As I’ve run errands the past few days, I’ve been where plants have been for sale, and I simply couldn’t resist making a few purchases. Elegante Mother can’t pass up a pansy in the spring, so we had 29 plants waiting for some dirt.
Yesterday, while we were out, I picked up potting soil so I’d be ready when I had a few minutes, to get some of those plants into the dirt. We have a large coir-edged basket at the front of the house, and I filled it with gerbera daisies, a purple hyacinth, and purple petunias. I may change that planting during the summer, but I needed to see some color at the front of the house.

I alternated yellow and purple pansies in a wrought iron basket lined with coir, too.

I had two lavenders, two rosemarys and three Italian flat-leafed parsleys to plant. I had just enough time to get the parsley into the herb bed last night before I HAD to start dinner. As it was, I probably should have waited for this morning to plant them, but I was on a roll! *G* It’s going to rain later today, and should rain through Saturday morning, so I won’t have a lot of chance to work outside for a couple of days.
Dear Husband suggested that I look into the Haz-Mat suits made of Tyvek for weeding where I suspect I’ll find poison ivy. That’s not a bad idea at all! I don’t have my half sleeves made yet to cover below my wrists when I’m in the gardens. Maybe that will be my rainy day chore on Saturday morning.

Okay, this morning I saw the first of the goldfinches to return, and this weekend I got my first case of poison ivy for this year. That makes it official. Spring has sprung!

You know….the WARM, SUNNY, DRY weekend that lets us know that it’s not going to be winter forever. I won’t be so rash as to say that spring has finally arrived, but the weather this week was exceptional, and I spent part of each day in the gardens, clearing off the spent plants and even pulling up crabgrass and poison ivy stems.
When your nose is within a foot of the ground you see all sort of things that you might otherwise miss. I realized that the dead stems of the purple fountain grass were covering a pod of daffodils and tulips, so I started there on Saturday morning, digging up the dead annual. It was covering some of my favorite daffodils, the Ice Follies, which are usually the first to bloom. This year they will loose the race to the traditional daffodils that are planted along the front of the house.
I saw fever few, sweet woodruff, crocus, the tips of Dutch iris leaves, a volunteer vinca that I should exterminate, and tons of iris. I have one pod of iris that is next to a downspout and I can see that I’ll have to move them this year. There are four other HUGE pods of iris that will have to be shifted this year. I meant to get to them last year, and it just didn’t get done. If I wait any longer, they’ll die off for lack of good soil and overcrowding.
I didn’t get everything trimmed, but I made a good start. I can tell that I’m not a kid any more. I can’t work for twelve hours on my hands and knees and still get up and walk away. I need to be more careful with mulch to keep weeding down.
Dear Husband, super guy that he is, took a little time away from varnishing the boat to prune the old shrub rose for me. Following information from Bogie, he cut it back severely. This rose blooms on new canes, so we are encouraging it to put up new canes, while we get rid of the brambles. I hope it makes it. This was one of the plants growing on the grounds when we bought the lot 19 years ago.
Each day that is dry, I hope to put a little time into the gardens so that I don’t have to devote entire weekends to weeding. I’m SO glad we had warm weather. It felt as though I’d been given a treat after a difficult week, and it was lovely to have some time outside. And, YES…..I wore a hat! *G*

Since the day before Easter the inside of our house has been filled with beautiful blossoms, but the outside is sadly lacking. We’ve had three little crocus appear near the front door, and we have about three or four inches of daffodil greens showing around the yard, and the leaves for one early blooming tulip (the name of which escapes me at the moment). I’m guessing that it will be a month before we see much of anything. We’ll have to be content with magnolia and redbud and lilac buds swelling.
My knee has improved, but I haven’t tested it to see if I can kneel on it. I’m desperate to get out into the gardens and clean things up. Wouldn’t you know that the one day in the 50s that is supposed to be dry is Wednesday, the day I’ll be chained to the office for an audit! How UNFAIR!!!
Well….soon. I’m sure I’ll be outside soon.

