Heather's Garden

THIS SAYS IT ALL

This article in the NY Times says it all.  Thank God this horrible gardening season is over.  I just keep imagining if this had been my first season gardening instead of my 3rd, but really I'm just glad I don't rely on my garden for more than the relaxation tending it brings me and the added benefit of whatever produce it yields.  I can't imagine what it must have been like to watch the rain fall and the crops fail if your livelihood depended on it.  Until yesterday we've actually been experiencing beautiful warm fall weather giving VPH some lovely days to get outside and get the leaves picked up: 

That photo was from day one of the clean up...he did get all of the leaves that were on the ground shredded and into the compost pile, but you'll see that quite a few of the trees around the house still haven't dropped their leaves:

And there are weird things happening all over the garden.  The petunias are hanging on:

 

Which is a good thing since I never got around to potting up the mums:

And I include this last photo so you can get an idea of how large the spider by the front door really is.  The post it's on is 4-5 inches wide:

 

Slightly freaky!  It's been raining solidly for 2 days now and we're supposed to head out to FL on Tuesday, so I'm not sure when we're going to get outside to get the dahlias into the basement for the winter.  We could take the chance that they'll hang on just fine until early December when we're planning to return home, but I think the ground will probably freeze by then.  Would it be worse to put them in the basement wet or let them potentially freeze?

WHY WOULD I GO ON VACATION WHEN I CAN STAY HERE?

It almost goes without saying that I mean stay here and do nothing!  Which is pretty much what I did all weekend.  I did manage to take a bunch of photos though.  My beautiful Endless Summer hydrangea:

 

I'm sure you've noticed something's missing here:

We love having a huge vase of hydrangea blooms on the kitchen table:

 

The veggies benefited from almost a week of sun.  You read that correctly...a week of sun!  Of course, as I write this post we're in hour 12 of absolute non-stop rain.  The Kentucky Wonder beans on the trellis are exactly what I pictured when I planted them, well they're a little sparser than I thought they'd be, but maybe I'll plant a few more for a late crop once the rain stops:

 

Same with the Scarlet Runner beans:

 

I still haven't thinned the carrots, but I did pull a pretty big one and eat it (and yes, it was delicious):

 

My cheating tomato plant has given us a few tomatoes, but uh-oh, that doesn't look good:

I don't think it's late blight, but whatever it is, it isn't good:

And my last veggie photo...eggplant!   The Japanese eggplants are doing quite well.  In fact they're already about 3x the size they were in this photo:

The patio garden is making me so happy:

Especially the big yellow daylilies:

And at least one of the zucchini plants is flourishing:

 

The bee balm isn't blooming yet and I have to imagine it's because it's not getting enough sun, so I switched it with the dahlia that was on the little table:

 

But I am loving how this container is filling out:

 

Since the dahlias here are so tall I hope that the coleus will fill in down there:

 

But overall, I'm quite pleased with this portion of the garden:

 

I love photographing this container:

 

But I realize I hardly ever show you the other side of it:

 

My Mother's Day garden is looking great:

On Sunday we drained the little pool and rinsed it out (how does it get dirty so fast?), so to cool down while sitting in the sun I used the mist nozzle on the hose.  It was a little windy that day and a lot of the mist landed on this row of dahlias:

Photo op!  I think a bunch of these are calendar worthy.  My mother wants me to request opinions from readers on which photos should go into the calendar.  I suspect it's because she has something to say about it, but I will be a dutiful daughter and request that you readers comment on which of these photos you'd like to see in this year's calendar.  Number 1:

 

Number 2:

 

Number 3:

Number 4:

 

Number 5:

 

Number 6:

 

Please do let me know what you think!

ONLY A MONTH OR SO LATE

The rainy month of June put us behind on a lot of our garden chores and many of the plants behind in growth.  All I can say is we'd better have a mild fall to make up for it!  It took a while, but we've finished nearly all the garden chores and the plants are behind the norm, but catching up.  The hosta/azalea bed is done:

The hosta/rhododendron bed looks great:

He not only mulched, he made us dinner!  VPH and the perennial shade garden:

  

Yummy mustard glazed pork, grilled zucchini (wish we had our own zukes to eat), and brown rice:

 

The veggie garden on May 16th:

 

On July 9th:

Let me take you for a little tour...always left to right.  Bush beans, carrots, habaneros and Brandywine tomatoes:

Habanero, dahlia, lilac bell pepper, dahlia, lilac bell pepper:

Same lilac bell pepper, scarlet runner beans, carrots, habanero, carrots, Kentucky Wonder beans, purple bell pepper:

Black Russian tomatoes, bush beans, peppermint, lilac bell pepper, Perfect plum tomatoes, habaneros, and another dahlia:

The Green Zebra tomatoes are one of my favorite things in the garden right now.  They're so beautiful in their blue pots.  The planter table looks great too with Royal Purple bush beans, nasturtiums, and the one cucumber that survived the rain:

A close-up of the gazillion blossoms on the Royal Purple bush beans:

We have teeny tiny eggplants growing:

 

This nasturtium is blooming despite it's 2 relocations (note to self--a little grass seed here wouldn't be a bad thing): 

 

The marigolds are doing their job and attracting pollinators to the tomatoes on the gravel patio (calendar-worthy, no?): 

 

I think we'll have a daylily bloom on the other plant tomorrow.  I have this sneaking suspicion that it's yellow:

 

These are our old trash containers.  I hate to replace them, but both have gaping holes in the bottom and no longer do much in the way of holding trash or keeping the raccoons away from it.  Rubbermaid apparently would replace them (they're less 3 years old), but only if I had the receipt.  You'd better believe that I kept the receipt for the new ones.  We will drill more holes in these and use them for composting:

 

We're enjoying the garden and being able to spend time on simple maintenance like weeding rather than looking around and seeing all the things still undone.  We still have the shed project and a couple of other little things to do, but really, we're done.

WHAT A TEAM!

VPH and I are quite the team.  On Monday morning he weeded the hosta/rhododendron bed (which could use a little mulch):

And weeded the hosta/azalea bed and put a circle of stones around it (which needs a lot of mulch...and don't laugh at his odd circle, he's going to adjust it as he finds more stones):

He finished weeding the veggie garden and driveway for me too -- that's love.  Once I completed my workday I went out and did my share.  Peppermint and a calibrachoa in the veggie garden:

 

It's tough to see, but those are marigolds in with the tomatoes and dahlias planted in the actual soil (gasp!) between containers : 

 

More marigolds in the tomato containers -- those with blooms are nursery grown, those without were grown from seed:

 

The rest of the herb seedlings I grew from seed went into larger containers cause I just couldn't bear to toss them.  This is about the sunniest spot in my garden (at 6pm):

 

The coleus I stuck in the empty spot in this container looks really red for some reason.  It's much more burgundy in real life:

Some really pink impatiens in the blank spots here:

 

White in this one:

 

I trimmed back the petunias, moved the basket of glaring pink petunias to another hook elsewhere and replaced it with a different hanging container with the 2 recently purchased and newly planted coral pink petunias:

 

One of VPH's tasks for Tuesday is to plant the rest of the coleus in a row along the rocks here, which involves pulling up the tree roots growing in a mat on top of the soil:

And that is it!  The table is clear:

Now we're down to mulching and tidying up.  For instance I want to come up with a better solution for the coiled hoses here.  Any suggestions would be welcome:

And the shed, we still need to do the shed project.  We've run out of more urgent tasks though, so I should be able to guilt VPH and SS2 into helping me get this done.

I JUST CAN'T RESIST A SALE

Before I get started...this is the bush that I'm trying to identify.  I posted a close-up of the bloom the other day.  They're used as hedges all over our neighborhood and the blooms smell rather honeysuckle-like.  A little help, please:

Back to "I Just Can't Resist a Sale"...

But if I told you could get everything on the table and both chairs for a total of $24.34, could you?

 

VPH made chicken salad on Wednesday with some leftover grilled chicken (which had been seasoned with herbes de provence).  It was delicious (like all his food), but we both wished we had fresh tarragon on hand.  I know that at some point in the spring I asked him if we should grow tarragon and he said no, but I should have known better.  I also never got around to dividing the 2 eggplants and using the funky new box/planter for one of them (now that they're flowering I'm loathe to mess with them), so I had the brilliant idea of buying one of those nursery tomato plants with fruit already growing on them that I've been seeing all over the place (including the grocery store) so we could get a ripe tomato before August (even if I do agree with Carol that it's cheating).  I had a $15 certificate for Van Wilgens so off we went.  I used the $15 certificate to get tarragon, fernleaf dill, silver thyme, and fernleaf cilantro and paid $1.02 out of pocket (I know, I wouldn't normally pay $3.99 an herb plant either): 

You're wondering where the petunias and ornamental edible peppers came from?  The tomato plants at Van Wilgens that had fruit already were $25 each.  Well I may be crazy, but I'm not nuts enough to pay $25 for a tomato plant, so I passed and decided to go to Vaiuso.  I'm telling you, I love that place.  Remember the $1 perennial herbs I picked up there a few weeks ago?  Just about everything's a $1 now.  I got tired of waiting for this:

To look like this:

 

That's marigolds, coleus, parsley, and basil all $1/each.  I'll transplant my grown from seed tiny little plants into larger pots and see if they'll do anything for me, but like I said, I am tired of waiting.  Speaking of being tired of waiting I picked up this tomato plant for $8.  Yup, $8.  I love Vaiuso so much!  More on this tomato when I get it into a container:

 

I took a brief walking tour of the garden and found tiny little flowers just forming on the scarlet runner beans:

Then I sat down for a well-deserved hour reading.  Every now and again I looked up from my chair to the freshly mowed lawn, my humongous hydrangea, and blooming/nearly blooming dahlias: 

 

Then I'd look a little to the left and think about all the work we still have to do putting up the new shed, taking down the 2 old ones, a new project I'll tell you about soon, reorganizing everything...oh well back to my book:

 

Before I headed inside I did a photo session with a spider on the eggplant cage.  I can't decide which of these photos is more calendar-worthy.  A good close-up:

 

Or a more interesting composition:

 

Do let me know what you think.

IT SMELLS LIKE SUMMER

The rain's back, but hopefully not to stay.  At least it's much warmer than June was, even on an overcast, rainy, cloudy day the thermometer's at about 75 right now.  These photos range from 1 week ago to today, but give a decent view of what's developing in the garden.  First up -- zucchini flowers!  Not likely that we'll be grilling our own zucchini on the 4th of July as we have years past, but at least they're flowering at last:

 

Beans!  I'm hoping it stays warm and dry enough to get the rest of my beans in this weekend, but all the bush beans that survived the rains are flowering: 

 

And the vining bean varieties are growing (and yes that's still the new shed under a tarp, hopefully this next week will see the shed project get underway):

 

I can't for the life of me remember what kind of bush my friend said this was.  Can anyone tell from the flower (it's about 3 inches long)?  It smells rather honeysuckle like and wafting in through the living room window reminds me of my childhood:

 

I was pretty excited to see hosta leaves at long last from one of the bareroot hostas I planted this spring:

 

The beautiful blooming lamium that I can see from the living room (and I don't care if it is practically a weed in your garden...it's pretty in this container!):

VPH has since raked this area, but I'm too lazy to go out and take a new photo:

 

And then today in the middle of the rain showers another daylily (this looks orangey on my monitor, but it's almost burgundy in real life):

 

And the first plum tomatoes:

 

The first Parkland Glow dahlia, but it's a much darker red in real life:

 

The eggplants are flowering!!!  VPH was very happy:

 

I wanted to get out into the garden today but it's so cloudy that the mosquitoes are out in force and I just can't do it.  Tomorrow, even if it is supposed to be "humid" according to the weatherman, will be better than spending days scratching bites.

IT'S AMAZING WHAT A FEW DAYS OF SUN WILL DO

I had a completely different post drafted with photos that I've taken over the past couple of days, but I went outside this afternoon and found such a different garden after 4 days of sun in a row (shh, don't jinx us) that I just had to start a fresh post.  My very first blooming day-lily (unnamed passalong from my friend Mary) in the patio garden:

 

The hydrangea is insane!  It's waist high and the blooms are bigger than my hand:

The Bay State Angel dahlia is blooming away:

 

And the Parkland Glow is about to pop:

The moonflowers suddenly decided to send out a scouting party:

Overnight one of my peppers was attacked, but I think it will survive:

 

The first heirloom tomato has set (and frankly I'm amazed given the June we had).  The winner of the race to first tomato is the Green Zebra, now the question is will it be the first ripe tomato:

 

The Kentucky Wonder beans are climbing the trellis quite nicely:

 

I hope I get a better spider photo at some point this summer because I don't think this one is quite calendar-worthy:

 

Now if I did a vertical calendar, I would consider this photo:

 

And who knew creeping jenny blooms?  Not me:

 

I'm loving this container...the colors, the textures:

 

I can't wait to see what a few more days of sun will bring!

