Work work work

Lawd, lawd!   I'm tired!!  Put the hardware cloth around the trees. Cleaned out the vines leaves around the trees and added trees rings.  Edged the flowerbed, transplanted Bugleweed, Violets and Daylilies, added edging to the flowerbed, and planted Touch-me-Nots.   God bless G!  He finished the mowing that I started yesterday.

I found some amazing edging at Home depot.  It's molded concrete painted to look like stones.  The end result is that it looks like you have rocks edging your flowerbeds.  I'm lovin' it.  Granny always had her beds outlined with rocks.  She gathered the rocks with Daddy from a creekbed.  There were alot, too.  I have no idea how they got all those rocks to the house and out in the beds.  She was a garden dynamo right up to the end.  She would grab her wheelbarrow and walk down to the "mulch pile" in the woods,  get her mulch and take it wherever she needed it.  She spent most of every day doing something in the garden.  Here's to the memory of Minnie.   Cheers, Granny!!

Since it's Dogwood season  I have to tell the story of how she saved a Dogwood sapling.
There was a Dogwood sapling that had come up on its' own in front of our porch.  Granny was doing something in the flowerbed and she accidentally cut off the sapling.  She went into overdrive!!  She knew that my mom loved Dogwoods and she wanted to save it.  I remember her fussing and worrying that Dorothy ( mom ) would be upset  as she worked at saving the tree.   She used first aid tape and popsicle sticks to put the tree back together.  The tree eventually grew taller than the porch.  Grandma died before the tree ever bloomed.  The spring after she passed away there was one single white bloom on the tree. After that season it was always covered in blooms.   I remember Mama crying over that single blossom because Granny never saw the Dogwood in bloom. She believed that the single bloom was a sign from Granny.

I loves my garden

The whole yard is smellin' good thanks to my purple Petunias   :)   I thought the Autumn Olive had come in to bloom.   Not at all.  It has buds on it but is not in full bloom where it would be smelling good.  It's my 'Tunias   :)

I transplanted wild Violets this evening before I mowed.  I am crazed.  I admit it.  I just could not bear to mow down those purple blooms.   I dug them out of the lawn and potted them.

Bought hardware cloth for the Dogwood and Redbud today.  I am going to put a sleeve around both trees since they are trying to come back.  The euivalent of a, "No Beavers Allowed" sign.  Found some Groundhog repellent, too.  I am giving that some serious consideration.  I'm so tired of having the flowers devoured.

I touched a Bumblebee today.  I found it dead on the lawn before I mowed.   I love Bumblebees and it saddened me to find it there.  I picked it up with my weeder since I wasn't sure it was dead.  Mighta' just been stunned and I didn't want any stings!!  Anyway, I just had to touch its' fuzziness.  It felt like a Pussywillow.  I set it in the pot of Mums out front.  I didn't want to mow it over. 
I once had a Bumblebee poop on me.  I was on vacation and was sitting around the pool. I had on a bright green tank top.  A Bumblebee flew up and was hovering around me.  It seemed to like the bright green of my shirt.  Then it flew over to my arm, pooped and flew off.  Who else can say they have experienced bee poop??   { rolling my eyes }   It's just that charm of mine.  All critters find me attractive.

No sprouts on the Freesia yet.  The Ranunculus is on the porch getting hardened off.  I am hesitantt to set it out front without the Groundhog repellent.  Potted some Catnip seed and Hyacinth Bean seed the other day.  I thought I had some Mexican Primrose seed around here but can't find it.  Nothing from the Brazilian Rock Rose seeds but I am thinking that the squirrels dug them up.  My Stellas are thriving and the Stargazer Lily is coming along nicely.   Man, I love having time to devote to my plantings.

Petunias are sprouting out front!!   HAPPY HAPPY DANCE!  I had volunteer spreading Petunias last summer and they were just plain amazing.  I want more.   I read that plants that grown in place from seed are heartier than transplants.  Transplants, although larger when set in the ground, go through the time of transplant shock and just don't acclimate as well.  I have to believe it. Those seed grown Petunias last year were beasts.  I really wish more people would let plants re-seed and witness the magic that nature gives us.   Everyone goes running off to the garden center in the springtime, tills over their flowerbeds and plants new.  Give the volunteers a chance.  Understand that I love me some garden center time, too, just like a fat kid loves cake, but I love more seeing my plants come back and surprise me.  I've had surprise Hostas, Roses, Violets, 'Tunias, Snapdragons, MorningGlories and even Bugleweed that has appeared from who knows where? I think it migrated over from the neighbor's yard but I am not sure.  It is such fun.

Purple Petunias Please Me Plentifully :)

It's a beautiful day in my neighborhood!!  I'm giddy!!  Can ya' tell??
The super WalMart had purple Petunias.  Yep.  I almost screamed when I saw them.
See, the purple Petunias at WalMart are fragrant. And it seems that ONLY WalMart carries fragrant puprle Petunias.  I made this discovery a few years ago.  I bought a hanging pot of purple Petunias and hung them on my shepehrd's hook.  I noticed whenever I was watering that there was this great perfume. I finally figured out that it was the Petunias.   The next season there were no hanging pots but I found a regular pot of purple Petunias. I set those on the back deck.  The entire deck smelled good all summer long.  Today, I was looking for tree rings in the garden center and there they were.  Fragrant as ever!! I could smell them as I walked through the store, as I walked out to the car, in the car and when I got home to hang them.   They smell like HEAVEN!!!

