I received a call last night from the nursery, to let me know that the Homestead Purple Verbena was in, and I had twenty-four hours to pick it up. Doesn’t that seem like a rather short time frame?
At any rate, I wanted to return a clematis and pick up the verbena. I stopped at the checkout, and explained that the tag in the pot of clematis said “Nelly Moser,” but it was labeled differently on the outside of the pot. I wanted to make an exchange. They told me to leave the pot at checkout and look for the “Nelly Moser” that I wanted. Of course, they were out.
So, I started working my way through the nursery toward the annual section. Along the way four little pots of basil, and two more of lemon verbena grabbed my arm as I went by. I rounded the corner at the veggies, coming into the stretch, when two pots of tomatoes jumped out in front of my cart. I HAD to rescue them.
While I was there, I thought I might pick up a morning glory that was already two feet tall, but they were out of that, too. This beautiful cardinal vine tempted me instead.
I FINALLY got to the annual information desk, and asked for the verbena. Neither of us could count. I’d ordered nine and came home with seven. BUT….while I was waiting, I found the morning glory I wanted! *G*
Some days ya just have to go with the flow. I’ve got a LOT of planting to do, and I’ll have to make at least one more trip to the nursery. Do you believe that I walked out of there without any dill seed!??

I spent a large part of my day renovating a small portion of the NE wing of the herb garden. I’ve had a section of lamb’s ears in this part of the garden for years. I don’t know if lamb’s ears can strictly be considered an herb or not, but I like the pale gray-green color contrasting the darker leaves of the thyme. Lamb’s ears has a way of escaping and moving to other parts of the garden. It seems to really like the chat walkway, and I like how it looks there. I probably need to cut back some of the growth in the walk, but today I focused on the lamb’s ears in the bed.
Unfortunately, it has become infested with crab grass. I started work, and realized that the soil was so dry that I was never going to get all of the roots. Dear Husband said, “Either you water, or you wait.” He’s really good at cutting to the chase. I didn’t want to wait, so I hooked up the hose. I watered that section of the bed, and while it percolated through the soil, DH and I dropped a car off to be worked on tomorrow.
When I returned, the soil was ready! I used a shovel and lifted huge chunks of the garden out onto black plastic trays from the nursery. When I had grass and plants, and dirt removed, I ran my hands through what was left, to be sure that I wasn’t leaving a nest of roots behind. Then, I separated the grass from the soil, put the soil back, and replanted the lamb’s ears.
There are several areas in the thyme to the right of that area that will need to be replanted. I’m going to transplant one section later this week, and may find a few more crab grass roots to remove.
I think I may put lemon-scented geraniums in that spot, or perhaps lemon verbena. A good part of that arm of the herb garden is devoted to lemon scented plants.

The really healthy plant at the bottom of the herb bed is a perennial salvia. Just past it, in a terra cotta furnace flue, is Scottish spearmint. There are two small lavenders. (If they don’t do well this summer, they’ll be transplanted.) There’s a miniature rose just past that, in a ring of hardware cloth. I uncovered the rose today and found very tender growth on it. I protected it from the sun (and will have to continue to protect it for a while till it hardens up), and left the ring to protect it from hungry bunnies. The lamb’s ears are just past the rose. You can see the clematis at the arbor, just north of the bed.
I know, I know…..too much detail. I had a wonderful time in the garden. I quit before I was overwhelmed. I left enough time to clean things up and return my tools to the garage. Dear Husband cooked dinner tonight, so I got to come in and loaf. It was a fabulous day, and I’m SO pleased to have gotten a start on the gardens!

The past few years my clematis has been suffering. It’s a wonderful jackmanii that is covered with deep purple blooms in the spring. Its leaves were loosing their dark glossy green color. I did some research on-line and decided that it needed chelated iron. I found a source and gave it a dose and the leaves looked better the following year.
We repeated that scenario, but this time the plant began to look really sickly. I read further and found that there was something contagious going on. I decided that I was going to give it one more shot before planting something else in that spot. I cut the canes to the ground and disposed of them. I pretty much figured that would kill the plant off, but I was very surprised to see it growing this spring.
I started my day in the gardens by creating guidelines for the clematis, to help it up and over the arbor. I used hemp twine, anchored on either side of the plant, and wrapped around one of the upper horizontal bars. I used one more length of twine to keep the plant upright, until it grabs onto the vertical lines on its own.

