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Spent the morning with a new friend, visiting a local nursery. Would have loved to work outside but it was chilly and too dang windy. I did find a few new blooms in my yard today, an iris and an amaryllis. .
These red flowers are some my mama gave me years ago when I first started gardening. I am not sure if it is actually an amaryllis, I think it is called a St Joseph lilly.
Began discussing some plans for new beds with hubby.....he is IN. (gotta love that man). One thing that me and my friend saw today was a banana shrub, actually a type of magnolia, I believe. They have the sweetest scent in the spring and are quite managable in size. I also am considering a euclyptis (sp?) tree. I have had both of those before and enjoyed them. The yard I left when we sold our former home was about an acre in size and we grew so many things. Hummmmmmmm......perhaps that will be my next blog.
So much is happening in the garden, it is SO exciting! I took another trip to the nursery today. I was going to pick up my veggie plants to have ready to put in the ground next week, but i forgot my list...so I just picked up a purple bougainvilla. I have always wanted to try one of these up the front porch railing...but have never been willing to spend the money on something that won't come back, but I decided to go for it this year. It will go in next week. We are forecasted for another freeze on monday, so I still have to be patient! When I got home, I took a nice stroll around the garden to admire all the spring happenings and take some picks. Here is a sampling:
The Viburnum is blooming and looking so pretty:
Those Iris in front of it are starting to bud out, the mystery oxalis bulbs that came free with my order from direct gardening are coming up, the peonies are up and have buds on them, the small allium bulbs have formed their buds, the hellebores look amazing, the pineapple lily is coming up. And, the miscanthus that I have been experimenting with lately is looking good. I have some that I always wish didn't grow so tall, so I decided to keep cutting them back in spring to stunt their growth. So far, so good.
The coral bark maple is all leafed out:
The hostas are coming up very nicely. There are some that didn't seem to survive the drought though. I spent some time last night cutting back the ivy so that the hostas can breathe.
The Solomon's Seal clump that I dug up from mom's is looking great and I know I will just love having this in the garden. The cannas are also coming up, the crepe myrtles are leafing out, the euphorbia that i got for $1 b/c it was half dead looks great:
Also, the fig tree is leafing out and so is the wisteria (although I have yet to get blooms off this vine).
I think one of my favorite parts of the garden right now is all the autumn fern fronds that are emerging:
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The 60 tulips that I planted are up and the purple are blooming. Its funny how short they are, but the other ones aren't...
The honeysuckle on the side of the house that is supposed to like sun, but is in shade...looks good:
Another exciting thing is that the birdhouse we put in last year now has a nest in it. We weren't sure b/c we did not design it with housing birds in mind...it was more of an art piece. so, its cool that the birdies are liking it!
The trumpet trees are coming up and the Daturas as well. The daturas made TONS of babies:
I am wondering if some of those seedlings are poppies. I did scatter some seeds out there in the winter. Will have to wait and see, I guess.
Another exciting thing is the deciduous honey suckle start that mom gave me is coming back. I thought for sure it was dead! And last but not least, the Elephant ears are all coming up.
SUCH EXCITEMENT!
Her
e are some broad shots of the garden as of today:
Front:
Side yard:
Back yard:
I ended up having the day off today....so my little girl and I spent a while playing in the garden this morning (once it warmed up a bit).
I noticed some more signs of spring (just when I was beginning to wonder if some of the things I had planted and moved survived).
The globe allium blubls are emerging!!!!!! That is SO exciting. I got them on sale, but even then they weren't so cheap. Also, the autumn joy sedums that I divided last spring seem to be coming back nicely. And, the iris that I divided in the fall is starting to show itself again. So fun when things work out the way you hoped!
Of course, things don't always work out...one of the coreopsis that i got during a summer sale and looked great until frost is not showing any signs of regrowth and the other ones are. I will give it a bit more time before I give up on it completely.