OK, so only a dyed in the wool plant person would find themselves guilty of this:  gardening in the WalMart parking lot   hahahahahahaha   oh yes!  I was out there deadheading my Petunias before I put them in the car.  Hey!  I'm not carrying home the wilted blooms!   If anyone saw me they must have thought I was nuts.  Oh, whatever!   I'm in my happy place.   Go to yours.

Whatever ate my Pansies also ate my Bluebells and my Violets.  I have no idea what's eating them so I have no idea how to keep "it" away from the garden.  Rabbits? Groundhog?     I'm thinking Groundhog.  The little marauder.  When he sticks to eating the Dandelions, I'm down with it.  When he starts moving on to the flowers I have planted, not so much.  

The weather today is superfantabulous!  It is sunny with a light breeze somewhere in the 70s.  I'm savoring it.

Tomorrow, hopefully I can find tree rings and hardware cloth for the Dogwood and Redbud.  

I'm singin' in the rain :)

YAHOOWA!!!  It has been raining all morning~~and probably most of overnight~~and there are severe weather warnings poping up like toast from a toaster.   But I felt the need to scale the hill and have a peep at the Dogwood and Redbud. You'll recall they were chewed off some weeks ago by marauding beavers. G's mom kept insisting that they might make a comeback.  I had left the 6" stumps standing in the hopes that they might but I was doubtful.   I'll be a monkey's uncle!!   I need to buy some hardware cloth  [ HAPPY DANCE!!!]  both trees have little teeny tiny sprouts on the side!!   Yippee!!  Hardware cloth is used to create a physical barrier to keep the beavers at bay in the future.

For the first time since we've lived here, going on 20 years, I completely weeded and mulched along the fenceline earlier this week.  I am so weary of the city weedwhacking my rosebushes I thought maybe if I keep the grass and weeds completely cleaned up they will cut me some slack.   Leave the roses, guys!  People LIKE my roses.  They comment positively on my roses as they use the walkway to get to the creek.  Yay roses   :)  The fenceline belongs to the city.  They send a crew of workers out twice a season to weed whack along the fence.  Curiously, their weed whacker always winds up at the top of the fence "pruning" my roses. Let there be an 11th Commandement:  Thou shalt not weed whack the rosebushes!!

Oh.  I guess my Pansies are now groundhog poop.  I had a pot of the prettiest purple Pansies.  As I left for work the other morning I noticed that something had chewed off every single bloom.  :(   Somedays it just doesn't pay to break out the shovel and hoe   ;)

Miscellany

I was out on the deck after dinner this evening.  As I worked on cleaning out a flowerpot I was enjoying the breeze,  the sound of the creek and the squwak of Blue Jays in the distance.  "It dsoesn't get any better." I thought to myself. Then I heard it, 'tippy tippy toe' in the leaves down below.  Probably a neighborhood cat. I peeked over the edge of the deck. [ insert pic of Possum, which I am unable to do right now ] I live in the Wild Kingdom!!

I have a bud on my Stargazer Lily [ insert that pic, too ].

And some nice blooms in the yard [ you get the idea ]

Potted up some Freesia this evening.

Spent Sunday afternoon iving the side flowerbeds a good spring cleaning and mowing.  I love my mower.  It's a beast.  It takes on all comers and never backs down   :)

Bleeding Hearts. The good kind!

I have four Bleeding Heart plants!  Count 'em!  1...2...3...4!    I planted the mama plant several seasons ago.  This spring she has three little shrubs coming up around her!   I love Bleeding Heart.   Grandma used to grow it.  It is so unique and graceful.  Once it is done blooming it dies back to the gound and you cannot even see where it grows once it dies backs.  Come springtime it sprouts up, seemingly overnight, and rewards me with its' beautiful hot pink heart shaped blooms.

Oh yay!   I can post pics again!!   :)

What a gray day!!   It is drizzly, dreary and miserably chilly because of the dampness.  No yardwork today.  :(  It's a little depressive in that the flowering trees have come out and now the blooms are fading.  There was never a time of mild weather where it was comfortable to be outside and enjoy their beauty.  Some of the Star and Saucer Magnolias have been nipped by the cold and their blooms are browned up before they even fully opened.  I remember when this happened as I was growing up.  I sat there looking out at our Saucer Magnolia, crying because the cold had browned the buds.  I wouldn't get to enjoy them!  Daddy explained that sometimes these things happen.  We can't fight it.  

On the bright side, my Ranunculus has sprouted!!  Finally!   Little green leaves and stems are peeking out.  I hope they will survive and bloom for me.

Can't wait for warmer weather and time spent outdoors.