out!!!!!!!
Hooray! My goodies from the Dutch Bulb Company were waiting for me by the front door when I got home from work today :)
In the box was 1 Great Gunnera, 2 Hardy Fuschias (one pink and white and one purple and white) and 1 Tree Peony.
I had ordered these back in January, but they don't ship them until planting time...which actually is quite handy. I promptly went out and planted all my goodies.
The Great Gunnerra went on the far creek bank. The 2 Fuschias went by the Lilac in the back of the azalea bed and the Tree Peony went in the new bed where we took out the maple tree this past winter.
I would have taken picts...but they were all shipped bare root, so the picts would not have looked like much. Hopefully they will thrive and be amazing :)
So if you read one of my previous posts, you know the saga of the green "giant". Well, i am still awaiting the 3rd one that mysteriously got left out of its bag...the 2 that were planted already are suffering a bit of transplant shock, but we have had enough rain lately that I still have hope for them. So, today I stopped by the local nursery (SO many temptations!!!!) and they had 3 gallon sizes of the green giant :) So, I picked one to plant in the spot reserved for the 3rd one:
The sticks that you see on either side of the tree represent the other ones that were ordered through the mail. It will be interesting to see and compare the growth of the different sizes...HAH!
The freshly planted weeping willows (from the same supplier) are looking great and getting all their new leaves:
I think it will be so pretty weeping over the creek side :)
Once I got my new tree planted, I set out to mow and edge the front yard. Looks so nice when that has been done. I also got some picts of more spring happenings:
Azalea buds bursting:
I must say I am learning to love my azaleas. They came with the house and would not have been what I chose, but the were in good condition so I left them. I have really started to put some more time and energy into the back beds and I am starting to form a nice shade bed with the azaleas as the foundation. Last year they didn't bloom (due to an extremely late frost that zapped all their buds) and the years before I did not pay much attention - other than to notice that they are various shads of pink. So, I have no idea their varieties or how big they are expected to get. This year...when they bloom, I plan on taking cuttings to the local nursery to have them tell me the varieties so that I can fully develop the design of the shade bed. Should be interesting and fun :)
The newly planted lilac buds are starting to open so I am looking forward to watching that. I have never grown a lilac before:
The oakleaf is budding out nicely as well. Year before last, we transplanted it from a very awkward spot close to the house and the following year, its form and shape was way out of wack, so I had to prune it and sacrifice some blooms, so this year it should be in its full glory :
I also transplanted some large pieces of variegated ivy to the shady side of the creek bank. Hopefully they will fill in and cascade nicely - providing a nice evergreen cover and weed suppression.
I would say, all in all, a great afternoon in the garden. I certainly feel blessed that I could spend my afternoon that way and not cleaning up rubble from the tornado that hit just south and north of us. Amazing that a tornado blew through downtown Atlanta. They say that has never happened before....first time for everything, I suppose.
We have had some wonderful weather here lately and I have been taking advantage of it in the garden! Over the past couple of days I have been doing bits of weeding here and there. Always doing a little at a time helps me keep up on it over the growing season. My girl and I took advantage of the beautiful morning and spent some time enjoying the garden :)
She likes the Daffodils:
We also took some time to examine the dianthus buds:
Here are some more spring happenings I caught along the way:
Baby Peach Tree Planted last spring is flowering:
Viburnum is leafing out very nicely:
Clematis Armandii is starting to bloom:
Carolina Jasmine is doing its thing:
And last but not least...we have a surprise crop of kale growing from seeds that we planted last fall that never germinated due to the drought and total outdoor water ban. We have had so much rain lately that they decided to grow :) LOL
Well, this happens every year in my neck of the woods. We get all the signs of spring: the warm temps, the afternoon rains, the buds on all the plants. Then, lo and behold we will get a night back down in the 20's and it usually zaps a lot of things. Nothing new here, but none the less...."we" always act surprised. So, last night was that night...I promptly covered up the tender plants and then realized that my saucer magnolia with its hundreds of buds would probably be zapped and never allowed to realize its blooms this year....we brainstormed a bit on creative ways to protect it (but its a big tree) so we set out to take lots of pictures and I took some cutting for a vase to see if I could get some blooms indoors:
Hubby took that picture above....not too shabby :)
I also realized that all my daffodils that I have been enjoying so much would probably get it too...so I shot a pict and cut 20 to take in for a vase:
SO, I am excited to report that when I woke up this morning....everything looked OK!!!! The daffodils are still nice and perky and the buds on the saucer magnolia aren't showing any signs of frost damage. How exciting!!!! And, even better...the branches I brought in full of buds, are starting to open. So, I learned that I can do that and it works and now I get the blooms indoors and out....doesn't get much better that that!
HOORAY!
Hey there GG! I just got a message from SpringChicken who mentioned she had read about my raised beds in the forums :) I hardly ever go on those forums and it was kinda fun to hear that I had been mentioned...so I went to the forums and did a search for soapHOUSE...WHAT FUN!
