More crocuses!

Maybe because the winter has been SO wet, my crocuses seem to have generated more new ones than usual this spring.  I even have some yellow "volunteers" in the tomato bed, several yards from where I've had any even last year.  Looks like I'll be doing some separating come fall. 

While I'm at it, I may plant some snowdrops too, so I'll have flowers that much sooner.

I love bulbs!

Back this spring I bought several pots of spring flowers - 2 pots of mini-daffodils, 1 of small pink tulips, and 2 of larger tulips, also pink.  This morning I planted the bulbs (didn't want to wait until fall).  To my delight, not only had the daffs multiplied, but the tulip bulbs had "sidecar" bulbs too.  I randomized daffs and tulips in the front of the square patch and planted the bulk of the tulips in the corner by the front door.

I also had some seed-looking things from the dried-up tulips, which I planted in front of the hellebore.  Now to wait until next April to see whether they actually produce anything.

I also did a little weeding.  My lone lavender is loving this crazy weather (record heat for 2 weeks, followed by a week of monsoons).  It produces more leaves than flowers, but the flowers have a lovely, if subtle, fragrance.  I may yet plant more next year.

Census of this year's garden

We went a little crazy with the plants this year.  The Chief decided to turn our rusted-out grill into a planter, so we filled it with dirt and:
- 3 angelwing begonias
- 3 double impatiens in different colors
- 2 browallias (new to me but suggested by someone on the nursery's staff)
- a variegated ivy
- 2 colors of torenia

I put "medium dark red" geraniums (this color's a keeper!) and a fuchsia Rising Star superbell in the railing planter w/ the annuals.  It's only just getting hot enough for the geraniums so it's too soon to tell whether I'll want to use the same combination next year.

The Chief also repurposed one of the clothesline poles into a trellis.  I just planted a Westerplatte clematis (burgundy) on the east side of it and a Ramona clematis (dark lavender) on the west side.

 

He also spent way too much time assembling our new grill (Kingsford, you need to fire or at least retrain the person writing the assembly manual!) and we got the umbrella "planted" in our patio table, so we're all ready for our first cookout of the season.

Out of the 21 ice plants (delosperma) I put in the front yard, only about 14 or 15 are growing or at least hanging in there.  Fortunately, the nursery will let me return the dead ones!  I do have to dig 'em up and take them back w/ the receipt, but they'll refund the purchase price.  My first choice would be to buy more ice plants; here's hoping they still have some.

This year's garden

Our neighbor to the south had to take down a big maple that was between our driveways.  We were hoping that would mean more sun on the tomato bed, but it doesn't look like that'll be the case.  Oh well, I put in 5 tomato plants anyway:  2 Sweet 100s, 1 golden (something), a Steakhouse, and another larger variety.  I also planted an onion that had sprouted; we'll see if it actually grows.

No purslane or sunflowers this year; instead, I've got lantana in the pot I used for lantana last year, and 2 other colors of lantana in the majolica planters that had sunflowers last year.  I'm looking forward to LOTS of butterflies and hummingbirds this year! 😊

I'm putting just 4 pots on the front steps this year.  One pair has angelonia, a tall white flower; melampodium, a short yellow one, and a "quartz mix" verbena that I hope will sort of split the difference between the angelonia and melampodium.  The other pair of flower pots has marigolds from last year's seeds.  I was delighted (and relieved) to see that the seeds started sprouting just a few days after planting.  I'm looking forward to seeing how they do.  One thing's for sure; as long as I keep harvesting seeds and am happy with the varieties I've got, I'll never have to buy marigolds again.

The biggest project so far was digging up a considerable section of the front corner of the yard next to the driveway and a smaller corner by the front door and putting in 21 ice plants (3 or 4 different varieties).  Eventually I want to have the whole patch planted with ice plant so it doesn't need mowing, but that's going to take a few years.  Buying enough plants for the whole patch -  as many as 100 bedding plants! - is more than I want to tackle (or spend) in a single year!

I have two pots of citronella, sold as "mosquito plant".  Maybe it'll keep 'em away, maybe not, but if they don't, at least I'll have 2 pretty plants that smell nice.  I also have some herbs.  My established oregano came back even after it got deadheaded last fall, and I also got a tiny seedling of a syrian variety of it from the local listserv.  I'm trying rosemary yet again, in the same spot as last year.  (I'm ever the optimist.)  In addition, I've got 2 curly parsley plants, 2 basil plants, some thyme, and I want to get some mint to replace the spearmint, which didn't come back this year.