OVERHEARD

I live on a small one-way street and in the summer we keep our windows open.  We don't get many people walking down our street so when I hear people outside my Mrs. Kravitz comes out.  Sunday afternoon I heard quite a ruckus and turned around to see what was going on outside.  It was a group of about 6 adults clearly enjoying the break in the rain with a walk.  And then as they passed the house I heard: "That's pretty."  I saw several of them turn and look back at this view:

"Oh, yes it is." 

Well my heart swelled. 

I also took advantage of the lull in the rain by walking my garden for the first time this week.  I really have no idea how much rain we've gotten, but I did just read that the area has received more than 2.5 times the norm for June already.  But even with only rare sunshine some things are blooming.  Lamium:

 

My first blooming dahlias!  It's the micro-mini plant:

But the Bay State Angel isn't too far behind:

There's nightshade in the bastard garden:

The hydrangea:

Which is just loving this weather:

It's funny that all of a sudden the Japanese painted fern is showing color since I was lusting after these on the garden tour last week in other people's gardens.  Who knew I already had one:

 

VPH can't get over the grass sprouting on top of the blue stone after the dirt and seed washed down in the first of the torrential downpours: 

 

I really must get mulch down, these beans turned, and string trellises up:

 

Something's eating the heck out of the scarlet runner beans, but I remember the morning glories were hit just as hard in this spot last year:

 

And the vegetable garden (complete with weeds) is growing like crazy:

 

If the rain is keeping me out of the garden, at least its not keeping me out of the stores.  Some new garden additions include glow-in-the-dark stepping stones (the white parts glow):

 

I thought it was cute that the moon glowed on this one:

This one is a little too cutesy for me, but buried under the grass the cheesy inscribed saying isn't too noticeable:

And the local garden center was selling perennial herbs for $1/each.  How could I not buy a few, or eight?  2 peppermints (one is for my friend Mary), 1 pineapple mint (which has one albino stalk), 3 purple sages, and 2 lemon sages:

And you think I'm kidding about the rain?  Any idea what this is:

Did you guess the bottom of my bird feeder?  Not sure what I'm going to do about this yet, I'd kind of like to see what plants we'd get:

 

How's your garden surviving the deluge?

WELL THIS IS ALL MY FAULT...

It seems like without fail if I water, it rains the next day.  Yes, we had 3 sunny days in a row starting last Saturday, but I got a mid-range sunburn after sitting outside for 45 minutes that day reading with VPH.  No gardening for me the rest of the weekend.  Tuesday was the first rainy day of what is predicted to be 2 weeks of rainy weather and it brought absolute deluges at times.  Really good for the grass seed VPH put down on Sunday (that's the bluestone lintel in front of the little shed):

Once that dries out I'll re-scatter it.  Lest you think I'm engaging in hyperbole about the torrential downpours...clearly a river ran through here:

Much of the rest of the garden is looking lush with all the rain.  I think it would benefit from some sun myself.  The shade containers are lovely and full:

 

Well most of them are:

 

This lamium is staging a coup in the big square blue container:

 

Pull it back and you find some teeny tiny astible growing:

 

I'm loving this container with the Purple Gem rhododendron, creeping jenny, and impatiens:

But its twin on the other side of the steps is lagging behind (must be that this one gets slightly more sun):

I have to guess that the excess rain led this coleus to fail (the coleus is the single stalk in the empty spot):

And there are buds on this dahlia (micro-mini)!  Aren't they beautiful:

If the soil ever dries out at all I will move the purple fountain grass over a little to balance the container.  I took the few stalks of coleus left and stuck them in the seedling tray hoping that they would set roots in there:

And a few in the cup of water like the basil:

Which is almost ready to plant:

As long as I'm on this side of the house...every day I've had to empty the overflowing drain tray so my seedlings don't drown:

The dahlias don't seem to be suffering from all the rain and I found a taker for 1/2 of the pass-along plants from my friend Mary so I will pick 4 of these 8 to keep tomorrow:

I didn't think I would get the first ripe strawberry and sure enough the birds beat me to it.  But I cut off the very bottom to taste and it was delish:

Moving toward the veggie garden, the germination rate of the sunflower seeds along the house foundation wasn't great, or I just can't recognize the smaller varieties:

The hydrangea is promising many beautiful flowers:

Some of the beans must have rotted, like this container with a 0% germination rate:

I'm not stressing about it though, I'll just consider it unintentional succession planting.  That is, of course, provided the rain ever stops and I can plant more beans.  The scarlet runner beans have huge leaves and are already starting to climb:

The planter table containing the Royal Purple Bush beans must have flooded during the rain:

Lots of carrots, decent germination on beans (which I must remember to turn and give netting to climb up soon), and more signs of the rain that washed through (note to self - mulch ASAP):

Finally!  Blossoms on the Husky cherry tomato plants: 

 

And many of the heirloom tomato plants (though I didn't note which one this is): 

 

Continuing the tour, let's move on to the patio garden.  Bit of a jungle:

But not out of control.  The foliage from the tulips and daffodils is finally starting to yellow.  The moonflowers are starting to climb (and the clematis is still alive there in the middle):

 

The grass along the back is blooming.  Pretty:

This cracks me up.  I noticed that one half of the siberian iris clump second from the left didn't bloom, but I thought it was just an oddity.  Nope, turns out it was a day-lily after all:

  

The clump to its left has a single stalk coming up from the middle, so I guess there's some lily there too:

 

Last, but certainly not least, my new lavender is about to bloom!  I'm loving this spot more each day:

 

Saturday will be spent at the Guilford Secret Garden Tour.  Which reminds me, I'd better charge my camera battery now.  I just hope the forecasted break in the rain holds for long enough.

UM YEAH, THEY'RE IRISES

As several people wrote to tell me (thanks, ladies), the plants with buds that I thought were day-lilies turned out to be Siberian irises.  Much to my and my friend Mary's surprise:

 

They're beautiful and a darker purple than they appear in the photos:

I still have to mulch the patio garden, but it's looking pretty good:

These petunias are almost obnoxiously pink and I'm not sure if I like them or not: 

 

But I'm loving these, a double petal flower?  I had no idea when I bought them:

 

And I liked the colors and textures of the bud on the perilla:

 

I stopped into Joann Fabric for a ribbon of all things and their garden stuff was 50% off.  I couldn't resist this adorable wind-chime for $9.99.  I can even drill drainage holes in the bucket and stuff a little plant in there.  Now what plant and where am I going to hang it:

 

It took visiting 3 different stores to find small tomato cages for the other 4 dahlias here:

 

The sunflowers along the wall are popping up, but something's eating their leaves:

 

I have Royal Purple Bush beans and nasturtiums in the planter table, but one of the cucumber seedlings didn't make it:

I'm pretty excited about all these carrot seedlings:

 

I wonder what today will bring?

I HATE WHEN WORK CURTAILS GARDENING

Once upon a time I worked a job that kept me out of the house from 7:00am to 7:30pm.  This evening I arrived home after an unusually long day at the office at 7:30pm and was reminded that there was a good reason why this is only my 3rd season gardening.  I'm not the kind of person who could only garden on the weekends.  I feel for those of you who have to squeeze in a few minutes in the morning or evening and do the bulk of your work on the weekends.  I don't know how you do it!

Over the past few rainy days (you can always tell a non-gardener when they complain about a rainy day after a week of beautiful sun), I've found a few minutes to run outside and snap a few pics, though not many minutes nor many pics.  No idea what this pretty little flower was, but it made me smile:

  

The scarlet runner beans are coming up:

 

As are the Kentucky wonder beans:

 

Lots of radishes, but what do I do about thinning them?  Really, tell me:

 

Some little, tiny carrots:

 

And I think the buds were prettier than the flowers:

 

Still have to mulch and get that damn shed up.

HERBS!

We met some friends on Monday for a picnic (a lovely day and great company), and when we got home in the afternoon I just couldn't take the herbs sitting around the potting table unplanted any more!  I decided I would have three containers this year.  One grouping in a hanging basket, one in the funky blue glazed pot, and one in the 1/2 wine barrel, so I started to divvy up the plants:

I tried to include some yellow and purple in each container:

But when I got to the wine barrel I was out of purple plants:

So I ran over to the nursery around the corner and $2.12 later, problem solved.  It's Red Rubin basil for those of you keeping track:

Starting at 12 o'clock and going clockwise we have: rosemary, garlic chives, golden sage, creeping thyme, hot and spicy oregano, and the Red Rubin basil in the middle:

Same drill: Red Rubin basil, rosemary, sage, chives, creeping thyme, lemon grass, and in the middle golden sage (there's also plenty of space for basils as my seedlings mature):

And lastly I may have overcrowded this one a little bit: garlic chives, purple sage, golden oregano, thyme, Red Rubin basil, and Big Leaf Italian basil in the middle:

This is exactly how I imagined it would look here:

So pretty:

I bought a new bird feeder this weekend.  It is supposedly rust and squirrel proof.  I'm interested to see how the birds will get the seed out:

I also purchased 3 butterfly stakes.  VPH thought they were tacky (and that was before he knew they glow in the dark), but I think they look very nice in among the day-lilies in the patio garden:

 

Very subtle against the grass:

 

The day-lilies should be blooming any second now.  Could they possibly be purple?  We should see soon:

 

I was in love with the way the sun was hitting the heuchera:

 

Two firsts...first fire of the year and first Red Stripe chilling by the fire on my patio:

 

We were sitting quietly enjoying our patio when all of a sudden...well you have to hear it. And this was the best thing we heard, by far!  They finished at 8:00pm, but by that time we had long since given up and fled to the relatively quiet indoors. 

I did, however, take a few minutes to ponder the little shed and what we'll do with the space when the new shed goes up and don't need it anymore.  It's also pretty full of holes and not so functional anymore.  VPH suggested a hot tub, which isn't going to happen, but a kiddie pool very well might:

I'll share some photos of what's under the shed and measurements when we finally take it down. Someone out there might have an awesome inexpensive idea that hasn't occurred to us.

#@$^@$# THING STRUCK AGAIN

And this time I'm really upset.  What ever the fuck it is broke off two fiddle-heads in the largest shade container (now full of plastic forks, but too late):

And it went for the hosta in the upper container again (which now has even more forks):

Further annoying me, the loud, trashy neighbors put up one of those self-supporting blue pools today while we were out.  This is not good, not good at all:

 

But we do have two flowers on the rhododendron, so that cheered me up a little:

 

And man, those radishes do pop up quickly:

 

Whatever is attacking my shade containers had better stop.  I am getting really pissed.

A MARAUDER!

I walked outside on Friday afternoon, looked up at my container on the stump and gasped:

  

It was even worse up close.  What interloper would have the gall to dig up my hosta:

 

I replanted the hosta and filled in the other small holes.  I had clear plastic forks on hand and really hope they 1.) prevent any further attacks, and 2.) don't hurt any animals in the process:

 

You can't even see them from below:

I never tire of the fiddle-heads on the ferns.  Should I ever do a vertical calendar (doubtful) this would be calendar-worthy, I may even print and frame this pic I like it that much:

 

I suddenly realized on Friday morning that the tomatoes in the pretty blue pots by the fence on the side of the house weren't getting enough sun.  The sun hits the top of the fence around 9:30am, but doesn't get down to the bottom until nearly 11am and then the shadow from the house covers the whole side of the house by 2:30pm, so they had to move to the gravel patio. 

Friday afternoon we went out to Old Saybrook to visit Carole at Maynard Greenhouse.  After a pleasant but short vist (Carole was working and I had VPH in tow and he's not endlessly patient), we headed towards home with 2 Cherokee Purple tomato seedlings (you didn't think I could visit a greenhouse without buying something did you?).  We passed two Ocean State Job Lots on the way home, so of course we had to pop in to see what containers they had left.  Success! 