I have high hopes for this plant. If it makes it, I’ll post a picture when it blooms.

At long last, I’ve had the chance to spend my weekend in the gardens. It got off to a slow start on Saturday. Dear Husband rebuild the sieve that fits over the wheelbarrow so that I could empty the sidewalk containers and sieve the soil. In some of the largest pots I use a layer of plastic shipping peanuts to lighten the load, so I need to catch the plastic as I break up the soil and remove spent plants.
The sieving and refilling of the pots took longer than I had anticipated. I moved the pots onto the sidewalk near the front door and Elegante Mother played with the collection of plants that we bought earlier in the week, working out combinations which pleased her. Rather than planting all the pots in an identical range of color, each pot has it’s own personality. I know that’s unusual, but it’s what makes EM happy.
I think we filled seven pots with annuals. Elegante Mother was playing with plants the way she might sweep watercolor over paper. This container is a wrought iron basket lined with coir.

Supertunia Priscilla (lavender), Colorburst Melon Calibrachoa, “Peter’s Wonder” Coleus,
“Lemon Symphony” Osteospermum hybrid, Madeira Violet Argyranthemum. and
Red Snapdragons.

“Gay’s Delight” Coleus (Lime green with red-violet stems), “Happy Violet” Exotic Geranium, Dracaena marginata “magenta,” and “Merlin’s Magic” Coleus fill a gray-green container.
Elegante Mother used the same coleus in this pot, with a different, lighter look:

“Gay’s Delight” Coleus, “Colorburst Chocolate” Calibrachoa (deep rose), “Needlepoint” Coleus (cut leaf with lime green, cream and scarlet), Ipomoea “Blackie,” (dark sweet potato vine) and
“Snowstorm White” Bacopa.
And one more that I like for it’s simplicity, and for the interesting pot:

I think I used Bacopa, with a dark red petunia, and a lighter coleus. I can probably look up the plant names if you need them.
So, the containers have been planted for the season. I have a couple more pots that are basically research. I’ve planted two small poinsettias that have carried over from Christmas, and another pot that has overgrown calla lily greens. I don’t know if they will make it, but it was worth a try.
Dirt. I actually had dirt under my fingernails! (goofy grin).

If you are not familiar with the early spring perrenial called “Squill,” please go to this link for a picture of what’s growing in my garden.
http://www.twofrog.com/images/squill28.jpg
Google Images has a number of pictures of squill, but this one is the closest to what has volunteered in my yard. It’s spread nicely over the past 15 years, and continues to move it’s way across the grove floor. The chipmunks have moved some of it to my sidewalk garden, the herb garden and the grass on the north side of the house. The leaves are a bit darker and “strappier” than grass, so you can see the contrast.
Squill is well worth adding to your gardens for contrast with crocus, and the blue would be lovely mixed in with daffodils.
Speaking of chipmunks…..the little rodents are up and around and making themselves known. I saw two of them doing the “Oh NO I WON’T….Oh yes you will” dance earlier this week. You know, they must keep their babies in the burrows until they are almost full grown. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby chimpmunk!
Chimpmunks and mosquitoes….two things I could really do without!

The forsythia is in bloom!
And the star magnolia buds are swelling, but it looks like a lot of the buds were killed off in the three weeks of below-freezing weather we had in February. Too bad, it’s really a beautiful shrub.

