In the Garden: April 2011 Archives

Well, it's greening up! The honeysuckle shrubs are leafing out. My chives are full, bushy clumps of green, and the grass is mostly green.

Easter was so late this year that my family has FINALLY had the chance to see the drifts of daffodils all across the lot. I created a cutting area years ago when I replanted two groups of daffodils to give them more space to branch out. I must have at least a dozen varieties of daffodils, perhaps more. I sent one of my nieces out to clip daffodils for an arrangement in the kitchen, and she chose tall ones and short ones, white ones and yellow ones, single and doubles, to make a beautiful bouquet. One pod of tulips were open and this week more will open as we loose some of the early daffodils. This cold weather has made a huge difference in the length of display. While I'd like a little more sunshine and just a few more degrees of heat, it was wonderful for my family to finally get to see what I've been bragging about all these years.

As for the green, I've noticed that the weeds are pretty healthy, too. I have perennial thistles in my front sidewalk garden. I pulled a lot of them, but you know they are just going to come back. If it ever stops raining, I may try some weed killer on them. Perhaps something systemic will keep them from coming back.

Coming soon: tulips, iris, lilacs and peonies!!! I've cleared everything off my camera so I can take more pictures, and I'll share some of them with you.

Happy Spring!

It's supposed to be Spring, but this is the oddest weather I can remember having in April. The really good side to all of this is that the cooler weather is allowing the bloom on the daffodils, tulips, forsythia and star magnolia to last unusually long.

Dear Husband came home around 4:00. I was watching Mr. and Mrs. Mallard out the kitchen window. The change in the amount of greenery, and the shades of greenery between noon and 4:00 was astonishing! We had a chilly, rainy day, but the grass, the honeysuckle bushes, daylilies, chives and everything else in the herb garden just seemed to be jumping out of the ground, shaking off winter and embracing a new season!

I took the bows off the evergreen (or not so green) wreaths that had been stored in the garage during the last month or two. I save these bows from year to year and hadn't gotten around to storing them. That paved the way to move wood from the wagon so that we could have a fire after dinner tonight. It was lovely, warm and inviting. I have enough wood left to repeat the fire tomorrow. Actually, I may refill the wagon and have a fire every night of the coming week, since it's supposed to remain in the fifties all week long.

I hope we get a break in the stormy weather tomorrow. I'd like to take pictures of the daffodils at the front of the house. I thought I'd put together a book of pictures of the gardens so that I can remember what blooms and where it blooms. Like my mother, I seem to always want to plant something where something else already lives.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

I weeded one of the raised veggie beds today. I don't know the name of the weed that was trying to take it over. It might be Creeping Charlie, but I'm not sure of that. This weed forms mounds of leaves in a shape that is rather like half of a ball. The leaves are a medium green, medium sized, rounded and very gently indented on the edges. The weed has a taproot that will probably come out in China by August. It was well developed and it's only early April. I'm going to have compost added to the veggie beds this year, and it would have been a mistake just to pour the compost over these plants. I'm sure they would have found a way to push through it. It was easy to weed them from the friable compost/soil in the raised bed, but that tap root would be a killer to deal with in our clay soil.

I'll have to ask my sister when she returns at Easter to tell me if the plant that I'm trying to eradicate is Creeping Charlie.