 

The two blue square ceramic containers on the ends were only $37 each.  Look at the size of the those things!  They each took 2 cubic feet of potting soil and a Cherokee Purple tomato:

 

I really like the splash of color they give the patio.  I asked VPH if he thought we should get a blue umbrella now.  He laughed and said we could put a white tablecloth on the table and celebrate the 4th of July all summer.  Note that the containers of beans are now inside the trellises:

 

The patio garden is growing like mad.  See the lupine in front?  I think it may actually flower.  The herb pots are all planted up now:

I love this photo.  If I had planted the cilantro and dill and taken this photo on Friday, I would have entered it into the GGW photo contest:

I have a feeling that variations of this angle will be a frequent subject this summer as the herbs fill in.  But I include another here so you can see all the herbs growing on the corner.  Back row left to right -- spearmint, basil, rosemary, lavender (goodwin creek); middle row left to right -- lavender (I gave this some fertilizer today, it has growth, but it's taking its sweet time to come back), fernleaf dill, lemon thyme; and at the front right -- cilantro (I picked up this pot on Friday too...hey at only $8 how could I not?):

And while I'm in the patio garden...the moonflowers are growing nicely with a new set of leaves and I was shocked to see the clematis growing down at the bottom of this photo (sorry it's out of focus), I thought for sure it was dead.  Now if I can just get it to grow towards the trellis:

We're still trying to get the grass to fill in before we put the chairs back in their normal spot, so for now we'll relax here:

 

The greenhouse went back into the basement today and the containers and furniture are in their rightful spots:

 

I'm quite pleased:

 

All of the dahlias are really taking off this year.  Small cages will go on each of these containers as soon as I can find 4 more:

This is essentially my to do list now.  The hose has to go on the fence so I can get running water to the vegetable garden, fresh mulch needs to go onto all the mulched areas, and the plants all have to be potted up (though I'm still not sure what to do with all the impatiens):

 

The new shed needs to be assembled and then the rest of the mess will be stored away out of sight.  We're close now.

THREE PEOPLE GET A LOT MORE DONE THAN JUST ONE

VPH and SS2 joined me in the garden this afternoon and started by planting my Mother's Day gift of an azalea, my recent hosta purchases, and passalong hostas from my friend Mary:

 

VPH dug up the rescued hosta from the bastard garden and I set all of them out in sort of a two line arrangement.  I went off to do other stuff and was called back to view the finished project, which will henceforth be known as the Mother's Day garden:

A little bit tighter grouping than I would have done and a little strange from above, but when I walked down the hill, which honestly is how I will normally see this garden...I like it!  Pardon the slightly blurry photo, the only one I had from this angle:

 

Can you see it all the way out there on the right:

I was right, the Elijah Blue Fescue (a perennial!) is perfect in that new container:

 

The "Oriental" eggplants went into the large container together, but I think they'll have plenty of room.  Two ever-bearing strawberries went into each of the two tall containers, and one in the little one.  More on the herb container later:

When I rearrange the furniture I may move the Green Zebra tomato pots.  They're shoved against the bench because the cages are just missing the petunias hanging on each post:

 

And as you can see, I should be putting the greenhouse away any day now and rearranging the furniture:

 

Oh, and I finally figured out what to do with the bee balm that Layanee gave me last year when I visited her garden.  I was concerned about what I read on-line concerning the propensity of bee balm to spread like mint, so I was hesitant to put it in the ground or one of my herb containers.  So I settled on a smallish container in the frog sculpture because I will always think of the frogs when I think of Layanee's garden:

Once VPH and SS2 finished the Mother's Day garden, I set them to work on the project that had been keeping me from planting the vegetable garden.  I asked them to take soil out of the containers leaving them two thirds full, mix in tasty tomato and veggie natural fertilizer to the potting soil in the wheelbarrow, and top off the containers.  I don't know if that's the best way to do it, but that's the method that we came up with.  All I can say is thank God they are so helpful.  I was dreading doing it myself.  The veggie garden is mostly planted now:

From left to right I planted habaneros in the hanging planters and Brandywine tomatoes in the trellis planter (note the new larger cages this year):

Lilac bell peppers:

 

Purple bell peppers in the green containers and Black Russian tomatoes in the trellis planter.  The trough planters to the left and the 2 brown containers are all prepped for beans, but since we're expecting lots of rain on Sunday, I didn't plant them yet:

 

This last container is new to the veggie garden.  I planted 2 Perfect Plum tomatoes and 2 habaneros in it.  I think there's enough room: 

 

Two Bandywine Pink tomato plants on the gravel patio again this year and the planter table will be full of bush beans and probably a cucumber growing from each end (again holding off on planting until after the rain).  You can just see 2 large round gray containers in back.  They will have more beans in them, but I was just too tired to lift up the trellises and place them inside:

 

You may have noticed that I didn't show an individual photo of the really big containers in the middle of the veggie garden.  I'm about 80% sure they'll have carrots in them, but I haven't actually sown any seed yet.

I've had VPH saving his coffee grounds for about a month to fertilize the hydrangea.  I'll throw mulch on top when we get to doing that in other portions of the garden, but it looked pretty like this:

 

I finally bought longer screws so if you're driving down a road in Branford and see this, you've found Heather's Garden:

 

I am quite pleased with these containers by the front steps:

 

Don't they just say welcome, a gardener lives here:

 

Walk around the corner and you'll know for sure that a gardener lives here:

But at least my potting table is nicely organized:

Speaking of organizing, I need to decide what is going in the herb barrel and what's going in the blue ceramic container.  I have creeping thyme, sage, chives (half of that huge clump is going to Mary), golden oregano, thyme, hot & spicy oregano, garlic chives (3), golden sage, lemon grass, golden oregano, basil, rosemary (2), and purple sage:

The problem is, I'm growing a bunch of herbs from seed and they're not big enough to throw into a large container yet.  The Cilantro will go into a small pot on the retaining wall, but I need to find a spot for the fernleaf dill and fennel:

 

Sweet basil, Purple Ruffles basil, and Cinnamon basil:

 

Two of the cucumbers will go in the planter table and two of the zucchini will go in the front of the patio garden to grow over the fading daffodil, tulip, and crocus foliage:

 

The marigolds will be planted in with the tomatoes and if the coleus ever gets big enough to transplant, I'll find a spot for them on the shady side of the house:

 

The shallow trough by the trellis will be home to more moonflowers, but isn't the rest of it looking good:

 

So Sunday will be spent examining seeds for about the 80th time, soaking beans and sunflower seeds to ready them for planting, and probably diagramming herb plantings, because yes, I am that obsessive!

YOU CAN GET A LOT DONE IN 3 HOURS

I was getting pretty sick of stepping over all of these pots:

 

Three hours later I'm down to:

I went simple and easy with the dahlias and emptied about half of the soil out of each container (the old soil went into large containers that will be used for vegetables), examined the dahlia tubers as I went, and then I topped off the containers with new Miracle Gro potting soil.  The five pots along the cellar doors went right back over there:

This container had annuals in it last year, but this year I decided to put the Ebony Star dahlia in it.  It was a very late bloomer last year, so I decided to put some calibrochoa in there too for some visual interest while I'm waiting for the dahlia to grow:

I like this pairing, but I really think I need a third container here: 

 

Looks good with three, but not this purple one...it needs a green (and I'm not sure what to plant in it once I buy one):

 

I can't really arrange these containers until I put the greenhouse away and the furniture goes into the proper location:

 

I even planted two dahlias in the patio garden amongst the irises -- a platinum blond and this hootenanny.  We'll see how it works out:

 

I also planted 2 calibrochoa in a hanging planter: 

 

Yet another addition to the shady side of the house.  This was the last container with a dahlia in it and the tubers had rotted.  Perfect vessel for the 3 tiny ferns I had growing on the kitchen table (on the left):

I have to say I'm pretty happy with the way things are looking over here:

And lastly...the first tomato has been planted!  A Green Zebra heirloom plant in a matching large ceramic pot on each side of this bench:

I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

ROLLING RIGHT ALONG

I'm still terribly behind in getting the garden going, but I put in another 3 hours in today.  Of course, not all of it was spent gardening.  Like the time I spent trying to photograph the fattest bee ever in the azalea.  I missed him, but I thought this photo was cheery and it captures the true color of the azalea a little better:

 

The seedlings are doing great.  I probably should have started them a week or two earlier, but if I'm ever going to get serious about growing my own seedlings, I'm going to have to get a grow light or six:

 

In fact, I thought the moonflowers looked so good, it was time to get them in the ground.  Plus if they fail after transplanting, I'll still have time to direct sow seeds:

Can you spot all four seedlings I planted in the patio garden?  Hint...they're in front of the trellises:

Lemon thyme joined the herb pots, leaving space for only one more herb.  I wonder what it will be?  Cilantro's still leading the pack:

 

Since I'm over on the shady side of the house, let me update you on this section of the garden.  I wish the hillside would look this good all summer, but alas, the marsh marigolds will die off soon leaving only struggling vinca.  Two hanging planters of impatiens will brighten up the area a little:

I plopped a fern in the empty spot in this container (you can see the rather large fiddle-heads).  It's either a Japanese painted fern or a cinnamon fern.  I guess we'll see which shortly:

 

The bare-root astibles are really coming along here, but I added a lamium (the label said pink flowering):

 

And I added another here, though I did find that the hostas I put in this container are slowly making their way to the surface.  I'm guessing I planted them too deep:

 

I added some dark salmon colored impatiens to the two containers flanking the front porch.  Don't you just love the cinder blocks under the porch?  I'm too scared of spiders to start pulling them out of there and I'm not sure where I'd put them anyway: 

 

More impatiens, but I need to charge the drill to rehang the planter hooks that were on the 3 trees that were removed and I was just too tired to walk the blue pots to the other side of the house:

 

I'm getting there slowly, but surely.  There's not that much left in the greenhouse (well lots of tomatoes, but I'm not ready to do those yet):

 

And that was my afternoon.  Back inside the lilacs are pretty much done and the wind and rain did a number on the bleeding hearts, so I trimmed off the bent/broken stalks and stuck them in a vase.  Certainly not the most conventional flower arrangement ever, but I like it:

  

If I can put in 3 hours every day this week I just might get all my seeds sown and seedlings planted by May 15th, which has been my goal all along.  Do you have a gardening goal that you're working toward?

NOW THAT WAS A SPRING DAY

I can't imagine a nicer way to spend Mother's Day than finally working in my garden -- can you believe we went 24 hours without rain?  The rain and Sunday's wind really did a number on the tulips:

 

But there are still some beautiful tulips blooming:

 

With the wind I had a hell of time getting this one in frame:

 

The birdbath is back in the patio garden now that I'm reasonably certain there are no more irises lurking under the mulch:

I've found that nothing grows really well in the ground in this spot.  Too much competition from the tree roots I think.  So this year I'm going to take advantage of the sunny spot and grown a bunch of herbs in small pots here.  Front row from left to right is lavender, rosemary, basil, and spearmint.  Back row will be cilantro and dill (both are still tiny seedlings), and all the way on the back right is the other lavender:

I like this visual representation of all that I planted on Sunday:

The husky cherry tomatoes are in: 

 

I purchased 2 "plants," but one of them had 2 tomatoes growing in it (chosen specifically for that reason), so I carefully divided the roots and planted them each in their own containers.  If you look very close, you can see all three containers in this photo:

I've started the side garden.  3 petunias in hanging containers and 2 large ceramic planters are done:

The large container on the right above may turn out to be my very favorite this year.  It has purple fountain grass, coleus, and sweet potato vine and that seemingly blank spot is actually the micro-mini dahlia:

But I like this one a lot too!  It also has purple fountain grass, sweet potato vine, perilla (very similar to coleus), and Marguerite daisy:

Here's another example of VPH saving a plant I've given up on.  This hosta used to be in the perennial shade garden, but I pulled it last year for an astible.  I told VPH to compost what I thought was the dead plant, but apparently he planted it on the hillside near the bastard garden instead:

 

Can you see it all the way over on the left:

 

My friend Mary is giving us some more hostas and SS2 gave me the best Mother's Day present ever!  So this azalea will shortly join a bunch of hostas on the hill:

I've still got all these dahlias and herbs to get organized.  All the herbs are either going into the 1/2 wine barrel or the large blue ceramic container like last year.  I have no clue what I'm going to do with all the dahlias:

All in all a great start, but OMG I still have so much to do!

TGIF Because Tomorrow I Garden

It's been a hell of a work week -- I spent the whole week prepping for a meeting that got postponed after I sent out materials for it at 5:30pm today.  Oh well, it's not wasted work because the meeting will still take place, I just don't know when. 

The few minutes I did spend outside on Thursday were a welcome respite.  I'm so pleased with how strongly the heuchera in this container is coming back.  I'm thinking a nice torenia for that empty spot:

 

At least one of the bare-root astibles is growing nicely:

 

The patio garden is everything that I had hoped it would be:

 

The double daffodils are finally blooming as the singles fade, and there's all hues and shades of tulips now:

 

This weekend will be all about gardening.  A trip to North Guilford Nurseries and transplanting all the herbs that successfully overwintered (including the bee balm from Layanee which I still haven't found a home for...I'm afraid that it would take over the herb barrel, so I'm thinking a nice container of its own):

 

I don't think the seedlings are getting enough light on the kitchen table and not that our evenings are warm enough, they'll be going out to the little greenhouse (VPH promised to get the shelves and cover from the basement for me tomorrow morning):

 

But oh the promise of all that basil:

 

I can't wait to get my hands in the dirt again!