Thanks to all of you who have been enjoying my blog and picts....just makes my day!
Happy gardening everyone :)
I guess its official that the daily chores of spring/summer began today since it was my first lawn mowing of the season. I mowed the back where the veggie beds are. I really have created quite an obstacle course back there with all those veggie beds and fruit trees...but my dream is to eventually do away with all the grass back there. It looks so nice all freshly cut :)
I also did the first spring turning of the compost pile and added some nice shredded leaves to bulk it up a bit and get it ready to cook away in the summer heat.
Tomorrow,
rain is in the forecast so i know all the plants will love it!
My tulip magnolia is starting to bloom, the daffodils by the azaleas are beginning to bloom, the tulips are coming up in the front yard, and the azaleas are bursting with buds...
THE EXCITEMENT CONTINUES....
Yesterday brought us heavy downpours of rain and some thunderstorms. The rain was fabulous! I know it has to be helping the drought situation and I just loved seeing it all fall on my plants :)This afternoon when I got home from work, I set out to do a few garden chores...here is what I accomplished:p>
The weather is so beautiful right now. Sunny, not a could in the sky, slight breeze, 58 degrees. I may go out and enjoy the garden from the front porch :)
I've had a great week in the garden! Spring just keeps on springing and I have enjoyed watching it unfold in my garden :) On Thursday, the order that I had placed on-line for the "bones" of the creek plantings arrived. I ordered everything from Direct Gardening (which I had heard bad things about, but for the price...I thought it was worth taking a chance) I ordered 3 Green Giant Arborvitaes, 2 Weeping Willows and 1 Colorado Blue Spruce. The total order was barely $30, so I pretty much expected the worse, but thought it was worth a try. Needless to say, when I received the order, I literally stood in my kitchen, laughing out loud as I unpacked the wee plants! The "Green Giants" looked like twigs with a few roots. More like the jolly green giant. HAH! But, I thought...for the price and considering they are supposed to grow like 3-5 feet a year, I will just take my chances. What's even funnier is that they were packaged in vacuum sealed plastic bags. My order did include 3 of those baggies for the green giants...but, only 2 had plants! So, I called the customer service # and they were quite nice (to my surprise) so, hopefully I will receive that 3rd arborvitae :) Funny thing is that those were the most expensive out of the order and they were the smallest...the willows (which were $1 a piece) were the largest. The colorado Blue Spruce was a fairly decent size too. The order also included some freebie bulbs labeled shamrock and exotica. These were about the size of raisins, so I plopped them in the ground by my irises in the back and we will see what happens :) On Saturday I got around to planting the goodies...
The green "giants" found a home on the back creek bank to hopefully create a nice privacy screen:
I topped with a good dressing of compost and marked it with a stake, so hopefully he will have a fighting chance!
Here is a pict of one of the willows, planted on creek bank to help prevent erosion:
The Colorado Blue Spruce found a home where we took out the maple earlier this winter...I have great hopes for this guy:
On Friday I had a great day helping my mom in her garden. She is a landscape designer, so she always has some wonderful project up her sleeve...on Friday, I helped her lay some fescue sod in a pathway. I had never worked with sod before, so it was fun to learn how to do that...and talk about instant gratification! Of course, she let me take some divisions of things in her garden too. I came home with a great bunch of hellebore seedlings, 2 autumn ferns, and a huge clump of sedum autumn joy! Love those freebies :) I got them planted around on Saturday also:
Hellebore
s landed amongst the liriope in front of the azalea bed with the other variety of hellebores. Will be very pretty when they grow up to start blooming:
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The autumn ferns went under the fig tree with 4 other autumn ferns I transplanted from under my redbud (they were not getting along well with the vinca) I know the fig will give them a nice shady home come spring:
>
And, when they grow up all nice a fluffy...they will help hide all the utility nonsense! I am still thinking about where to put the sedums...
This Sunday afternoon, I just did a couple of odds and ends: some weeding, moved 2 artemesias from a shady spot to one where they will get more sun, and leveled out some ground in the back of the azalea bed ( the former owner of this house, used to dump his house plant soil in a mound back there). I also took a few minutes to take some pictures of the early spring bloomers:
Minia
ture Daffodils:
Larger Daffodils planted under redbud in the front yard. I love the white...just brightens up that spot perfectly:
The
Georgia Blue Bells are full of blooms and such a wonderful blue color:
And, the first crocus has shown itself:
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In the next few days, my husband will be working on the rest of the chicken wire surrounds for the veggie beds...planting time will be here before I know it :)!!!
Oh, and on a side note...turns out the "owl" in my previous post was actually a hawk! My mom noticed from the picture and then it was confirmed again when we saw him again this weekend! Guess we will have to come up with a name for him too :)
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