The newest garden project was the Chief's idea.  The grill was so badly rusted out that we had to buy a new one.  We hadn't gotten as far as figuring out what to do with the old one when the Chief saw the flat of bedding plants I had set on the shelf of the old grill and decided to turn the old grill into a planter.  He got some sheet metal to reinforce the bottom and cover the rusted-out places that would be below the dirt line, chose purple for the paint, and is leaving it to me to decide what to plant.  Because he wants to leave the grill in a spot n the backyard that gets shade most of the day, I'll probably go with some combination of begonias, impatiens, coleus, maybe some torenia or asparagus fern.

Garden notes to remember for 2018

This year I planted lantana and purslane in the biggest pot, in the yellow plant stand.  I was delighted to learn that hummingbirds like lantana!  I'm indebted to the woman at the nursery who suggested I plant it.  The purslane is pretty, but the flowers don't stay open very long - they're usually closed tight again by noon or so.  I'll definitely plant lantana again, but maybe pair it with portulaca instead.

The Chief bought me a pair of fancy ceramic planters, which I used for sunflowers.  The sunflowers aren't doing very well.  I really oughta read up on them to see if it's too little water, too much water, or something else.

I put 6 pots of various flowers on the front steps.  The verbena isn't doing too well; hanging in there, but no flowers after the first ones dropped.  The snapdragons and marigolds are doing well.  I'm collecting marigold seeds for next year; let's see if I remember where I stash them in time to start them next spring.   Several of the seeds I dropped back into the pots have already sprouted; can't wait to see how they do.  The 6th pot was an attempt at red, white and blue.  The lobelia is doing well, and the geranium is hanging in there, though not flowering very happily.  (The one in back is doing better.)  The white flower, though, died pretty quickly, poor thing.  It looked like some kind of tiny daisy.  I didn't save the little label, of course, so I have no idea what it used to be.  That pot is also on the top step, so it doesn't get as much rain as the others.  Maybe next year I'll just put out 4 pots - 2 each on the 2nd & 3rd steps.

I tried rosemary in a new spot this year, next to the deck steps.  The oregano has been happy on that side of the deck, so maybe the rosemary will last more than a year or two.

Planted 5 tomato plants this year, no peppers.  Three sweet 100 plants at the far end and two beefier varieties at the near end.  Time to get out the wildlife mesh; no sooner did some of the beefy tomatoes start to ripen than some varmint started snacking on them. 😠  So far we've gotten 3 cherry tomatoes; I'm hoping for lots more.  Oddly, the plant closest to the bird feeders has all the leaves stripped off the topmost few "branches".  That's not a problem we've had before, so I have no idea what's eating it.

Here come the tomatoes...

Our two tomato plants (cherry, Sweet 100 variety; grape, Santa variety) have been thriving - the Sweet 100 is quite bushy and at least 6' tall!  Both now have a dozen or more clusters of little green tomatoes on them.  We harvested the first few tomatoes a week or so ago, and have been getting at least 4 or 5 a day the past few days.  Looks like those numbers will start rising steeply pretty soon, though, given the dozens of little greenies that are getting paler by the day and starting to turn orange.

These are doing SO much better than when I tried growing tomatoes in containers on the deck - we've already harvested more than we got all last summer.

Better yet, the replacement zucchini plant seems to be thriving.  I'd be delighted if we actually manage to get a zucchini off the thing before the weather turns colder.

Zucchini 1.2

The first zucchini plant died pretty definitely, so Wednesday the Chief and I put in a new one.  He took some scrap lumber and built a frame to create the mound they recommend when planting zucchini.  He also had me filter the dirt going into the hole to make sure there were no grubs.  We filtered  2 or 3 cubic feet of dirt and only found a few grubs, but at least those grubs will not be attacking the new zucchini plant.

It's probably much too late in the season to be planting zucchini, but hope springs eternal. :)

At least we don't have to worry about keeping it watered.  With all the rain we've been getting (25 of the past 36 days), I'm more concerned that it doesn't get washed away!

Tomatoes! Zucchini?

The Chief made sure I noticed last night that our 2 little cherry tomato plants have tiny little green tomatoes on them!  Fingers crossed that they'll produce like crazy!

The surviving zucchini plant is doing well, too.  I just hope I don't find out, oh, this fall that zucchini are supposed to be planted in pairs so they pollinate.  (Sister3 learned that last month when she bought blueberry plants at the farmers' market.)