WRITING THIS WITH THE WINDOWS OPEN

And I can't tell you how much I'm loving it!  It's been absolutely glorious here since Friday.  I'm starting to get tan!  More importantly, I have completed garden clean-up and I've got a nice blank canvas ready for planting:

 

And VPH mowed the lawn/marsh marigolds:

And cleaned up the patio (I cleared out the herb barrel saving any perennial herbs that survived the winter):

All the better to enjoy our awesome bulb border:

And the pretty marsh marigolds in bloom until the leaves on the trees fill in and they die:

I'm so loving the tulips (now appearing in yellow and orange):

That I can't stop photographing them:

I find it so peaceful sitting on the patio staring at this border, listening to the wind chimes, and watching the grasses move in the wind.  I wanted to share the experience with you, so I've uploaded a short video here.

Someone still has to weed this bed, though you can see that the hostas have come back, and the fence is down.  The reed fence we bought was too see-through and we won't be using it.  I think we're just going to have to deal with seeing the neighbors since we can already hear them:

In the perennial shade garden I've got bleeding hearts:

 

And fiddle-heads:

 

VPH has lots and lots of stuff to cut into small pieces for compost:

 

The grill is back in its proper location, but I can't get over how different the space feels without those 3 trees.  Granted, the leaves and brush haven't filled in yet and the marsh marigolds have yet to die:

 

But just compare it to what it used to look like:

Much bigger now, no? 

I just watched the weather for Tuesday, 80s at home, 90s at the office (62 miles north).  This is just odd for CT in April.  Then we're back down to the 60s (normal for this time of year) on Wednesday and hopefully then I won't feel so much like I'm behind on my gardening.

BEFORE MY ARMS GET SO STIFF I CAN'T TYPE

VPH really did most of the "heavy lifting" this weekend, starting on Thursday.  Luckily his school vacation (have I mentioned he teaches?) coincided with the first truly lovely days we've had this spring.  Call us wusses, but we're not gardening unless it's over 55 and sunny (or over 65 and cloudy)!

He got rid of all the leaves along both sides of the house on Thursday (believe it or not, we actually have more grass this year than we did last year):

For one reason and another I didn't end up helping very much on Friday despite taking the day off of work specifically to do so.  But on Saturday I jumped right in and cleaned up the Endless Summer hydrangea:

My next task for the day was to get this garden cleaned up:

 

First VPH vacuumed up the leaves for me:

 

But then I cleaned up all the old grass and day lily foliage by hand and weeded the rest of the bed (I hate marsh marigolds so much):

So much nicer, but I think I'll wait a little while to put down fresh mulch:

I also planted a bare-root clematis in front of the right-hand trellis.  I had planned on planting two, one in front of each trellis, but when I opened up the package only one was in there.  We'll see if the one I planted actually grows.  I may have to buy more mature plants down the road. 

I just love sitting on the patio looking at all the happy daffodils (the tulips look to be a day or two from blooming):

I did find a remnant of the wildflower garden, a lupine, growing in front of the row of bulbs and I decided to leave it and see if it actually blooms for me this year:

Speaking of unexpected flowers...this is right smack dab in the middle of VPH's bastard garden.  Anyone know exactly what it is?  About 6-8 inches tall and in such an awkward spot I couldn't bend over to see if there was a scent.  It sort of looks hyacinth-like to me:

 

The sad looking broken bamboo fence is now down, soon to be replaced with a 6' tall x 16' wide reed fence and VPH has cleared all the leaves from this area (the hostas are hiding under all the marsh marigolds):

The forsythia is in full bloom:

I think this mum is coming back, but I think it's highly unlikely that I will go to the trouble of finding a sunny place to keep it and waiting all the way until the fall for it to bloom:

The Branford fern is all fiddle-heads: 

 

The cute little astible (and yes, the perennial shade garden needs weeding and mulch desperately):

 

Today (Sunday) I planted up 3 new containers with shade perennials for the side of the house by the grill where the trees were removed.  Bare-root hostas and astible predominantly, though you can just see the creeping jenny that overwintered in a hanging planter on the top right (creeping jenny has turned out to be just about unkillable in my garden):

 

I can't say yet if I'm going to like this area or not.  I'm planning impatiens in any blank spots for all the containers and we still have to put the grill back.  In a month or so I should be happier:

There is much work still to do.  Including locating and probably transplanting all the perennial herbs like this woolly thyme:

Finally cleaning up the vegetable garden and prepping containers for new plantings:

And the biggest job of all...assembling the new shed, which VPH and I are both dreading.  It's in this box (now covered by a weighed down tarp), the foundation is in a box in our kitchen and its anticipated location will be the site of the current ripped shed at the back of the garden:

Our plan is to assemble the foundation on the gravel patio, get an accurate measurement and then build a simple gravel base surrounded by 2x4s just like the gravel patio, build the shed on our nice level concrete patio, and then move it to its final location (which will hopefully be level).  This will be our most ambitious plan to date and you can clearly see why we're not excited about doing it.  It may quite possibly be put on hold until SS2 comes home from college and can help out.

STILL NOT A LOT OF GARDENING GOING ON HERE

But at least we're taking advantage of the cold, rainy April weather to do our spring cleaning.  I'm firmly convinced that if we never had company our house would be a shit-hole, since the only time we reallyclean (more than dusting and vacuuming) is when people are coming over. 

VPH's ex-in-laws are joining us for Easter dinner on Sunday.  Think about that for a moment.  VPH's ex-wife's parents are coming to our house for Easter dinner.  I thought step-son #2 (who now lives with us full-time when he's not at college and will henceforth be known as SS2) would enjoy having them and when I ran it by VPH he actually agreed.  I quite like them, so I think it will be a lovely gathering. 

However, it's thrown VPH into a whole new level of anxiety about the state of the house.  His former mother-in-law has incredibly high standards and he's freaking out about the possibility of her taking one look at our home and saying SS2 is no longer allowed to live in these conditions.  Add to that her reputation as a fantastic cook and you can see why he's a little nervous about making a lamb/mashed potato/asparagus meal for her.  He's really being silly, but he does have something of a point because I don't think we've thoroughly cleaned since last summer. 

Last night I finally got around to hanging the prints I submitted to the photography exhibit.  Three 11x14 frames from Walmart did the trick (gotta love $5 frames):

 

You can see the stacks of DVDs on top of the entertainment center (placed there after they were opened on Christmas day) and the general mess on the kitchen table.  But the most important thing is that my photos are finally up!

I did take a quick walk outside to see what was going on out there.  The daffodils are about to open:

You can even see the day lilies poking up in the background.  I really must clean up this garden.

The hostas are all coming up now (even the one in the large container that was missing last week has joined the party).  I have the tiniest little fiddle-heads of the Branford fern just appearing and today I found astible:

 

Which I'm particularly excited about because I was pretty sure we had killed it last year by transplanting it twice.

What's joining the garden party in your area?

WHAT I LEARNED THIS WEEK

1. If I wait long enough flowers will come:

And they will be gorgeous:

 

2.) At night crocuses close their little blooms and sleep:  

3.) Bleeding hearts will successfully overwinter in a container:

 

4.) As will heuchera (though there's no sign of the hosta that should still be in this container):

 

Look at those adorable little leaves:

 

The hosta in the perennial shade garden is starting to pop out:

 

At this point in the day (Tuesday) I had gone inside and thought I was done taking photos.  Then I heard a ruckus outside and looked out the window to find:

 

And out the front door:

Yup, after 11 years of promising, the landlord finally arranged to have 3 trees taken down along the house:

 

I went out to run errands and escape the noise, but before I left I asked the nice tree men to leave me level stumps so I could put containers on top of them.  They certainly left a mess: 

 

5.) Tree men (or at least these tree men) don't quite understand the term "level":

 

Now before you get all excited that I'll be able to plant anything not specifically for shade, there's still plenty of tree canopy:

VPH says he's going to feel a little exposed grilling over here now:

 

But I've already started buying containers to fill the void: 

 

I can't wait until it looks like this again (last May):

It was nice enough outside today that I really felt guilty for not spending the day cleaning up the garden, but I just couldn't find the motivation.  Soon.

THIS WILL BE SHOCKING...

But there are actual plants growing in my garden!  You have to keep a sharp eye out in order to spot them though:

Did you see the chives under all that dead lemon grass:

The chives that I grew from my mom's seeds last year are coming back too.  I was surprised to see these though because they never exactly thrived last year (please note the gravel in the pot from VPH's enthusiastic snow shoveling of the driveway this winter):

 

 Deep in the heart of this dried, sad-looking mess:

 

The oregano is looking pretty good:

 

I'm really excited to see the bleeding hearts in the container in the perennial shade garden coming back.  I wasn't at all sure that they would survive the brutal winter in that medium-sized planter: 

 

Now what the heck are these things?  I'll be watching closely to see what they develop into:

 

There are lots of them:

 

It's getting a little bit warmer out there.  Another 10 degrees and I'll be happy to get into the garden and do some much needed clean-up.  And I'm thinking strongly of planting peas in the ground along the base of the house where I grew sunflowers in pots last year.  I'd like to get that done this weekend to be sort of close to the traditional St. Patrick's Day planting date.

HOW TO CREATE A GARDEN FOR UNDER $100

The easiest way to create a new garden on the cheap is to have friends who are giving away plants.  That's how you end up with a trunk full of day-lilies:

Then if you wait just long enough you can get perennial plants for 20% off at the local nursery, but still have enough time before the first frost to get them established.  Let's cross our fingers that the Feather Reed Grass that I picked up on Friday thrives.  It was a tight fit, but all 5 containers fit in the back seat with yet more day-lilies from the best gardening friend ever...Mary:

 

We had just set the plants out in a likely configuration when it started to rain:  

VPH fled inside as I clicked away.  I figured I could stare at the photos all night and scheme away:  

  

It stopped raining early Saturday morning and we finally wandered outside around noon.  VPH started turning over the old wildflower patch which I will now call the patio garden:  

 

Look how lovely that soil is -- lots of worms: 

 

Then VPH mixed in a wheelbarrow of finished compost.  Or at least we think it's pretty much finished.  It was a little stinky before he turned it into the garden, but full of worms:

The other pass-along plants from Mary -- irises, lavender-colored reportedly:

 

We got the grasses in and the day-lilies planted (we divided the two largest clumps, but kept the medium-sized one as it was, making five clumps out of the original three) and planted them all before we called it a day: 

It's a little straight lines and balanced, but that's the kind of people we are, remember that the wildflower patch was too chaotic for us:   

The patio is a shambles (and filthy):  

A quick trip to Home Depot for mulch and an impulse buy of 2 trellises later, not to mention a surprisingly large amount of math and sweat expended on planting the irises, it's done:   

 

The reverse angle:

 

A few highlights...I left the open space in front to plant a river of bulbs in a month or so.  When they finish, I'm thinking this will be a good spot for a zucchini vine or two next summer.  The copper birdbath in the front of the photo was a humongous bargain at 75% off, could be because there was no stand, it's a little dented, and tarnished, but I don't care, I love it:

I also love that I was able to use the lily-pad stepping-stones that I already had.  Now I just need to decide what I want to grow up the trellises:

  

There are 4 groups of irises.  2 between the grasses along the wall here and two to the right of each of the day-lilies.  You can just see the tip of an iris poking out of the mulch above the birdbath:  

A better view of the stepping-stones.  We think the day-lilies will be pink and yellow with a possible red thrown in, we'll see:   

VPH said (and I agree) that the garden is very zen.  We spent about 20 minutes sitting just staring at it: 

It looks like a much larger space now.  I'm not sure what, if anything, I will do with that white trellis over there (I may also move it), but I'm thinking a row of sunflowers along the wall actually growing in the ground.  A shorter variety though:

It really did cost under $100 if you discount labor.  $12 each for the 2 trellises, $43 for the 5 grasses, $11 for the birdbath, and 7 bags of mulch at $3 each gives us a grand total of $99 for this beautiful garden:

 

Many thanks again to Mary for the day-lilies and irises.  I'll spend some money on bulbs, but I think I'll be treating them more like annuals than trying to naturalize them, so I'm not counting them in the total out-of-pocket expenses.  I'm happily taking suggestions for what to grow on the trellises (they're about 5 feet tall).  Remember I like low maintenance.

LET ME BRIGHTEN UP YOUR DAY

Another dahlia is finally in bloom.  This one is the Platinum Blonde:

And two days later:

 

Now it and a few of my other dahlias seem to be covered in ants.  Should I be worried?  Should I do something about it?

This Aitara Majesty dahlia is so close to blooming for the first time: 

 

Some of my containers look like crap after 5 months.  Time for some new color.  At 4 for $10 I decided there were 8 mums that had to come home with me: 

This mum bloom (lower left side of the above photo) looks so much like a dahlia:

This bell pepper pool made me smile imagining it as a watering hole for the bug population: 

This creepy spider was on the underside of a Red Peter pepper leaf: 

And the last bit of color is Wednesday's harvest.  The red bell pepper from above, 4 Brandywine Pink tomatoes, beans, dahlias, and zinnias make for a colorful composition: 

 

And pretty tasty meal or two!  We're knee deep (well ankle deep at least) in planting the new patio garden, so I should have a pretty good post for you Monday morning.