We had quite the weekend in the garden! Very productive! I got a lot of things checked off of my to do list :) I divided some Iris, transplanted some cannas to pots, spread pine straw in the back yard, moved a pile of compost to the veggie bed, planted 70 allium bulbs and started the sculpture for the front window seat bed. But, most noteworthy is the 30 foot tree my husband took out for me! I felt kinda bad as it is a nice tree, however...it had been planted way too close to the tree next to it and during the growing season, it was growing crooked trying to reach the sun. Not a huge problem now, but would be in the future and then would be too costly to fix, so my hubby took it out.
Before:
During:
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After:
Its funny, it looked much larger once it was on the ground LOL! Now it will be another chore getting rid of all the brush! Whats going in its place? 3 Threaded False Cypress and possibly a blue evergreen of some sort. The vines are doing fun things right now too. The winter jasmine is just starting to bloom :) I look forward to watching them in the spring as they cover the chain link fence.
This week I will finish spreading the pine straw in the back and will finish up the sculpture in the front. But I tell ya, I sure am worn out! I don't have quite to energy now that I am 6 mo pregnant. I guess I better get as much done as I can before I am 9 mo!
and another started today. Hauled another big load of mulch to the new bed at the back of our yard. It will hold Iris and some different plants than the other beds. The re-blooming iris will go in there. One plant is re-blooming, a beautiful purple one. The others don't have signs of buds yet and it is late in the year. They may need digging so they will all go to the new bed.
Put weed/grass killer on the last spot to receive mulch, the load that is patiently waiting in the back of the little work horse. Don't know what I would do without that little truck. I think the recycle guys know us by name.
Found a great buy at Lowe's last week. It is a little 'rock pool'. Looks like a rock pool for sure. The water will trickle down the rock base into a rock pool then over a small bed of loose rocks and be recycled. It was $120 and on sale it was $39 dollars. Now if I couldn't pass it up, just think my surprise when I found this same rock pool at the Master Gardener booth at the Farmers Market this weekend. Seems our fearless leader found the same great buy. I loved being able to see what it would look like after installation. He had brought plants from home and made it look fantastic. Some of my plants already have a designated place around this little beauty.
Do you remember the little cat that found its way into my yard, then on to a neighbors yard and then dissappeared? We knew someone on the other street had had a party and our hope was that someone there had taken him home. That is exactly what happened. The party was in the home of another MG that I know and she told us a professor and his wife took the kitten home with them. It spent most of the party in the ladies lap. So we all had a laugh and I had an end to my story of the little kitten that wouldn't give up until he found just the right person to live with. The End!
Today is Columbus Day!! To refresh your memory (and mine) I did a web search and found this site. Cut and Paste and remember the days of our beginnings.
http://wilstar.com/holiday
s/columbus.htm
More to Come Later
...especially when it's a nice, 65 degree day like we had today!!! How lovely! I took advantage by getting tons of things done that I have been meaning to for a while, but felt like 90 degrees was just too hot!
So today was the first day of summer vacation for my daughter, and being the wonderful mom I am, I got her up bright and early to head to the store to find a trellis (or two!!!) for my clematis!!! (She loves me!) We found some great obelisk ones and I got two, and she picked a rain gauge with a sun. Then I told her she could plant a "summer plant" of her own, which earned me a hot pink wave petunia! Very pretty!! We came home, cleaned up the inside a little, and then went outside and went to work.
I got several annuals planted (alyssum and dahlias, and a couple of others I'll be posting for identification since I've long ago lost their tags...as they waited patiently in their cellpacks for a home), along with the transplanting of my clematis, putting in the Japanese Maple and taking out the baby burning bush and shipping him to his new home at my neighbors! I also planted 2 more butterfly bushes on the west side of the house and some pretty little violets, too. I'm excited about these, they are perennial and so cute! I can't wait to see how they grow up to look! Then we put up a couple of mini hummingbird feeders the neighbor brought me earlier.
OH!! I also tried some boiling water on the weeds by my front step. I have a nightmare vine from hell that just won't go away. I pull it, I dig it, and the thing is like gray hair... for every one I get rid of, 5 more take its place!!! I'm going to suffocate under this stuff!!