Free plants!

The newest addition to the garden - some hen-and-chicks.  The Chief & I set out for a walk - stopped at the post office to mail a few things, got coffee at the local "roasterie", and wandered about the neighborhood admiring people's gardens.  As we were a couple of blocks from home, we passed a woman pulling grass out of her rock garden.  She was also thinning the hen-and-chicks she'd planted there and offered us some.  We didn't have a bag, so I cupped my hands together and she filled 'em up.  I got them planted and am hoping they'll fill up some holes in the bed along the sidewalk so the weeds don't try to take over again.

This year's garden

I went off to the nursery on Mother's Day and came home with

• a red begonia and assorted portulaca for the "mailbox bed";
• 2 varieties of lavender for the corner of the house where the squash failed;
• coreopsis, rudbeckia and a "blanket flower" (gaillardia) for the now-sunny patch out front;
• a red geranium, white petunia & blue lobelia for the single railing planter;
• dianthus, lantana and phlox for the double railing planter (in reds, pinks & whites - it already looks like a valentine!);
• rosemary, basil and parsley; and
• two varieties of cherry tomato and a zucchini plant (fingers crossed that no squash borers find it!).

Yesterday the Chief & I went back to the nursery so he could pick out what he wants for the shed.  We got a dutchman's pipe for the trellis (nurseryman: "if you're really lucky, it'll attract pipevine swallowtails") and begonias and new guinea impatiens for the windowboxes.

I got most of these in the ground (or planter) today, and came into the house filthy from head to toe.  As I was getting ready for my post-garden shower, I had to laugh - I had a big smudge on my forehead that made it look as though I'd just been to church to get ashes! :D 

I got a lot done, but had to quit before I got the tomatoes, squash, and 4 of the 6 phlox plants in the ground.  Won't have time for that tomorrow (see earlier post), so that'll be Thursday's gardening project.  Gonna be fun!

Happy 10th anniversary to me (a bit late)

I've now had my blog for 10 years as of last month - April 11th, 2005, saw my first-ever blog post.  I don't cover certain topics (I try to avoid politics, for example) but if you're interested in theater, gardening, or cooking, I hope you've been at least mildly entertained.

Since playing Pitti-Sing, my first lead, I've done 2 more G&S leads (Ruth in Pirates of Penzance and Dame Carruthers in The Yeomen of the Guard) and nice, meaty roles in several plays (biggest were Sara Lee Turnover in Daddy's Dyin', Who's Got the Will? and Veta Louise Simmons in Harvey).  I'm still taking voice lessons and working on my technique, and am now looking to become a Theater major this fall and a Voice major next fall.

The Chief and I still have the cabin and are looking forward to longer, mid-week trips there now that I'm retired.  I also have spent a larger percentage of time in the kitchen trying new recipes.  My issues of Cook's Country will now get a closer reading. :)  Today I spent well over 3 hours out in the garden planting most of the flowers we bought yesterday and Sunday.  So lovely to have the whole week for that, not just Saturdays & Sundays!

More reasons to play in the dirt

This morning I visited the friend who used to have a small nursery

specializing in hostas and, to a lesser extent, ferns. He sold off the nursery business a coupla years ago and now gardens just for himself. He's trying new plants in the space, some of which are "prolific reseeders". He gave me a big clump of a few - cardinal flower, Black-eyed Susan, sweet William, ajuga, and threw in a blue mouse-ear mini-hosta just because. He also gave me a big bucket of compost. He would happily have given me lilies or any of several other plants he was thinning out.  If I had the space and the right conditions, I'd've taken some, too.  I planted the ajuga in a couple of bare spots, will try to get the rest in the ground tomorrow.  I told him I need to reciprocate with dinner or something - a nursery would've charged me plenty for all the plants and the home-made compost he gave me for free. I also picked up my iris order.  I picked up a few extra rhizomes from the bargain basket, and he asked me if I'd like a few free ones. Of course I said yes! When I get a chance to see how many I actually ended up with (he always includes more than you ordered), I'll have to work out where they'll all go. I garden pretty haphazardly, filling spots as they open up, buying (or "adopting") plants on impulse.  It's a wonder the yard doesn't look an utter wilderness!

Squash and rudbeckia are planted; now to see how they do.

