Well, okay, it isn’t all fun, but it is necessary.  Worked a couple of days this past week in the garden, cleaning up more of the dead stuff and Dwayne had to mow.  He checked his records and the earliest he had previously mowed was April 9th.  It is certainly hard to not run to the Nursery and buy out their stock!

We built two new raised beds a couple of weeks ago and had them sitting where we think they should go.

 

 

This means having to move some plants and get rid of some others.  The peonies and the hibiscus get to stay, but almost everything else will be moved.  And we took out the (badly leaning) arbor.  We dug out the grapevine, too.  The yucca looks so lonely!

We put the beds in the ground and added the soil.  The post will hold a sign that Dwayne got from his work.

We moved the Russian Sage and put it over on the “hill” behind the spruce.

An iris got moved due to the post and our balloonflower and hellenium (sneezeweed) had to be moved, too.  I’m not sure where I want to put them, or even if the balloonflower will live (it is a taproot), so we put them in one of the older raised beds temporarily.

Lillies got moved for the other bed, so they are also in a bed until I figure out where to go with them.

With the arbor gone, I have a couple of clematis that had nothing to climb.  We moved our butterfly house post next to it so I can enjoy the blooms of the clematis.

Dwayne put the sign up on the big post.

So far, no trains have interrupted our sleep.

This warm weather has certainly helped a lot of plants pop out of the ground.  The Fern peonies are loving it.  They are apparently happy where we have them, too, because they seem to be spreading.

This is about a week ago:

This was this past Sunday (along with happy sedum and the knockout rose):

We still have some plants to dig up, but it is starting to look pretty good.

The north flower bed needs to be refurbished.

The Blackeyed Susans have taken over and will be dug out completely. Some will be transplanted to the Vinton Youth Garden, the other will have to fend for themselves wherever they end up.  While cutting off the old stalks to make the garden look a little better, I noticed that it is hard to make out some things that should be saved…

Among all of that green and brown is this:

It is not a Blackeyed Susan.  From my garden diary, it may be False Indigo Baptisia.  I got it for a dollar a couple of years ago during the end-of-the-season clear-out at a store’s garden center.  I will attempt to move this when we decide on what we are going to do with the area.  For now I have pulled the susans away from it.

We have a lot of stuff coming up quickly.  Here are my oldest bleeding hearts along with the bluebells and a stem of the astilbe that is anxious to get going:

Bleeding hearts and columbine on the northeast side of the garage:

Bleeding hearts, spiderwort and geraniums on the northwest side of the garage:

Tulips and daffodils co-blooming with a couple of hyacinths in our ash bed:

More flowers in the ash bed… Ole and Sigrid roses at the top of the picture:

Tulips and daffodils pack half of the round bed.  The other half used cheap bulbs that didn’t come up.  Lesson learned.

I don’t remember planting these as bulbs, but I did plant some tulips that I got from Heidi on our Saturday morning show a couple of years ago.  I will have to look at my garden diary or previous years’ pictures to find out… or wait until they bloom this year!

Growth on my Endless Summer hydrangeas is climbing well into the old growth.  A normal winter would have killed this down to the ground.  I trimmed one of the Twist and Shout hydrangeas down before I noticed the tiny new growth two weeks ago.

I pulled the mulch away from the Chinese miniature rose.  It isn’t really miniature, since it gets as big as Sven, Ole and Ingrid.

Poppies are taking over a portion of the north flower bed.  But that is what we want, so we will leave it alone when we change over the bed.

While trolling the garden to see what is growing and picking up the detritus of winter, I came across a trillium…

…next to the clematis, fern peonies and yucca….

…but I didn’t plant it there.  I planted it here….

….waaaaay across the garden (original at the bottom of the picture, the rock by the new one at the top)….

I found another one by the picket fence.  Apparently, trillium like my garden!

The garlic is doing very well after I pulled off all the straw.

Washington, DC had their Cherry Tree Festival a week ago, but ours…

is just starting…

But the tree is loaded with buds.  It should be beautiful in a day or so if the wind doesn’t strip off all the buds.

The birds should be really happy!

Dig it!

 

Posted under Spring

Mother Nature is being kind to us this year, although I keep thinking she is just waiting to spring Winter on us.  At least at this point, it won’t last too long if it does show up!

 

I decided to get some stuff done with the plants, mainly the potted plants, last Monday.  They have been sitting in the garage all winter, and with temperatures expected in the 70s, it would just be cruel to keep them bundled up and hidden away.

 

I unwrapped them and there was already, or still, green on the plants.

(notice the Minnesota Vikings can at the top of the picture?  My husband, a Bears Fan, said he was a die-hard Vikings Fan during the Purple People Eater’s era)

The mums are already feeling the Spring fever!

Some of the other plants look good to start Spring, too!

Most of the herbs look like they made it through… the oregano doesn’t look the best, but the purple sage, rosemary and thyme look pretty good.

The succulents in the boots are ready for some sun.

And the Hen and chicks made it through, too.

 

I dragged most of them to the back patio so they can green up a little more and I can make sure they will actually survive.

I slung out, then folded, the blankets and towels that I used to wrap all the plants.  Then I swept out the garage and watered the potted plants.

 

That didn’t take long and it was still way too nice to head inside.  Sooooo…. I went to the bed surrounding our Mountain Ash and started clearing out the leaves that had collected there, including around the irises.  It was pretty damp under the leaves, so I am glad I cleared the leaves out before the iris rhizomes started to rot.

Our Sven and Sigrid roses did not get covered for the winter.  No protection whatsoever, at least from me.  And they look pretty good!

As a matter of fact, Sigrid already has some growth on her!

While cleaning out the old leaves, I came across a few areas that had some ladybugs.  Not the orange Asian beetles that bite, but the red ones that I want to stick around.  There are a lot of varieties of ladybugs, but I will be happy to have the red ones in my garden.

I told them they could eat all the aphids they want!

The sedum is pushing up rapidly, so I cut off last year’s growth.

A lot of stuff is shooting up with this heat, so I have a lot more to do this afternoon!

Dig it!

 

 

Posted under Spring