The plants I fell in love with

I'm sure by now you know that Pusher and I took the girlies to the Arboretum yesterday, and that inevitably I would fall in love with some items for my yard. The top contenders:


First, the Dr. Seuss garden contenders.

To the left here, we have Allium Sativum, or "Italian Early" Garlic. Fun, curly, and edible!




And we also have an onion, Allium coruleum.

I have a couple of flower bulbs in mind, too:

Eucomis comosa
Pineapple Lily
(not my photo)

and Crown Imperial
(also not my photo)


And then there's some of the burgundy/red group for the front:

Physocarpus opulifolus
Ninebark - Summer Wine
Which is quite a bit deeper burgundy
than this picture makes it look.

Foeniculum vulgare
Bronze Fennel
Gorgeous and edible


And the crowning glory:

Cotinus coggygria - Smokebush

Moving right along

We spent much of today's lovely afternoon out in the garden -

Planted 2 new hibiscus bushes, which better be red when they open. Also, not sure if variety purchased is perennial, but got them for $4 each.

Purchased new pack of Rosemary seeds to replace seeds that never came up, only to have Pants show up from Cub with a lovely (large!) rosemary bush that we potted so we can pull it in for the winter. You know I loves me some fresh rosemary.

Discussed why 2 Astilbe are extremely happy and 2 are still a bit stunted. Pants wondered if location or soil were to blame, but plants are all about 4-5 inches apart. I'm not sure 4 inches in space would make the 8 inch height difference. I calmly reminded Pants that these plant survived the winter in tiny plastic pots set on top of dirt and perhaps those two got a harsher freezer burn and just need some more time.

Also discussed size of Chokeberry bush (current and eventual) and whether it was growing enough. Reminded Pants that bush was sticks just a month ago and now has lovely new branches and tons of leaves. Also survived winter and is doing well, considering.

We then watched the very wimpy leftover-from-previous-owners shepherd's hooks lean over and very gently place one of my gorgeous cast iron hanging pots on the ground. It was somewhat amusing and those hooks were ugly as sin anyway. Went out and got me a heavy-duty 4-prong hook. Ha HA! (P.S. - got hanging pots at Fleet Farm last year, end of season for $5 each and got the hook on clearance today too!)

When we get the new hook up and figure out what to do with the rosemary pot for now, I will post before and after pics.

BOOM

So today, the tree in the front yard that I hate because it's messy and shades my whole yard, the one with 5 or 6 giant trunks on it, lost 2 of them. They just fell over.

THEY FELL THE FUCK OVER.



But the city very kindly chopped the whole thing up and took it away. One arm of it was in the street, but they took every piece. You can't even tell it was there.

Hardier than I would have guessed

We finally got out Sunday night to do some lawn work - rake up the massive number of sticks from the *&(#$^&^ willow tree in the front, pull up a couple of weeds, etc.

Oddly enough, it appears that a couple of my plants from last year actually lived through the winter in their plastic pots sitting on top of some okay dirt. Weird.

An inventory of what lived:

• 3 Coral Bells
• 4 Astilbe
  
• 1 Choke Berry bush
• something in a bleeding heart pot that isn't bleeding heart

Now, the question is where to place them.

Here's the fun part - Kitten and Meimei desperately want to help me use the Weed Hound to pull weeds. It takes a little longer that way (they each have to come put their foot on it and "push it down"), but it keeps them in view and they're so excited when it comes up. Keep loving it girls - one day it will be your job!

Making headway

We primed the garage this evening. We will attempt to paint tomorrow. All in all, it actually took less time than we thought to prime the entire front. Less than 2 hours, even while tending kids, retrieving toys, putting one to bed, etc. We figure at this rate, since we only have the front of the house to paint, we will have the house painted in a week or so. If the weather holds out.

We also have nearly completed our front garden bed. The retaining wall is in and we have about half the dirt we need to fill it. All that's left is about 2 more loads of dirt, planting, and mulch. Of course, the bed looks completely different than any of my drawings - it took on a more organic shape when we actually built it, as I figured it might. And half my plants will die if I put them where I planned, so I have to recalculate that too. But the bed is nearly done, even if it will be a bit bare until next year.

I will post pics in a few weeks when we actually finish.

Triumph

We're burning up out here!

Apparently, it's a good thing I have not yet planted my Plant Sale items. They have been sitting out in the newly cleaned out bed for almost two week where we had intended to plant them. And guess what? It's all wrong.

The chokeberries are fine, the hibiscus is loving it, and the Dutchman's ear seems to be okay. My Astilbe has clearly shown its preference for space however, as two are happy and beautiful and two are wimpy and weak. And my bleeding heart are on the verge of bursting into flames.

So my whole garden plan needs to be rethought. At least they aren't actually planted and I can just move them around.

I actually have a living peony in the ugly plant bed in the back that has just bloomed. I'm thinking about transplanting it to somewhere with more sun as soon as it's done blooming. It should probably have more than 5 flowers on it for its size. But yay! That's one of the things I wanted!

Having this week off has really helped me figure out where the sun is all day. I think I found the sunny parts of my yard. Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to put in the front, since I'm taking some of those plants elsewhere. Boo.

Mmmmm... new plants

Ok, they're sitting on my cement. But they'll soon be planted, my pretties.

Here's what I got:
Chokeberry bushes - 2 (not tasty, but not toxic)
Dicentra (bleeding heart) - with deep red hearts - 4 (dwarf plants, and I took the last four)
Aroncus - goat's beard
Astilbe - japonica 'Red Sentinel' - 4 (down from 6, but I felt bad about taking all the bleeding heart)
Dutchman's Pipe - a lovely climbing vine that's already trying to grab onto the other plants
Hibiscus - deep red - yum!
Kentucky mint
Rosemary
Also purchased - gorgeous begonia for MIL

All in all, got everything at my list, although I shorted myself the two astilbe, even though they were there for the taking. My front bed will be whites (chokeberry flowers, goat's beard) reds (hibiscus, dicentra, astilbe, chokeberry foliage in fall), purples (dutchman's ear), and orange (my later-to-be-planted crown imperial bulbs). I don't know what color the autumn crocus are yet, as they will also be planted later.

Oh Happy Day

Kid firsts - first bath together, and Meimei's first wagon ride and their first ride together. Yay!

So, I was out doing dandelions this evening, kids in tow, with a little hand tool. The one that looks like a really big fondue fork and you stab it into the ground and tip it toward the weed so the fork pulls it loose. It was going fine, and it was chemical free, but then my neighbor showed up. She said, "Happy Mother's Day, borrow my weeding tool." And I did, and holy crap, I want one. You just put the little basket in the middle of the weed, give the step a little shove with your foot, and pull back up. The weed comes with it when you pull back up, root and all. Then you just slap your palm on the knob to release the weed. So although there is more weeding to do, and every time I turned around there were more, I actually got quite a bit done. I had to stop for bath time and get the kids in, so I returned the tool because I don't know when I'll get back to it. Probably not for another week or so.

We got the entire creeping (creepy) evergreen thing out finally - four giant root balls to dig out, one shovel split, a cubic ton of lava rock mixed with soil, etc. Now, we just have the entire rest of the bed to dig up before I can get my new stuff planted.

Does spirea take over? It seems to be jumping and there's tons of little spireas growing in about 2 feet in front of the actual bushes. Weird. Anyone want some spirea before I rip it all out? I don't want anything creeping around in my front yard.