IT STARTED OUT RAINY

The holiday weekend started out with a rainy Saturday morning, but the remainder was glorious.  I took some photos of the garden mid-day Saturday and then spent the rest of the weekend doing nothing, which is what Labor Day is all about. 

The sunflowers are really enhancing the view from our favorite late-summer sunning spot:

The sunflowers also provide endless opportunities to photograph bees: 

That really tall dahlia finally bloomed, I'll have to check the label and see which one it is: 

The micro-mini is going strong:

I like how they look as they age: 

I realized I haven't shown you yet that the heather plant is thriving (not to mention the rosemary next to it): 

And the various shade plants in containers are also holding up quite well: 

That's about all the effort I feel like putting into anything other than grabbing the aloe to sooth my slight burn.  Hope your weekends were as lazy as ours.

CALENDAR-WORTHY?

Sunday was a beautiful day in the garden.  The bees were loving the sunflowers and so was I:

Now I need your help.  Which of the following photos is calendar-worthy?  Make sure to click on them to view full-size so you can make an informed decision.  Number 1:

Number 2:

Or Number 3:

  

I really need your opinions, readers!  Whereas I'm pretty sure this photo is calendar-worthy (I particularly like how the near petals are out of focus):

The rest of these photos have not been deemed calendar-worthy, but I thought you'd still enjoy seeing them.  I can't seem to stop shooting this dahlia (Hootenanny):

And these small eggs on the underside of a morning glory leaf begged to be photographed:

I thought you'd get a giggle out of how heavy the Brandywine Pink tomatoes are and how lazy a gardener I am for just letting the bent branches stay that way:

And lastly my Big Early Bell peppers are finally showing some color. Big, yes; Early, not so much:

Seriously, please tell me which of the sunflower shots is calendar-worthy.  I'm totally stuck.

PHOTO FRIDAY

It's alliterative and easy.   Here's a little lesson in the development of a sunflower along the side of the house:

Then you get:

And finally:

Next year I'll do a whole row in the ground here, cause the 3 are kind of sad (though you may remember I started with 6 seedlings in pots): 

This post needed some color:

And a little more:

 

Excellent news...the volunteers tomato plants have TOMATOES:

And the zucchini might get a last minute reprieve: 

Because if you look closely at the photo above there are female flowers forming.  Here I'll help:

Off to bring youngest step-son to college.  I'm going to be a blubbering mess later today.  How can the little boy who used to hold my hand in the Walmart parking lot be old enough to go to college?

FINALLY, SOME DAHLIAS

I still have a few that haven't bloomed yet (and a few that I'm pretty sure won't), but two more dahlias are in bloom in Heather's Garden.  The micro-mini:

Which is indeed micro-mini, but beautiful up close:

This is the hootenanny -- totally gorgeous even if it isn't fully flowered yet (and more burgundy-hued in real life): 

It's definitely tomato season: 

One of the Brandywine Pinks on top of the frittata with zucchini from a local farmer's stand (and it was as delicious as it looks):

And lastly, when you're a girl from the U.S. spending a year living in the boonies in Ireland, this is apparently the stuff that you miss from home (and you can, of course, buy Crocs in the U.K., but they're a heck of a lot cheaper here):

There's no Japanese restaurant anywhere close to where they're living either, but sushi doesn't ship very well.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE (THANK GOD) NOT THAT UGLY

I could stare at poppies all day:

They're just so fascinating -- even in the bud stage:

The Endless Summer hydrangea is doing fantastic.  So much better than last year:

The hostas are blooming:

Well, all but this one which is not long for my shade garden looking like this:

The morning glory leaves are being eaten by something (and I'm pretty sure they're not getting enough sun here and that's why they're not flowering):

This dahlia bud shows promise of some color for the garden: 

This may be October 2009's photo: 

 

I'm enjoying cutting flowers and putting them into these little vases on the kitchen windowsill:

Did you identify what was good, what was bad, and what was ugly?

FINALLY!

At last the peas are flowering (Little Marvels planted 4/19):

The rain and the heat have led to insane growth in the veggie garden.  Look at those zucchini in the middle:

I don't think those Brandywine Pink tomatoes are going to be able to go another month in those little hanging containers:

There are blossoms on the ichiban eggplant:

The nasturtiums are growing like weeds and the cucumber is finally taking off:

I decided it was time for the first harvest of lettuce crop #1 (on the left): 

I filled the salad spinner:

Which was enough for a modified Cobb salad for me (grilled chicken coated in Herbes de Provences [for Genie], avocado, blue cheese and my favorite white balsamic vinaigrette dressing):

And VPH's barbecue chicken, blue cheese, and Newman's 3 cheese balsamic dressing:

 

I have to do something about these seedlings (and I have no idea what I'll do with the leftover cucumber seedling):

 

I've been wanting a birdbath forever and picked up this one cheap ($26 from Odd Lots) last week.  Now if only the birds would start using it:

I finally got around to assembling those chairs from the basement.  Only one is pictured here because I need to get a replacement part for the other one: 

The white chairs and stools have been banished to the back of the property.  VPH said it was fun sitting up there looking down on the garden, but I have to imagine there are tons of mosquitoes up there: 

In other news...the Endless Summer hydrangea is looking good and should be flowering shortly: 

However the sunflowers are looking awful: 

And this dahlia appears to be dying, but I don't know why: 

I've also harvested some basil for my dinner Monday of tomato, fresh mozz, and a little olive oil.  They weren't my own wonderful tomatoes from my garden, but not bad for grocery store purchased -- and no salmonella.

MY BUMPER CROP

Before I start this post, I want to remind you that we rent this house.  And I'm not sure why I'm so in love with squares and straight lines, but there's hardly a curve to been seen in my garden.

This month on Gardening Gone Wild the Garden Blogger's Design Workshop topic is "Stone in the Garden."  I live in New England and as anyone who gardens in New England knows, our bumper crop is stone.  Strangely, most of the stone in my garden was imported, but maybe that's because I do most of my gardening in containers.  Actually stone got me started on this gardening adventure.  You can read more about that in my very first post here.  The walkway that started it all:

I have no idea why that huge slab of bluestone is where it is, but since we couldn't move it if we wanted to, there it will sit.  The beautiful rocks covering the bottom of the ugly concrete stairs were found all around the yard.  Our across the street neighbor's retaining wall is completely made of these stones too:

A view of the perennial shade garden from the ugly concrete steps.  There are 5 large stones between the plants in this garden because I thought they were beautiful.  Some are flat on the ground, some are standing up on end like monoliths.  The river of rocks on the right is to keep the hillside from washing onto the sidewalk.  It runs the length of the sidewalk and the concrete patio and so far it's working:

More of the river of rocks and the large stone where the IPOD Bose player sits when we're hanging out on the patio:

If you were to look up to the right here you would see the rhododendron/hosta bed surrounded with rocks that we found as we cleaned up the garden and started digging holes to plant.  I used large stones in front and smaller ones in back:

Now I know this post is supposed to be about natural stone, but even though the retaining wall is made of formed concrete blocks, I really like it.  Most of the stones in the perennial shade garden used to be in a first stab at a retaining wall in the same spot, but the concrete block just works so much better for such an extreme grade change.  Plus we don't have gutters on the house (more on that later), so there's often a river running down the mulch towards the wildflower patch:

On the other side of the wildflower patch I used some of the blue river rocks to create a border between the grass and patch.  You can also see the stone circle holding the mulch around the hydrangea (all of these were found as VPH dug holes to plant last year):

The opposite view reveals my solution to the house not having gutters.  All the water runs off the roof onto the row of river pebbles I put down.  Amazingly, this actually works pretty well.  And look how happy the sunflowers are:

We used to spend a lot of time walking from the little shed to the patio, so we put down a path of bluestones.  The fifth stone down is a large flat stone that VPH dug up from somewhere in the yard and moved to here.  The huge bluestone serving as a lintel for the shed was purchased and put down without sand under it which explains why it is now in 4 pieces -- my fault, not VPH's:

The path from the concrete patio to the pea gravel patio looks like stone.  But it's not!  It's plastic stepping stones.  They were so easy, we just placed them over what grass there was and they stay put because they have a plastic grid underneath to grab the ground.  VPH mows right over them.  I did poke a little hole in one wearing spiky heels, but I don't think anyone else has noticed.  When they wear out we will replace them with more bluestone: 

So you can see how it all works together:

These huge slabs of bluestone used to separate an asphalt parking space in front from the 2 dirt parking spaces.  Now they make a nice transition point from driveway to garden.  Note the 2 pieces of blue stone in front of the shower.  They feel really nice under bare feet instead of gravel: 

The gravel in the area next to the house is so much nicer than the dirt we used to have here.  Almost time for that greenhouse to go to the basement:

And last we have our strange front steps.  The bluestone slabs are beautiful, but they're propped up on cinder blocks and they're not even close to level:

I'd like to fix this, but remember we don't own this property and I'm not sure what we could use instead of cinder blocks to hold these up.  I'm not even sure we could move the stone to try to level it!

Do you have a lot of stone in your garden?

ALL DONE!

Make sure you read that quickly in a little girl voice, kind of like AH DUN.  I'm amazed myself, but I got all of this finished today in the few hours that I devoted to gardening:

• Transplant passalong dahlias to plastic containers
• Transplant Brandywine Pink tomatoes into temporary containers
• Plant pentas
• Plant all the herbs

First up, I had to split those 2 Brandywine Pink tomatoes into separate containers while I still could.  Their permanent homes are the containers in which the peas are merrily growing.  So into these hanging planters the tomatoes went (these planters will be the home to the Red Peter peppers, which will hopefully be big enough to transplant by then):

I can't believe this hanging a string and pulling it to the soil then wrapping the sweet pea around the string technique actually worked:

The passalong dahlias from Mary all potted up in plastic pots joined the rose on the lilypad stepping stones in the wildflower patch: 

The wildflower patch isn't looking too bad these days:

Just in case you looked at the photos of the Adirondack chairs and said what's Heather smoking, those look fine -- see how the footstool is completely falling apart: 

And this is the seat that split and was gorilla-glued back together.  It's getting worse: 

The pentas are potted up.  With a little TLC, I hope they'll be attracting lots of butterflies soon: 

Now for the fun part -- the herbs!  I started off by grouping the pots together with the container in which they would be planted: 

Note the upside down pot in the large glazed container to save some potting soil.  I tried to make sure each grouping had at least one thyme, one basil, and one sage plant.  Each one also had to have some purple and some yellow:

This is the grouping for the herb barrel.  I figured the perennials that had successfully overwintered in the barrel should probably go back there plus some annual herbs: 

The cilantro went into this pot (formerly home to the oregano that was invaded by an ant colony): 

The glazed pot all planted on top of its stump.  The herbs here are lemon basil, sage, sweet basil, cinnamon basil, purple basil and golden oregano: 

I took another photo a few hours later when this area had moved into shade.  I found the blue tones interesting enough to share: 

In the hanging basket I planted rosemary, more purple basil, lemon thyme, sweet basil, purple sage, and creeping thyme: 

I picked up the basket to hang on a hook and the hanger broke: 

So instead the container will live next to the carrots.  Note the two Brandywine Pink tomatoes hanging on either side of the trellis planter: 

The herb barrel and neighbor herb containers: 

We've got lemon grass, parsley, golden sage, sweet basil, opal basil, chives (which I will cut back once it finishes blooming), purple ruffles basil (which I suspect is going to die soon), thyme, and hot & spicy oregano: 

The lavender is covered in buds: 

I can't decide if this volunteer at the base of the lavender is cilantro or parsley: 

I still have lots of sweet and cinnamon basil seedlings growing in the greenhouse so I'll use them where anything doesn't succeed.  But in essence I'm done.  I really don't know what I'm going to do with myself now.  I'm happy to be finished, but I'm sad that my long hours of puttering in the garden are over.

I'VE BEEN A BAD GIRL

I can't wait to see what kind of Google hits I get from that title.  I've been a bad girl.  I can't seem to stop buying herb plants.  In my defense, I needed an oregano plant.  When I pulled out my oregano plant to repot it I got a nasty surprise.  A colony of ants had moved in.  I don't know if the plant was salvageable, but I really didn't care to find out.  Off to the bastard garden it went.  It's not my fault that I came home with both golden and hot & spicy oregano plants and I have no idea why I decided to buy a lemon basil plant, except that it smelled so good!