I wish I had managed to get the overgrown irises out so that I can decide what should be in my bed. I know it's the wayyyy wrong time to mess with the irises, but the bed is horrid and the mom that gardens at my daughter's school will take them so I don't have to feel bad about getting rid of some! I'm sure they're original to the house (1952) and its first owners, so I don't want to completely eradicate them. I just want to keep a few and have the rest of the space to do my own thing.
A while ago at sunset when we rested on the porch (with our ice cream bars, of course!) I was just really enjoying how far my yard has come. My maple is getting bigger and I really love looking at its branches with the new, bronze leaves pointing up to the sky. Almost like it's jumping for joy over all the work I accomplished today!!!
Maybe I can get up early again tomorrow....
Well, to tell the truth I haven't been out in the yard much the past
couple of days. But I'll share the things I have done. I planted some
morning glories (I think they're white, although they might be purple)
around the tree in my backyard. There's an iris poking out of the
ground in the sunflower and iris bed, which makes me super excited.
Although my sunflowers aren't growing like weeds like I hoped since I
put them in the ground. Perhaps I haven't been watering them enough? My
ponies still look miserable. Wildflowers are starting to pop up and I
can't tell them apart from the weeds yet. I finally got the calla lilies into the ground and I hope I'll be able to keep up with them. Now the only thing left is the darn mosquitoes, anyone have any suggestions to keep them away?
<growl> I just wrote a whole entry and then when I went to post it the auto time out had logged me out. What an annoyingly short time period.
There's no way I'm going to remember to update this thing every day, that's becoming clear.
It's been rainy, cooler, and windy this week, so I'm not getting much done out in the yard. Which is actually just what I needed, because while we were spending all our time outside, the *inside* has been going to pot! We're having a dozen people over on Sunday afternoon, and I'd've been ashamed to have company with the state of our house earlier this week. It's looking better now. :)
I did get some stuff done--I got some of my ornamental pots planted. The smaller urn already had purple pansies in it, but the dogs have knocked it over half a dozen times, so it needed to be topped off. And moved! I did the larger urn in marigolds, purple petunias, and ivy. And a hanging basket in ivy, nestled in the pussy willow. I did two window boxes off the side of the back porch, both in marigolds and a silver vining groundcover I forget the name of. I still have some annuals and ivy left, and a dozen or so ornamental pots. I just need some potting soil.
My beans and peas are sprouting, I'll put them out in the bed early next week once they're big enough to not be so tempting to the birds. The irises are blooming. The lilacs are done for the year. The rugosa roses are going strong, and they smell heavenly, even from 15 feet away.
With the wind, I couldn't help but put out the bamboo windchimes I hadn't hung yet. They're scattered around the yard, and I love the sound of them. The new one I just bought dropped a chime already, and needs to be repaired. I don't understand why they don't build them more durably; it didn't even last 24 hours.
I moved all my unplanted plants over out of the way, since they were accumulating and looking pretty cluttered. They nearly cover a 4x4 ft piece of plywood. I am now instituting a moratorium on purchasing plants until they are all in the ground. Or pots. ;) I managed to resist temptation when I walked through the Walmart nursery this afternoon. I may make an exception for perennials on clearance at Lowe's.
Started looking into permits for the greenhouse and the pergola.
I finally got the melon patch planted 2 days ago, I planted Santa Clause, Moon & Stars, Banana, Paradise and Canary. Can u tell we love melons. Still have a good bit of flowers left to plant and the house plants to get out of the greenhouse an placed about the beds, but I'm in no rush. The nights have been in the 50's here, so I know they'll like the cool temps. The baby chicks are growing and doing well, thinking about putting them outside in a coop with a light so they get a chill during the night. At least the larger of them, some are still getting their true feathers and some already have them. Some more flowers have started blooming an here they are:
Lemon Mist Bearded Iris
Unk. Purple Bearded Iris
LaReine rose
Mrs. B. R. Cant
Belinda's Dream
and another rose I can't remember the name, have it written somewhere
Felicia
trudy
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