Today I took the plunge and planted my rudbeckia and butternut squash seedlings.  The squashlings are 2" to 3" tall and pretty robust.  My baby rudbeckia are a little shorter and much more delicate-looking.  They also didn't get quite as high a real-dirt-to-clay ratio as the squash, as they're in a spot where I haven't planted before, so this is my first season improving the soil.

If my gayfeather ever germinates (it's hard to be patient when the other seeds have sprouted and are now in the ground), I'll put them in the same spot as the rudbeckia, since there's plenty of room there. I do hope that happens; it would make for a very cheery color combination.

The toadlilies are spreading

Last spring I really had to wrestle with my toadlilies to separate them and they seemed to take the rest of the year to get over the trauma.  They did bloom, but not as profusely as in the past.  This spring, however, they're coming back with a vengeance, having spread a few inches to send up an outlier under the downspout, and a bit further to send another outlier where I had some begonias last year.  I may put just one begonia in that spot this year, and let the toad lilies fill in the rest.

The foliage isn't particularly noteworthy, but when it blooms in October, the flowers are well worth the wait - like stems full of little orchids, lavender with tiny purple "freckles".  The fact that it likes shade and damp is a bonus.  If I thought the deer would leave it alone, I'd take some out to the cabin and plant it in the beds with the hellebores.  Actually, given that the deer find something in the hellebores to be an irritant, maybe I could plant the toadlilies behind them and let the hellebores "stand sentry" over them.

I hope they make it

The Chief and I spent last weekend with my family, as Mother's Day fell on Mom's birthday day this year.  While we were there, Sister3 dug up some of her lilies-of-the-valley for me to bring back.  These are special because Mom had transplanted the originals from her mother's house, so the flowers aren't just from my sister, it's as if they're from Mom and her mom, too.  I finally got them in the ground this afternoon; I hope they do well.  Got my fingers crossed that they'll bloom next year.  (The pips Mom brought me several years ago never did bloom, hung in there for a few years, but finally gave up and died.)

I also started some butternut squash, rudbeckia and gayfeather in "Cowpots".  I knew I wanted to try the squash again this year, but as we told the gentleman helping us at the nursery, last year's attempt produced plenty of flowers but only that one tiny little squash.  He recommended attracting pollinators by planting something butterflies love, suggesting 4 different flowers.  We settled on the rudbeckia (black-eyed susan) and gayfeather.

The rudbeckia sprouted first, but the squash is catching up fast - this morning's tight little sprouts have already opened a few leaves. We're still waiting for the gayfeather to sprout, but my online searches tell me they take anywhere from 20 to 45 days to germinate, so we'll just have to be patient.

Spring? Winter? Yes

We finally got gorgeous weather this weekend, so Saturday the Chief & I went to the nursery and spent way too much money on bedding plants, most of which he got planted on Sunday.  (By then, the pollen count was too high for me to go out and play in the dirt.)  Sunday the high was in the 80s! Wahoo!

Today we got a front moving in that brought rain, wind and MUCH lower temps - we have a freeze warning tonight, so the Chief & I went out and tucked all those new plants under "blankets" to protect our investment.

Shorts on Sunday and 2 days later I need my winter coat, scarf & gloves again.  This weather is whackadoodle!

No more squash

I checked my little squash when I got home from work on Friday and was disappointed to see it on the ground; it had fallen or gotten knocked off the vine. :(  I brought it inside, but threw it out yesterday afternoon when I saw it was starting to turn brown.  So much for any hope of getting anything from that attempt at growing my own squash.  It remains to be seen whether I try again next year.

Yes,definitely squash!

Checked my tiny little incipient butternut squash again this afternoon.  It hasn't gotten appreciably bigger, but it's now yellow.  I wonder if I'm gonna end up with the world's tiniest ripe squash...

Squash?

I checked my squash plants again the other day and was surprised and delighted to see that my latest blossom has a little green nubbin at its base which, while barely an inch long and quite green, is exactly the shape of a butternut squash!  I've got my fingers crossed that I may actually get at least one squash from this plant after all.

No squash this year, I guess :(

I keep checking my squash plants for fruit and finding nothing.  Not sure if they didn't get enough water, or the soil isn't what they need or what, but I keep getting blossoms and nothing else. What's worse, one of the 2 coworkers who got my culls came up to me a few weeks ago now, delighted to be able to tell me that she'd just harvested her first squash!  I'm jealous - everyone else who's got squash plants has squash by now.  Maybe another coworker was right - "You gave away the good ones." ;)