If you've ever driven down I-95 through Branford, CT then you've passed Vaiuso Farms.  In the old days when 95 was a toll road in CT, there was a toll booth just west of Vaiuso.  I used to ride into New Haven every day with my parents and I spent a lot of time staring at their greenhouses and fields. I always wondered what went on there.  Turns out they are open to the public, though not the way that North Guilford Nurseries is since their greenhouses are for employees only.  Their plants are lovely and inexpensive and they have a great selection -- I finally found pentas:

So that's it for me.  No more shopping for plants (unless something dies on me).  After tomorrow I will have everything planted and I'll be able to relax and enjoy the garden.  Like the planter table that's so pretty right now: 

I did plant the morning glories much too early.  The second round of seeds that I planted on the 18th are already popping up (3 to date).  The one surviving seedling is developing true leaves and the one not-so-surviving seedling (at 12 o'clock) looks like it's trying to develop a true leaf too, but I have my doubts: 

 

It kind of looks like I'm torturing the sweet peas, but I've been mulling over how to get them to grow up the trellis.  I've come up with a solution and I will show an after photo once I've completed the project:

I divided my chive clump and gave half to my friend Mary in the green container below.  She returned the container with a dahlia root and gave me 3 more clay pots complete with dahlia roots.  I'll move them into some plastic pots I have (the clay pots just dry out too quickly for my half-assed watering habits): 

The first bean sprout is a Royal Purple bush bean:

I can't believe we have an eggplant flower already: 

This is an unidentified (as yet) flower in the wildflower patch: 

Pretty, but throw some afternoon light on that sucker and wow! 

I'm really enjoying my new container on the shady side of the house:

Tomorrow I will get all the plant-related items on the to do list finished up.  I can't wait to spend the day in the garden!

I CAN SEE THE FINISH LINE AND I'M A LITTLE SCARED

What will I do when I finish everything on the to do list?  Marked off this weekend:

• Weed around hydrangea, surround with coffee grounds and fresh mulch
• Weed, mulch and fertilize rhododendron/hosta bed
• Weed, mulch and fertilize perennial shade garden

Just look at that hydrangea, I put down so many coffee grounds that I didn't need to apply any new mulch:

VPH weeded this bed for me and I threw down a bag of mulch.  Now if only we could get the grass to grow below this bed (I've given up on the area by the bamboo fence):

I'm so pleased with the way the perennial shade garden looks.  VPH weeded here (lots of tree roots coming through the old stuff) and then I put down a bag and a half of mulch -- so not my favorite job:

The reverse angle:

I was so inspired by Layanee's post on her container combos that I went back to Ocean State Job Lot and bought the huge container that I had my eye on for the shady side of the house -- earmarked for the dirt slope where nothing will grow.  It was only $28 and I was so tempted.  It's freaking huge.  The citronella torch next to it is 4 feet tall to give you an idea of scale:

I brought home (clockwise from one o'clock) a hosta fortunei 'Francee', white impatiens (more on them in a moment), polemonium boreale 'Heavenly Habit', and heuchera 'Amethyst Mist':

The white impatiens came in cute little straw pots.  Note that the label on the plastic handle says "Sustainable Resource" and "Simply Plant":

That's all well and good, but then they throw the whole concept away and put the adorable straw pots in a plastic tray with a plastic handle:

I had VPH rescue the lysimachia from bastard garden (it landed there when I didn't feel like cleaning up the fall planter table arrangement and then thrived).  It joined the hosta and heuchera in the enormous new planter (I probably should have said earlier in this post that I blatantly stole Layanee's container ideas):

The polemonium boreale, white impatiens and the rest of the lysimachia went into the last hanging basket up on a maple nearby:

I stuck the rest of the impatiens into a few ceramic pots I had on hand and balanced them on some large tree roots.  The hanging planter on the left is the new one:

I couldn't resist a few other inexpensive planters.  I'm not sure exactly what will go in this one, but I know I like how it looks on that stump, so the frogs will have to find a new home:

This one (the smallest) became the new home of the rose that my friend brought me when she came over for dinner last year.  I may stick a few other pots on the lily pad stepping stones in the wildflower patch until the wildflowers fill in (cross your fingers that they actually do): 

The last big job that I have, and probably the one that I've been most looking forward to, is planting all of the herbs that I've been collecting:

I have to find a home for the lemon grass, 4 thyme plants, 3 sages, 3 different types of purple basil, 3 sweet basil plants, an unidentified basil, cilantro, rosemary, parsley, and chives:

I have the herb 1/2 barrel and a hanging planter to fill.  I may also use the pretty blue container on the stump.  The lavender will stay in the container it's in and the Mammoth dill has already perked up from being transplanted to this container: 

I'm going to have to find a place for these sweet basil and cinnamon basil seedlings:

Did you notice above that all 8 Red Peter pepper seeds that I planted have now sprouted?  I'm only going to have room for 4 of them and so far no one has wanted the other 4, but hopefully I'll find a friend who will take them.  Speaking of vegetables, I pulled out some plant stands and a little white side table for the pots containing the Royal Purple bush beans.  Can you even see that in the below photo?:

It's officially outdoor time in Heather's Garden.  The cushions are on the chairs, we had our first cook-out (with guests) today, and our first fire of the season (if you look closely you can see the burning embers in the fire pit):

I have a few new items on the to do list.  The Adirondack chairs and footstools purchased at Christmas Tree Shops last year (selling for $10 more this year), did not weather the winter too well.  To be honest, the paint started flaking off almost immediately and one seat slat broke last year, but gorilla glue got it back together again.  I bought some white spray paint and will see if I can salvage at least the chairs, but it's not looking good for the footstools.  I don't think storing them in the cellar would have made much of a difference.  I bought nice wood ones last year from an on-line service that I like which we never put together (they're in the basement in their original boxes), so getting them assembled and seeing if we like them is item number one because I don't want to sit in these filthy, flimsy things anymore:

I'm so excited about my self-coiling hose for next to the potting table, the gray hose is already attached to the other one and on the hose cart.  The chicken wire and posts are for to list item #2 -- a leaf enclosure.  Apparently VPH's leaf pile/bastard garden is leaning on our neighbor's fence and he wants it moved.  There's a spot between the big shed and the fence that will be perfect for a wire circle full of leaves:

All in all it was an excellent Memorial Day weekend and it looks like we may just get everything in before June 1st -- except pentas, which I haven't seen anywhere!  What am I going to do when there's nothing else to plant?

DON'T WORRY, I'M STILL HERE

I've just been incredibly busy with work the past few weeks.  It's amazing what walking outside to the garden will do for my disposition though.  I was a cranky brat after working non-stop from 10am to 6pm on Thursday -- literally taking 5 minutes to go to the bathroom and inhaling soup for lunch while I typed with the other hand.  I took a much needed break that day at 6pm and stepped out to the garden for the first time in almost 48 hours.  Before I knew it, an hour had passed and I had to head back inside.  It's warmed up quite a bit over the last two days.  Thursday it was in the 60s and today it was in the low 70s.  The plants are loving it.  Bay State Angel dahlia:

These 5 dahlias will make the cellar entrance (one of the first things you see entering our garden) a little less in your face ugly.  We'll have to be careful to keep the one on the right watered since the overhang kept the nice steady rain we had for 2 days from wetting the soil at all:

I can't decide if I like that little pot of pink petunias there or not.  Thoughts?  Keep in mind that the trellis will be covered with purple hyacinth beans soon: 

Moving to the veggie garden.  I can't believe how quickly the Brandywine Pink tomatoes are growing.  I think I may have to get them into separate pots soon:

The mesclun lettuce basket is already much taller than this photo from Thursday shows:

The first tomato blossoms of the year are on the Sweet 100 cherry tomato plant:

Ya think I needed to thin the carrots?:

Look at all those poor baby seedlings dying in a mass grave:

The Ichiban eggplant is really happy in it's new home.  Since the purple and green (my favorite color combo) is right in its leaves, I'll be photographing this plant a lot:

Did you notice these thorns on the leaves and stems above?  I had to look twice in real life to make sure I was really seeing them:

Moving over to the herbs.  The chives buds are opening up:

The warmer temps and nice rain are helping the herbs to explode.  L-R creeping thyme, spearmint, Mammoth dill, parsley, and more spearmint.  The zinnias are looking good in front too: 

 

I have yet to find the right mix of sun and angle to show you the planter table's true beauty.  The colors are striking and vibrant in real life with dark purples and hot pinks:

My friend Mary came over and took one look at the purple flowers in the wildflower patch and said, "False Phlox."  She's good.  Here's the info from American Meadows (I used their seed to start the wildflower patch last year, though other seed has since been added):

Dame’s Rocket is often called “Wild Phlox” since the flowers are phlox-like in clusters on tall stems. However, these florets have only 4 petals (phlox have five), marking this species as a pink/purple member of the mustard family. Dame’s rocket is spectacular in early meadow bloom, and also carries a delightful clove-like scent. “Rocket” reflects the super-rapid growth in spring before bloom. The “Dame” in the name marks this flower as a favorite of women and mothers in medieval flower lore.

It's sure pretty no matter what you call it:

The wildflower patch is getting there slowly.  It doesn't look too bad from a distance:

The heather blooms are fading fast, but it's got new growth all over it:

The maple trees throw the west side of the house into dense shade, but the late afternoon sun through the canopy almost makes the shallow roots that kill any ground cover we plant on the steep bank next to the house worth it:

Do you see the mushrooms on the foundation just above the hosta?  Remember them.  Without a flash I couldn't get a decent photo, so this blue hosta looks rather green: 

Here's one of those perspectives you would never see in real life.  There's no way I would have laid down in the mulch to see these mushrooms up close:

 

I'm hoping to bang out the rest of the to do list this weekend before we have friends over for a cook-out on Monday.  Then I don't know what I'll do with myself!

HELLO STRANGERS

I was so swamped with work that I wasn't able to garden at all this past week.  I know, I'm crying for me too.  I've done a little here and a little there, but today--today VPH and I banged out a good bit of the to do list.  As it stood before our busy Sunday:

To Do List

• Put together shade annual baskets
• Plant up herb barrel
• Transplant eggplant
• Transplant bell peppers
• Plant Royal Purple bush beans
• Plant Kentucky Wonder pole beans
• Plant hyacinth beans
• Transplant tomatoes/marigolds
• Transplant zucchini/plant nasturtiums
• Transplant cucumbers/plant nasturtiums
• Weed and mulch vegetable garden
• Weed, mulch and fertilize rhododendron/hosta bed
• Weed, mulch and fertilize perennial shade garden

After a hard day's work from both of us:

• Plant up herb barrel
• Transplant zucchini/plant nasturtiums
• Transplant cucumbers/plant nasturtiums
• Weed, mulch and fertilize rhododendron/hosta bed
• Weed, mulch and fertilize perennial shade garden

I guess the manufacturer wasn't kidding when they instructed the buyer not to hang the thermometer on southern-facing wall.  The real temperature was just under 70 degrees, not nearly 90.

I moved it to the shady side of the house over the perennial shade garden (dear landlord, please do note how badly the window frames need painting):

20 minutes later:

 

I did finally get the hanging baskets for the shady side of the house together.  As soon as the rest of the marsh marigolds die off these will provide some badly needed color against the dirt/root hillside backdrop:

You may be able to tell that I used double impatiens, coleus, and torenia in these hanging baskets:

Now it may seem like I hung this basket way too high, but it's the right height to see it from the living room window over the air conditioner when it goes in:

The plant labels for my records:

I also finally planted the calibrachoa over the retaining wall.  The heather is growing quite nicely in its pot (though the blooms seem to be fading) and I really like the little rosemary plant in that shiny pot:

I guess zinnias do grow quickly (planted on 5/11/08):

The lettuce box is doing great, it's almost ready to start cutting:

The mesclun basket is on the same schedule as the zinnias:

Today's big project was getting the vegetable garden in order.  VPH raked the mulch to kill the weeds that were poking through and together we put down another bag and a half of fresh mulch:

I will introduce the new additions from left to right.  In the first trellis planter we have a Park's Whopper tomato on the left and an Early Girl tomato on the right with marigolds in front:   

Purple Bell pepper:

Big Early Bell pepper:

I ran out of the Farfard potting soil, so the zucchini and nasturtiums will have to wait for me to make a nursery run tomorrow.  The two wooden troughs in back have Kentucky Wonder beans:

Ichiban eggplant:

On the left is a Bonnie Original tomato and on the right is a Celebrity tomato (the only determinate I am growing this year):

The 4 small brown pots (there's one more out of frame) have Royal Purple Bush beans in them.  The green container will be home to the cucumbers and nasturtiums as soon as I get that bag of potting soil:

One more shot of the full vegetable garden from a different angle.  You can see the peas on the right on the gravel patio.  If you're a really observant reader you will have noticed that I didn't plant the 2 Brandywine Pink tomato seedlings yet (too small).  I hope that by the time I'm ready to put in the seedlings the peas will be done and I can use those containers for the last 2 tomato plants:

Like I said before, the vegetable garden was the bulk of today's work, but I did get a few other things done.  The morning glory seedlings (all 4 of them) have been mysteriously failing.  I found something on-line that leads me to believe that the 2 weeks of wet cold weather we've had caused this:

I planted 8 more seeds today to join the one surviving morning glory seedling:

The purple hyacinth beans went into a planter at the base of a trellis.  Last year I only planted 3 beans, this year I used 8 -- I don't think we'll be seeing much of this trellis once the beans sprout:

Now I will turn my attention to the herb garden (and the poor neglected hosta/rhododendron bed in back of it):

The perennial shade garden doesn't need much other than a little raking, fertilizer, and fresh mulch:

Soon it will be time to put away the greenhouse (doesn't it look different than it did last week?):

I wonder when I became the kind of person who enjoys sitting and watching birds.  2 grackles sitting on the fence waiting to see if I will go away and leave them to eat in peace:

I hope to mark a few more items off the to do list tomorrow during my lunch hour, but I feel really good about where we stand.  I can't believe how much we have done this year compared to last year.  I didn't start blogging (or photographing) until late June last year, but I'm pretty sure we didn't have 1/2 of what we've done this year completed until at least a month later in 2007.

