New beds and cleaning up old ones...

Saturday, we cleaned out the grass that was around the rhododendrons in the south corner... extended the bed further toward the house and planted the new astilbe that i picked up at a plant exchange. I also planted a dozen zinnias in the front flower bed. Planted my new rabbit foot fern.

Sunday, Joseph and I created a new bed near the tall pines down on the southern edge of the property. (Eventually I plan on having a garden along the south edge) I transplanted a day lily that was growing very thick... split it into three, planted it along with some lily-of-the-valley and oatgrass. I also planted a dozen zinnias in the main flower bed.

Today, i weeded and mulched around the hemlock near the back patio. I also cleaned out the ground cover under the maple tree. I moved a few pieces of statuary (a house and barn) into the area... planted some creeping thyme and chicks n' hens. I'm pleased with the look of it. p.s. i didn't plant any zinnias today!

Fences...

I have a small vegetable garden this year. Its about 4 ft x 8 ft. I have the area that is growing lettuce and beets surrounded by a cage. I thought it was adequate protection from the critters. Yesterday I had to fence most of my garden... that was after chasing out an adolescent bunny who had a taste for cabbage. I called it a "hunky bunny". I was more fortunate than my Dad. Deer came in and decimated his garden... especially the tomato plants. Ironically, Dad was close to having his electric fence in place.

Iris, vegetables, and plant extras...

This morning I started out by taking all the little posts and plant trays and digging out a lot of the surplus plants that I have. I still have plenty. I dug out liriope, oatgrass, pineapple mint, chocolate mint, columbine and freckles violas. (All plants are destined for the Harmony plant exchange in a couple of weeks). I did something different this transplant time... once i potted the plants i placed it in a big bucket before watering... i watered and let them sit in the puddle of water for the day. They seemed to like it because they didn't wilt at all... even with the hot day (even tho' the weather folks predicted mostly cloudy... and we had totally sunny weather. With the hot weather, my iris are flying through their bloom cycle. We left this morning with six blooms and came home late afternoon to over a dozen blooms. They were so heavy that five stalks had bent over to the ground. I had to stake them back up.
This evening I did as Dad told me and mulched in my vegetable garden. Using newspaper as a base and adding a thick layer of grass clipping. I noticed that two seeds from the squash variety are up. I also noticed that the beet seeds have broken ground too.

Vegetables...

Today we went to Jesteadt's greenhouse and purchased vegetables along with flowers. I proceeded to plant the green peppers and yellow peppers, a variety of tomatoes (still need to find plum tomatoes which are my favorites). Basil... twelve plants will produce a lot of pesto. Parsley. Cabbage... a variety with beautiful leaves. Joseph commented that there's probably not a lot of people that buy cabbage based on appearance. I also planted lettuce seeds.

In the flower side of things... i purchased flax, bouganvillia, marigolds and salvia.

The pots are out...

This evening I brought out all of the plants that have been overwintering in the garden room. Trimmed them, watered them and started moving them around. Hopefully we are past frost time.
I seem to have an overabundance of plants once again. I'm hoping to share some of them.

Beautiful cool May Day...

I had the day off today and used it in the garden. I transplanted a trillium and an astilbe that were struggling in the southeast bed. They now reside in the south bed with the other native flowers. I thinned out some of the sweet woodruff that seems to be trying to take over the southeast bed. I culd rpobably take more out of it, but i'll wait until the flowers are doen blooming. I noticed a honeybee enjoying the flowers. The hummingbirds this year seem to prefer the columbine over the coral bells. More beds were weeded and mulched. And the vegetable garden is one step cloer to planting. I added lime (cause Dad said so) to make the soil less acidic. Joseph used the tiller and churned up the soil making it light and fluffy. I was surprised and delighted that worms can survivie a tiller.

Warning, warning, warning...

They weather folks are waning of a "freeze" tonight... not a light frost, but a freeze. It is really hard to cover the essentials and pray that the rest will be fine. This is when i would like to have a dome over the yard... something that i can push a button and the top comes over covering up the plants. But since i don't have a retractable dome over the yard, i had to resort to covering plants with boxes, buckets and pots. I covered the most tender of plants (the new ones) and the bleeding hearts that contain a lot of water in their stems.

One of the young plants that i made sure that i covered are three lily trees. I hope that they do well for me. They are supposed to grow to3-4 feet the first year, 5-6 the second year and 6-8 the third year... i'm looking to build a visual wall and i'm hopeful that these lilies will help.

Today we took our "mantis" tiller over to Dad's so that he could tune it up for us. Thank you Dad! He also showed Joseph the ins and outs of this piece of equipment. We plan on tilling the garden bed tomorrow.

Flowers currently in bloom:

• Clematis
• Columbine
• Dianthus (pinks)
• Violets
• Bleeding Hearts
• Heuchera (Coral Bells)
• Iris
• Lily-of-the-Valley
• Azaleas

Note: Plan on moving the bleeding hearts to the south corner of the property. With the black cohosh, green dragon and astilbe. Will do this in the fall.