Bogie responded to my comment about trying to get some bulbs planted last minute. I’ve had this terrible cold for a week or more now, but yesterday it was FIFTY DEGREES here! Normally by now our ground would be frozen hard, and I’d have to save the bulbs by planting them in containers, but I could hear the garden calling to me.
There’s just something about early bulbs blooming in Spring that is so comforting, and I HATE to waste things. Those bulbs had been talking to me for the past two or three months, asking when I was going to make time for them. So, despite my cold, I bundled up, and headed out.
First, I fed the birds. Then, I collected the wheelbarrow, a shovel, my tool bucket and the new trowels the kids gave me for Christmas.
I have a narrow spot, the width of the garden, between two pods of iris that was perfect for these bulbs. I started shoveling the soil into the wheelbarrow. Then I heard this sound. The shovel was hitting something. NO…..it couldn’t be!
A number of years ago, too many exactly for me to remember, I decided I would outwit the chipmunks, and planted tulips in a wire cage. Unfortunately, the tulips were short-lived, but the wire cage was still there, in great shape.
What should have been a twenty minute chore, ended up being more like 75 minutes. I couldn’t dig the cage out, because part of it was sitting under iris that need to be relocated. The iris are more important to me than the bulbs.
So, I decided to cut the top off the cage, plant the new bulbs there for this winter, and then dig everything up next summer after the iris have bloomed. I went inside for the wire cutters and wire by wire clipped open about two thirds of the lid. I’ve promised myself that I will go back and dig the cage out next summer, so that no one will get hurt on the remains of the cage.
I got most of the bulbs planted. I even replanted some crocus that I inadvertently dug up. I think I killed off a tulip or two that was planted just past the end of the wire cage. I’m going to have to pull together Spring pictures into an album, so that I can remember what I’ve planted, where.
One of my favorite signs in Elegante Mother’s collection of garden decorations, is a little medallion that says, “I don’t remember planting that there!”
It was good to get out, despite the fact that it took longer than I had hoped. It was good to get the bulbs in. I still have my cold, but it doesn’t seem to be any worse than it was yesterday, so the exercise and the chance to play in the garden may have helped. YEA!! Now I can stop feeling guilty about the bulbs!

I had a list of chores that needed to be done outside to put the lawns and gardens to bed for this year. Usually I start working on them earlier, but weather and other obligations have kept me from getting to them. Last week, we had a stretch of three days with temps in the sixties. You can bet I made use of that time to trim things back and weed. I pulled spent plants, and got rid of a few unwanted plants.
Today’s work was more along the lines of cleanup. I needed Dear Husband’s help, but it turned out that he had his own list of projects, so I carried on without him until lunchtime. Then I asked my resident StepSon to give me a hand. I got an early start, and the guys helped me the last hour or so of my time outside. By 2:30 I was MORE than ready to come in.
I tidied up the mulch pile, moving part of it off the grass. (DH moved the pile with the snow plow. I wouldn’t call a snow plow a precision tool. Some of the mulch ended up on the grass, which bothered me, but not DH.) I mulched the day lilies in the herb garden, and the sidewalk garden. I mulched the clematis, and put rings around the two roses that are in ground. I raked the north yard, and then mowed part of it. I moved mulch to the southeast corner of the house and set in stepping stones to make a path to the gas meter for the meter reader, and I raked birch leaves out of the junipers.
SS moved compost for me, and covered the peonies, roses and iris with compost. (My iris are trying to grow over each other. Some are completely out of the ground, so we covered them for the winter). He raked up everything that I cut out of the driveway garden last week, and took it to the north end of our lot, and finished the raking I had started on the front lawn.
Dear Husband moved the timbers I wrote about, that looked like pick-up sticks in my herb garden. He set them atop the raised veggie bed so that water would drain off them during the winter. DH caulked the soffit at the living room cathedral window. He had to tear it out earlier this year to remove the bees that had nested, and was just getting around to caulking the replacement. While he was there, he decided to caulk the center panes of the window.
I had forgotten that my favorite painter was visiting this morning to do some touch-ups. Before he left, I asked him how warm it needed to be outside to paint trim. He said that today actually was warm enough, but that it was supposed to be warmer toward the end of the week. You all probably know that it’s best to paint between 10 and 2:00 this time of year. Dear Husband and I agreed that we could put off the last of the trim painting until later this week, so the scaffold remains under my living room window. I hope that warmer weather doesn’t necessarily mean wet weather or that scaffolding will never be down in time for Elegante Mother’s Open House!
Dear Husband and I were running out of steam when it came to the last of the chores. He and SS moved the piles of leaves I’d gathered to the compost pile. I set rigid insulation on the floor of the garage and DH helped me move some of the plants into the garage to be wintered over. Then, I swept off the sidewalk, and fed the birds.
Elegante Mother put a beef roast in the crockpot this morning. I contributed roasted potatoes seasoned with Lipton’s dry onion soup mix, and steamed broccoli with white cheese sauce. It was a surpisingly easy meal, and tasted good.
Are you tired, yet? I certainly was. I need a new body. Every time I sit still for a bit something hurts! I spent some time in the office this evening, and I’ll need to put in more time tomorrow I have a punch list of things to be done inside tomorrow, but that’s another post. *S*