THE START OF A TREND?

What a fun weekend we had and almost none of it was garden-related!  VPH and I traveled up to Boston Saturday afternoon and spent the night at our favorite Boston-adjacent hotel, the Quincy Marriott.  Another fantastic dinner from room service and a quiet night of TV followed by an early morning on Sunday so we could head into the city proper to the Prudential Center where I had an audition for Jeopardy.  It was a really fun morning and if I ever get a call to go out and be on the show I'll tell you about it.

By the time we arrived back at home on Sunday afternoon, the sun had emerged and the thermometer hit 70!  I hung out on the patio for a little while and tried to only see the one blooming wildflower and not the mess in the wildflower patch:

There are, however, may of these tall plants:

That when you get really close look like they're about to bloom purple:

I hope this is the beginning of a trend -- a purple and green trend.  The lettuce box is jumping right in:

Can you believe I've had this camera for 2.5 years and I've only just figured out how to choose a focal point not in the center of the frame?  An insect's view of the lettuce:

I have lots of blooms on the vinca, which are, as their common name implies, periwinkle:

But this one is purple:

And although this one is periwinkle, its shape is completely different:

I can't remember if I mentioned that the lawnmower crapped out, but I threw it up on Freecycle and someone came to get it yesterday.  Meanwhile 2 days of rain and 1 of sun have given us ridiculously tall grass (where we have grass), so VPH and I will be picking up a push reel mower this afternoon.  I have a feeling I will also be picking up other stuff at HD, including a bunch of annuals. 

I will now go write minutes on my patio. 

WHAT'S THAT BRIGHT THING IN THE SKY CALLED?

4 inches of rain in less than 48 hours after nearly two weeks without a drop.  Can we do anything in moderation, Mother Nature?  I stepped out the side door and stopped dead in my tracks:

I remember those dark things on the ground...I think they're called shadows, which must mean...yes, that bright thing in the sky is the sun!  All kidding aside, it was nice to see the sun again.  The two previous weeks of sunny warm weather definitely made 2 days of cold cloudy weather and 2 more days of cold rainy weather difficult to deal with.

It was good to see that the newly planted bleeding hearts made it through the deluge unharmed:

As did the wildflower patch (not the weed strip, Layanee):

If you click on the above photo to enlarge and look along the foundation about two-thirds of the way up, you may see the flash of yellow that caught my eye.  What the heck is this?  UPDATE: It's a Siberian Wallflower:

My first sunflower seedling is poking up through the soil (though this is one of the 2 that didn't have a little sprout coming out of the seed -- what does that mean for the rest?):

I think this little guy is the first of the carrots, but it could be a weed:

I love this photo of the dill seedlings emerging.  I tried to focus on the one standing straight up at 6 o'clock or the one standing straight up at 12 o'clock.  I didn't see the one just emerging (and in focus) at 3 o'clock until I was reviewing photos on my computer:

Mr. Cucumber and Mr. Basil have been joined by 3 zucchini seedlings and 2 more cucumber buddies:

Lest the left side of the seed tray feel left out, we have a sighting.  It's a chive -- maybe, depending on what seed my mother really sent me:

This rhododendron isn't going to flower this spring, but Layanee tells me that's not unusual in the first year after transplant.  It is growing though, so I'm not worried about its health.  Note how much weeding we still have to do here, which is a bitch with the steep hill:

I still want to see if these weeds (tentatively identified as marsh marigolds) will die off some when the trees fill in since they're all but impossible to pull out of the ground with the rhizomes and all.  Oh who am I kidding, I just don't want to do it!

Do you have a garden chore that you hate and continuously put off?

NOT SO LAZY SUNDAY

It was really cold and cloudy yesterday -- just 55 degrees.  I hemmed and hawed and whined, but bottom line we took Saturday off and there was garden stuff that had to get done.  First up I had to get that spearmint divided and back into pots.  I split it in half and put half back into the original pot.  Then I split the other half in two and put it into 2 smaller clay pots:

I've been planning for a while to empty out the large herb barrel.  If you're a long time reader, you'll remember that I screwed up and put heavy garden soil and a little potting soil in the barrel last year.  It never drained very well and most herbs like dryish soil.  So the chives had to come out.  I gave them a little haircut first and then realized the clump could easily be divided:

These pots are temporary -- just waiting for VPH to empty the barrel for me before I start a new herb garden.  I love that there are a bunch of buds on the chives already:

Excuse me while I have a ball photographing the chives:

The lavender is staying in this pot for good:

The parsley will hang here for a little while:

I decided to use the mid-sized pot I bought on Saturday for the 3 bleeding hearts I had hanging around.  I cut a piece off a screen from the gazebo to help the soil stay in the pot:

Last year I planted a bleeding heart in the perennial shade garden (pardon the native plants, I've been waiting for it to rain before I weed and put down fresh mulch), but it died not long after.  I read that bleeding hearts die off in the summer heat, hence the pot.  If these don't do well, I'm going to find something else to plant in that spot: 

I'm happy with this, in fact, I think the pot looks really pretty there...I'm just anxious for the fern to grow large enough to be visible:

I finally got around to drilling holes in the new metal garbage can.  Now we can start a new compost bin in it and let the other one finish turning into black gold.  I'm hoping that it will be ready in time to use on our tomatoes.  Now I just need to remember to pick up a bungee cord to hook from handle to handle through the lid handle:

I did sneak in a little work on Saturday after our walk.  I took down the dead bean vines from last year and the netting from the fence.  This is the last portion of the garden where VPH needs to clear leaves.  He also needs to find the bag of lime in the basement and get it down on the lawn.  And someone needs to weed over here -- any volunteers?  Not one of my favorite tasks:

We're supposed to have 2 days of rain -- for which I am very grateful after 2 weeks of none at all -- so I don't anticipate getting much done in the early part of this week.

The to do list is rapidly shrinking.  I keep telling VPH if we just get a little done each day we'll be finished before we know it.  I haven't told him that we'll never really finish, but I think he's already figured it out!

JUST A TASTE

I had to hold the camera down to the ground to get you a shot of the fern coming up.  I'm giddy, in fact I'm having trouble keeping a smile off of my face:

The creeping jenny I crammed into a pot instead of composting it with all the dead plants from the container in which it overwintered:

The Endless Summer hydrangea is developing really nicely, the grass...not so much:

The oregano is now visible to the naked eye:

No time to write more, but figured I should post on Earth Day.

WE ARE ON FIRE!

Today VPH and I spent 4 hours working in the garden (that's 4 hours each for a total of 8 man hours).  It was another incredible spring day, you know the kind where you can wear capris and a tank top and not be cold, but also lug around huge pots, bags of soil, and lawn furniture and not be sweating.  In other words, my favorite kind of weather!

VPH concentrated on cleaning up leaves along the shady side of the house and the front parking area.  I worked on emptying pots and filling them back up again!  I'm trying to do a lot more from seed this year.  I know I'm saving money, but for an instant gratification girl, it's tough to see all these pots of dirt and no plants as yet!

My first stop was the potting table, I had to get organized (I keep finding pots I don't remember buying).  It seems silly, but including all the emptying of the pots of old plants and such this job took hours:

Now I feel like I have a better handle on what's going where this year.  Yes, I still Have Miracle Gro products -- I will use them up on non-edible plants and don't plan to purchase them again.

The heather plant is safely potted up and where I'm pretty sure it's going to stay:

I think we'll grow calibrochoa over the retaining wall like we did last year.  This may end up being my favorite spot in the garden again.  I like the added height that being in the pot gives the heather:

Sugar snap peas are go:

As are the Little Marvel peas:

The two white pots are Nantes 1/2 long carrots and the blue ceramic pot is Mammoth dill (do we need to weed or what?!):

This next photo is something of a preview of coming attractions and I'm only going to tell you that the pot contains sweet peas:   

I should have soaked these seeds over night so I could plant them today.  First task for tomorrow and I'd better go stick them in a bowl of water while I'm thinking of it:

VPH is going to clean up the rest of the leaves tomorrow while I finish up planting.  One more hour of vegetable garden clean-up to complete the task and then I think we'll get 2 fun projects done.  Am I being purposely vague?  You betcha!

UPDATE: It's Sunday now and only 50 degrees and cloudy.  The garden is most definitely not calling me plus I'm a dumbass and forgot to soak the seeds overnight.

SPRING HAS SPRUNG

It was so beautiful today that we just had to go for a walk this afternoon.  Our neighbor across the street has the nicest lawn on the block.  He has a garden in back, but I've never had the courage to take him up on his offer to go over and pick zucchini and cucumbers whenever I feel like it.  But his forsythia bush is screaming spring at us as we walk out the front door daily:

We walked a different route today, one that I've never taken on foot before (except during a big snowstorm one winter when the roads were awful and we were dying for eggs).  I couldn't believe how beautiful these trees were.  It's a little tough in the photo to see the huge magnolia in the background, but it was the largest I've ever seen:

The 10 houses before this one and the 10 after are big lawns and foundation plantings, so this one sticks out -- in a good way.  I imagine a sweet old lady has lived in this house forever and she loves her spring flowers like she does her cats:

There's one thing from our walk that I couldn't show you.  There's an amazing garden -- and I mean amazing -- that we passed by.  I took photos from the sidewalk, but the garden is obviously the resident's pride and joy and I wouldn't feel right posting about it without asking permission first.  I plan to walk down again tomorrow, so hopefully I'll catch the homeowner out and about and be able to share its beauty with you.

Back from our walk now...I picked up these clay pots (25 of various sizes) from my next-door-neighbor when he had a tag sale at the end of the summer for $3.00.  I'm having a wonderful time deciding what to plant in them:

And yes, you spotted the last bag of that horrible Miracle Gro potting mix in the above photo.  I'll use it for non-edible plants, like the sunflowers I plan to grow in those 6 large pots.  I know they may be kind of small, but it's an experiment.  In case you're wondering what I'm using for potting soil this year, purchased for the ungodly sum of $15.99 a bag at the good gardening center, I present:

And for fertilizer...I finally found WORM POOP!  It was at Home Depot of all places.  I even got lawn fertilizer so the weed and feed is officially not being used this spring (but maybe in the fall).  Genie will be so proud:

VPH spent all day yesterday cleaning up the few leaves he missed in the fall.  He is such a trooper.  Now I just have to weed the perennial shade garden and put down fresh mulch.  I also purchased 3 bleeding hearts to plant in here -- just above the 3rd rock from the bottom:

VPH also did some work on the wildflower patch.  Note the wire fence on the patio that will go in front of the patch to try and keep the flowers from flopping over onto the patio:

See why this area is problematic for me?  It's all coming in very sparsely.  And I wasn't that fond of the out of control flop over in the rain and general chaos last year: 

I've got two options here --

1.) Leave it be for a month and see what develops.  If I don't like what I see, I think we're going to rip it all out and put in a perennial flower garden, even bulbs for early spring development next year.

2.) Use the perennial wildflower seed and poppy seed I have to fill in the blank spots and live with the chaos for another year.

I'm definitely leaning towards option 1.