It amazes me to step out my back door and see catnip, oregano and feverfew greening up. THIS IS JANUARY!! The plants are amazingly hardy in our cold weather, but truth be told, the weather has been incredibly warm for the season. We’ve had snow, and we’ve had a few days of deep cold, but we seem to be going through an unusually early warm spell
The wildlife is happy not to have to deal with brutal snow. It’s easier for them to get to the seed that falls to the ground, rather than trying to dig through layers of snow to find the dropped seed. I leave a piece of plywood at the base of the feeder to catch the spill. Right now there’s about half an inch of hulls littered over the board and ground. I’ve seen cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, blackbirds, a horde of sparrows, juncos and chickadees. I’m not sure we have nuthatches this year. Perhaps they are there, but have moved further away from the house as the trees have died and been removed. We’ve been enjoying the deer at bedtime. I’ve been putting out corn while they were short on forrage.
I shouldn’t be surprised to see the catnip and oregano greening up. They are both members of the mint family, and mint is incredible hardy. I’ve sequestered chocolate mint, and pineapple mint in large plastic containers that look like clay pots. I know better than to plan a mint where it might spread! I have so much oregano that I gave away bunches of it to the ladies at exercise last summer. Oregano, any one?? *G*

I’ve laughingly filed this under “In the Garden,” because that’s where these will end up. I wanted to get a picture of the sprinkling of nuts from one tree. Our lot line is covered with these husks, each of which hold a rock hard black walnut. My Dad would have loved them! So do the squirrels! *G*

I meant to get out to work on the gardens at the entrance to the house this morning. We have had a phenomenal growing season, despite the fact that storms have been few and far between, and it’s quite a jumble of incredible plants and more incredible weeds.
Unfortunately, we are still in the grasp of a major heat wave. I think I heard that we were at least 20 degrees above normal yesterday, and the heat has been here for several days. We’re supposed to get rain early in the coming week, followed by more realistic temperatures….in the upper sixties. So, I’m sure that I will be doing a LOT of gardening in the next three weeks. By the end of the month it’s time to put the gardens to bed for the winter.
I suspect the family of chipmunks that has made it’s home in my mulch pile is going to be TICKED!! I’ll be using part of that pile on the front garden, around the new redbud, and more of it on the fern bed and herb garden. There goes their new condo! I bet I’ll find black walnuts buried in the mulch.
Well, I’ve stalled as much as I can. I have to go to the grocery store. Normally, it wouldn’t be an issue, but this is Sunday. The entire world will be there by now. Have a good day, all! I’m off and running!

If you haven’t already divided your tall bearded iris by now, it’s time to get it done. I live in USDA Zone 5, and my iris need the last of the warm season to get settled in to their new homes
Dig up the clump and separate the rhizomes by slicing them apart with a sharp knife. Disinfect the knife between cuts by dipping it into a 10% bleach solution (one part bleach, 9 parts water). Keep the rhizomes that are at least three inches long, have good roots and a fan of leaves. Cut the leaves back to about eight inches. Throw away any rhizomes that are shrunken, have holes or mushy parts. Dispose of the unwanted material in landfill rather than composting it, to avoid spreading disease.
Those rhizomes you choose to keep and replant should be briefly disinfected in the bleach solution and then left to air dry for a day. When you replant the iris, be sure that the top of the rhizome is just at the surface of the soil.
My iris tend to rise up out of the soil over the winter. I think the solution is to water well and press down around the rhizome to be sure there are no air pockets when you replant. If a rhizome still looks like it’s riding a little high on the ground, I might side dress it with compost before winter sets in. Be sure not to bury the rhizomes in the compost.

I have been so busy this week, that I haven’t had the chance to get out into my gardens. From the kitchen I could see that there were cherry tomatoes ripening, and we’re having salad for dinner tonight, so I made the trek out to harvest a few of them.
Some rotten little rodent, or bunny or deer is taking one bite out of the bigger tomatoes. I doubt seriously that we will have more than the three we have managed to collect so far because they are just too tempting. Maybe I can find a strip of hardware cloth to wrap around the tomato cage. That might protect them from the livestock.
As I walked back through the herb garden, I brushed the basil, and its scent filled the air. I stopped to pinch off the tops of the plants, to try to keep them bushy, and to delay the flowering. Basil tastes better before it’s energy goes into flowering and making seeds.
We’ve had light showers the past two days. The water has helped everything, but we need still more. We seem to be in a pocket of drought that has hung over us for at least three years. I know that friends in the East and in Kansas are worried about flooding, and can’t wait for things to dry up. Send that water this way!
If it’s not raining early tomorrow morning, I may have the chance to get into the gardens again. We can hope. The worst of the week will be over tomorrow morning, and working in the gardens would be a lovely way to wind down the week.
Soon it will be time to make “Farmer’s Tomato Pie.” I’m just waiting for the home grown, or local tomatoes to ripen. Yummmmmm!