I have an amazing star magnolia outside my office window. I thought they were small, shrubby plants, but this one is more than twenty feet tall, despite having been hit when a neighboring tree fell on it.
What’s drawing my attention today is the color of the leaves. As the weather turned cooler, the leaves went from green to a warm gold. This tree would do a Tuscan courtyard proud! Today, it is much colder than it’s been. I believe we were below freezing last night, and the leaves on the magnolia have taken on a faint burgundy cast over the gold. What a treasure this plant is: beautiful blooms to start the growing season, glossy green during the summer, and then glorious color before leaf drop. I spend my late winter days watching the swell of the bloom pods, waiting for the first to open. I couldn’t have asked for a better companion outside my window!

Susan, I need some particulars about where you garden to be able to make suggestions about shade loving plants. I need to know what zone you are in. Instead of announcing the town where you live, you can tell me what state, and upper or lower half, and I should be able to determine the zone for you. OR… go to this site and clock your cursor where you live to determine the zone number.
There’s a wonderful little book called “Taylor’s Guide to Perennials for Shade,” published by Houghton Mifflin, which I would recommend to you. It will give you basic tips for preparing your soil, and when to move plants into and out of your garden. There is also a companion book on ground covers that would be very helpful.
The following list of plants are hardy to USDA Zones 5 or 4, unless noted. Taylor’s guide shows a picture of, and describes all these, and as many more plants that I won’t mention here. You need to choose by height, season, and also by type of shade. Most of these plants will grow in partial shade. If you need information for DEEP shade, let me know, and I’ll see if I kept the websites that might help.
Bugleweed
Lady’s Mantle (I have one, and it sends out runners to make more.)
Anemone (Zones 4-6 depending on the variety)
Columbine (Spring bloomer)
Goatsbeard (a shrubby perennial that grows 4-6 feet. I want one!)
Astilbe
False Rockcress (a mat-forming plant for edgings)
Siberian Bugloss
Bellflower (dozens of varieties and sizes)
Leadwort (zone 6)
Lily of the Valley (This spreads nicely, and smells wonderful)
Bleeding Heart
Dutchmen’s Breeches
Foxglove
Shooting Star
Leopard’s Bane
Sweet woodruff (I’ve used these under taller plants)
Hellebore (I’ve never grown these….the Lenten Rose)
Cranesbill
Coral bells (I love the “Purple Palace” variety)
Hosta (Francee is my favorite….a creamy stripe down the center of the leaf)
Blue lily turf (The book says this is zone 6, but I grow it in zone 5.)
Blue Lobelia
Lupine
Creeping Phlox (beautiful at the edge of a garden or base of a tree)
False Dragon Head (This is a good tall plant for the background of a garden)
Chinese Lantern Plant (Very invasive. Grow it in a pot for dried arrangements)
Jacob’s Ladder
Solomon’s Seal
Primrose
Stonecrop (Sedum) I have “Autumn Joy” and one other
Snow Trillium
Violets (which will spread all over the place, if you let them)
I hope this list gives you a jumping off point, Susan.