VPH also cleared the leaves from the perimeter of the yard exposing the day lilies:

And you know how much fun he has playing in the bastard garden!  He pulled all the garbage out of the ground and piled it to the left and pushed the yard debris pile back against the fence.  He plans to put grass seed on the bare ground and do a dump run soon:

 

My forsythia bush and the weeds in full bloom.  You can't even see the bed with hostas and the rhododendron in front of the fence: 

The opposite side of the forsythia, cause I'm just digging on it:

In case you were wondering why we let the poison ivy grow out of the stump -- it's for privacy:

The lights from the gazebo are going up on Freecycle:

I've been cleaning up the veggie garden bit by bit.  When I went to tidy up the trellis planter that had tomatoes in it, I found a little surprise.  At one point last year I had planted garlic in a row in front of the tomatoes.  It didn't do well and I ended up pulling them all, or so I thought!  I can't believe one survived to stand tall front and center:

You have to look really, really, really close to find new growth on the oregano, but it's there:

We have big plans for tomorrow.  Planting the rest of the seeds, building trellises, finishing the garden clean-up, over-seeding the lawn in time for Sunday's rain, etc.  What will you be doing in your garden this weekend?

YEAR 2 IS UNDERWAY

First, I want to say again how sorry I am, Amy, that I couldn't make it to meet you yesterday.  Stupid job with stupid responsibilities!  I didn't get to do any of the things I had planned for my vacation afternoon on Tuesday.  No seeds were planted...no garden writers met...no fun had at all!

Today was another story altogether!  VPH and I took a trip up to Agway, our local garden center, and Home Depot -- hey they gave me a charge card, try and keep me from shopping there!  I spent the most money at the local garden center, though that could be because the prices are highest there.  Oh well. 

You know exactly how excited I was to sit down at this table and work:

See what a good girl I was:

In case you can't read the labels, l-r Marigolds (3 rows of seeds from mom, but I have no idea what color they are), Chives? (also from mom, first she told me they were onions, then she said chives, I guess we'll see), Red Peter pepper (a Christmas gift from mom, but this time she ordered them and had them mailed to me complete with label), Cinnamon basil, Sweet basil, Spacemaster Bush cucumber, Black Beauty zucchini (even though I was sure after last year's heartbreak I would never grow zucchini again).

I'm so proud of myself for re-purposing this old Zabar's tray into a lettuce planter (1/2 credit to VPH for suggesting it as a planter, 1/2 credit to me for thinking of what could go in this somewhat shallow container):

With all the running around, I got to planting a little later than I had planned.  It's still a little bit cool outside, about 65 and beautiful in the sun, but once it falls behind our neighbor's house it gets chilly out there.  I still have all of these to put into pots: 

The baggy is full of seeds from the purple hyacinth beans I grew last year.  The above photo is mostly for my reference so I can decide what I want to plant where.  I plan to buy the following seedlings: 2 cherry tomatoes, 6 tomatoes, bell peppers (last year we had 4 and it was more than we could eat, we're not sure how many we want to grow this year), and we're going to branch out and try eggplant.

Two new pots for the sweet peas and the morning glories and the re-purposed trellises from the gazebo.  And the heather in the pot purchased today at Home Depot that will be its new home.  I am trying to decide where I want to put it once the heather plant is safely transplanted.  Expect a photo montage and your opinion to be solicited:

VPH is being more patient with me than usual as I assign chores and ask silly questions, like how many bell pepper plants do we need and are you sure we don't want more than one cucumber plant...no I know you don't like cucumber as much as I do, etc.  I am so happy to be back playing in the dirt!

R.I.P. GAZEBO

Do you think it's a problem that I tell a lot of stuff to R.I.P. here?  On Monday afternoon VPH and younger step-son (both home due to April school vacation) helped me to disassemble the gazebo.  If you're wondering why we would disassemble the gazebo you obviously missed this post. 

The table's wet because it was covered in rusty water and sludge, so VPH cleaned it off.  When the gazebo collapsed, it gouged the table pretty good.  I'm trying not to let it bother me:

I didn't win the pergola on Ebay, and I'm not sure what to do.  I think a large umbrella might do the trick, but I really want a pergola.  The guy in NJ selling the previous pergola just put another up for auction, so I emailed him and asked if he has more and would he be willing to sell me one directly.  We'll see what he says.  But the poor table and chairs look so lonely now and it's sure not a garden room anymore:

I was right, the top of the gazebo is a good size for throwing over the firepit table.  After it dries off I'll clean it up and seal the hole in the middle:

I spotted a flash of blue off in the distance while the men did the heavy labor:

I've never seen these out there before, but this is the first year that the yard hasn't been completely covered in leaves come spring.  Can one of you knowledgeable readers identify these flowers for me?  [The answer was scilla siberica.]

They're not too far away from the day lilies, which VPH has promised not to mow this year now that we know they're there.  I suspect this portion of the yard was once a pretty little garden:

And most exciting of all -- I've got hostas in the perennial shade garden:

Both are looking good so far:

I have to admit that I squealed in delight when I brushed away the leaves to find actual plants growing.  Tax Day will be all about finishing the garden clean-up and getting my seeds started.

IS IT TIME TO PLANT YET?

Last year we didn't plant a single thing until May.  I know that we went to a Yankees game on May 6th and came home to a completed gravel patio and a seeded lawn.  Mother's Day was the following Sunday the 13th.  VPH and I are pretty sure that we planted the first of the vegetable seeds that week -- peas, lettuce, and garlic (in whole bulbs no less, I know but I had no idea what I was doing).  You can be sure that I will be documenting the date that I plant every single thing this year.

I know it's a good idea to plant peas and lettuce while it's still cool out, but I wasn't sure what else I should plant early.  So why not avoid the whole issue.  If I put together the little greenhouse I bought last year I can safely start all my seeds now!

Remember this thing:

But first, I did write that I was going to buy my very first pair of Felco pruners didn't I?  You know I couldn't go to the garden center and only come home with a pair of pruners.  As we headed home, VPH sarcastically said "You can't wait to get home and photograph what we bought today and write about your possibilities and dreams."  I replied, "Oh that's definitely getting blogged."  The focus of my possibilities and dreams: 

Yup, Heather's Garden finally has a heather plant again.  I'm not inclined to put it back in the same spot where I killed the first one last year and if we ever leave this rental home, I'd like to take my heather plant with me, so I'm thinking container -- a self-watering one in fact.  Here's the question of the day: Do you think I should put it in a large container with other plants or all by itself?

At $1.25 a six pack, I just couldn't resist purple, blue, and pink petunias.  I'm a little afraid that it's still too cold outside for them at night (though there are no freezes in the forecast), so I must assemble that greenhouse post-haste.  I bought the seed starter kit because I haven't decided what I'm doing about potting soil and I want to get my seeds started immediately.  I have a feeling that I'm going to be vacillating about this potting soil issue for a while. 

But first I want to cut things with those new Felco pruners!  I opted for the #5 and thank you mom for the gift certificate that bought most of them!  I pruned the rose:

I was having so much fun with the Felcos that I decided to cut some forsythia branches to see if the warm temperatures inside the house would force them into bloom:

UPDATE:  It worked!  Less than 24 hours later:

Then I put the greenhouse together.  I have to say I was pleasantly surprised that the greenhouse turned out to be a little bigger than I expected.  I don't think this is its permanent home, but it was right next to where I assembled it and it was 6:30pm and 50 degrees (plus I could smell the lasagna that VPH was making for dinner), so I shoved it against the fence and ran inside:

Do give me your advice on the heather plant.  In a container solo or combine with other plants?  If you opt for with other plants, recommendations please!

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS

First the worst news -- I had to cancel my trip to Logee's with Layanee again.  Stupid job with stupid responsibilities.  We have been driven to actually talking about going on a Saturday, or as Layanee calls it gardenday, so you know we're desperate to finally have our Northeastern Spring Fling.

This will be my second year gardening and my first spring to see what may or may not have overwintered successfully.  It's not all bad news.  But really, spring isn't quite here yet.  The forsythia isn't all that exciting:

And you know it's not really spring until the forsythia blooms.

Sadly the lawn isn't looking that good:

We always have a bumper crop of glass -- yes I said gLass.  Seriously, even when the lawn comes back (we're putting down a weed and feed as soon as we get 2 clear days in a row and then overseeding a month later), every time it rains you can look out and see the sun shining off the freshly exposed glass:

What little green you do see is this as to yet unidentified weed -- HELP ME PLEASE.  We'll have little yellow flowers blooming on this "native plant"  all over the garden soon.  I can tell you that when it dries out and the leaves come in on the trees (throwing most of the garden into shade) this plant is less prevalent:

The vinca is poking up through those weeds and even flowering:

I need your advice.  In the fall I sucked up all the leaves on the wildflower patch with the leaf blower into the bag (see Elizabeth's entertaining product review for if not my exact leafblower, a remarkably similar model) and then emptied the chipped leaves -- and hopefully any seeds I accidentally grabbed -- back onto the patch.  More leaves blew in from neighbors' yards and we had a pretty dry winter so these leaves didn't decompose quite as much as I thought they would:

Here's a closer view so you can see that wildflowers (and native plants) are poking up through the shredded leaves:

What should I do?  I don't think I can pull all the chipped leaves out without disturbing seeds and/or seedlings.  My thought is that this happens in nature too, so maybe I should just leave it be and see what is strong enough to poke it's way through like this little guy:

What do you think?  These guys are coming up just fine near the retaining wall:

I can't tell you how excited I am about this one -- the Endless Summer hydrangea is covered in new growth:

VPH is equally pleased to see that his rhododendron is present and thriving (though it appears that something has munched on a few of the leaves):

I think it's time to prune the rose plant which I'm pleasantly surprised made it through the winter in its not overly large container and very exposed to the winter elements spot:

My mom gave me a Van Wilgens gift certificate for Christmas and I think tomorrow she's buying me part of my first pair of Felco pruners.  I can also use them to cut back some of the dead stuff in the herb barrel.  The chives overwintered beautifully:

The parsley is looking good:

Only the tips of the lavender are soft and green.  Is this how they grow?

On the other hand the rosemary looks like a stick stuck in the dirt (but it still smells like rosemary).  It's kind of tough to see with the backdrop of dead lemon grass.  I was kind of hoping the lemongrass had overwintered, but if some green shoots do show up I'm not sticking them in my mouth like Kim:

The thyme is looking pretty sad:

Or is it?  Take a closer look at the base of the plant:

I love this adorable little green leaf on the sage (and I'm pretty fond of this photo -- maybe it will be April 2009?):

I have to admit I'm feeling a little more motivated to get out there and do some weeding and clean up. 

Please help me identify that native plant.  I think it may be dollarweed, but I'm not sure.  It has rhizomes, so no matter how much I pull each spring, it keeps coming back.  I've kind of decided I'm not too upset about it.  At least it's green and it flowers.

And tell me if you think the wildflower patch will be fine under those shredded leaves.  Or if that's a terrible idea, what should I do?

THE IN BETWEEN TIME

I ventured outside last night and took a brief, depressing walk around the yard.  I see tons of weeds sprouting up all over the place, but no sign of my perennial shade garden.

I actually had to go back into my photos to verify there were plants there in September and it wasn't my imagination:

Elizabeth described what I'm feeling so much better than I could in her post today.  She wrote:

It may seem odd to admit to this, but every spring at around this time, I begin to wonder if my garden will completely fail to appear.

This is my first year waiting to see if the garden will reappear and I'm not handling it well at all.  Elizabeth further wrote:

At times like these, I begin to wonder what I could do if the garden really were gone beyond recovery. I guess there would need to be a major spending spree.

This actually brought me back to reality a little bit.  Most of my garden is annuals because vegetables and most herbs in this zone are annuals.  Shortly after I planted the garden last year I lost 2 of the plants in the shade perennial garden to some sort of pest:

 

So worst case scenario I'm only looking at replacing 2 hostas and a fern -- I can handle that.  I'll do a real post soon on the state of things outside -- there are some positives out there (like buds on the Endless Summer hydrangea).

Until then I will close the same way as Elizabeth did...with the last of the bulbs I'm forcing inside.  Would you believe that the paperwhite in the blue pot is finally growing?  I know I didn't:

In addition to the hyacinth above I've got one stinking up the bathroom in a good way:

I pulled another hyacinth bulb from under the counter, but it lost all of its roots in the transfer from container to forcing glass and it hasn't shown any growth since it moved into the light.  I even had to throw a stone in there to make sure it doesn't fall into the glass.  Note the long root floating in the water on the right:

Now there are five bulbs left under the counter, but I'm not sure if any of them will fare better than the one above:

I hate this time in between winter and spring.  It's almost warm enough that I feel like I should be out there gardening, but still cold enough that I don't want to be.  I guess I could be good like Layanee and start cleaning up, but I don't want to!

How do you handle the in between time? 

GREEN THUMB SUNDAY

I've been loving the rose plant that my friend Ashley gave me.  I swear the roses that are blooming now are different than the ones I saw early in the summer.  I've read that this is possible (Google for an explanation), but no matter what, I'm enjoying seeing the beautiful white blossoms with pink and yellow undertones:

Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in Green Thumb Sunday every week. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.