spring, bark and who knows what

This week it rained a bunch. April showers bring may flowers, right?
I think I'm doing pretty good on the april flowers too.

 

Love those little species tulips. Need more next year.

 

So, this week, from the clearance bin, a couple of lithodora, grace ward, marked half price at lowes. From the nursery (full price) a black iris. I just can't resist a black flower.

 

We also continued on with the bark project. The front is completely done, working on the back. That's going to take quite a bit longer and quite a few more trips.

 

It's supposed to be nice this week, so..........outside as much as possible.

There's some kind of gardening event nearly every week now, busy, busy.

 

A (sort of ) before pic of the white garden...........working on filling this in.

 

things are perking up!

and starting to come in at the nursery, too!
This week it rained, and rained, and rained. We've had 9" for the month of march, a new record. No wonder my back yard looks like a swimming pool. It hasn't deterred the daffodils, though. Gotta love them!

 

Next fall, I'm planting WAY more of the fancy guys. LOVE the fancy ones and you can just never have enough daffodils.

 

This week, a trip to Costco produced a combo bag with 2 more peonies, a couple of white iris, and a black daylily. They had perennials on sale at fred meyer, so I came home with a white ground cover, a Spanish lavender, and a black and white carnation that looks like it will be pretty cool. I also planted my peas, but it's still a bit too early for the other seeds.

 

It looks like all of our little fruit trees will be blooming soon, so the fact that the deer ate them last fall didn't hurt them TOO much, although I think fig newton has bit it from deer eating and the cold winter.

The bananas look like they survived, but the artichokes did not, pooh. At least the artichokes are cheaper and easier to get.

 

Next week, more bark, finishing a past due present, and chopping a mushroom log. We'll see.....

look what we made......

Just a little dry stream bed in the back corner. That's 4 tons of rocks, there, all done in one day. No wonder I'm tired.

I think I turned out pretty good for a couple of amateurs with a shovel. It will look even better once the rocks get washed off (they're really muddy), and we get some plants around the edges to soften it out. On to the next project!

 

This week, we also went and got this great little tree at Costco. It's a coral bark maple and it was $30. At the local nursery, the same tree sells for $150, so it was quite a score. We hauled it home and planted it on Friday, along with a load of stinky dirt. The stinky dirt was used to fill up the garden planters and finish off planting the raspberries, still need one more, and I think it'll be a blueberry, pink lemonade, just for fun. We also planted the other pole apple.

 

Things acquired this week include, that great little maple, some canna lilies for the shady spot next to the house, and another cute carnation. Most of the time was spent weeding and spreading dirt.

 

Next up, we're on the road today for a load of bark to mulch in the front, more weeding, and working on the moon garden borders.

Gotta love spring!

 

 

I know I've said this before....

but I just have to say it again....I HATE spring ahead. I've been staggering around like a zombie, trying to figure out what time it is all morning. HATE IT!! The only good news is, we won't have to change the clocks until the end of October. Why can't we just leave well enough alone??!!. Every year when this happens, I seriously consider moving to Arizona (where they don't spring ahead), or Hawaii (don't do it there either). I think Hawaii would be a much better choice.

ANYWAY......This week the deluge continued. Although it's been raining like crazy (110% of our normal rainfall for the entire month in the first 10 days), it's actually been pretty warm too...so the daffodils  and others are starting to think it's spring. YEAH SPRING!!

 

We did have one semi-dry day, and I used the opportunity to fill the garden beds with the dirt from the truck. The beds are ready to be planted....just need to dry out a bit, the potatoes are ready to go. Now I need MORE dirt.....WAY more dirt,  a  little at a time.

 

It's supposed to be drier (finally!!) this week, and I have a laundry list of things I want to get done.....lay out the dry stream bed in the back....finish painting the shop....weed like crazy...the lawn is needing to be mowed and raked....and I'll be meeting with the solar guy on Friday to get an estimate for solar panels. We'll see how that goes.

 

This week, the plant acquisitions were, a gorgeous black carnation, some daylilies and a couple of peonies from Costco (love Costco!), and a couple of pots to plant my raspberry shortcakes in.

 

Next week....DRY (hopefully) Tons of work to do....

 

So, although I HATE spring ahead, I LOVE spring....there's something new in the garden every single day, and it's amazing!

 

ok, spring....any time now

This week, they're predicting snow again....really? snow? again?
I don't think it's happening here, though....way too warm, so it'll just be rain, rain, and more rain.....

I really need to get out and plant the strawberry fill ins I bought for the tower, the two bush raspberries I couldn't resist, and a couple of other things, but I think it's going to be a bit too wet.

The fence seems to be deterring the deer in the back yard for now.....they were out there all week (ate my tree peony, the bums),  but didn't make it into the back so far.

The new acquisitions this week were, a white carnation for the moon garden, some really cool pink and lime green daylilies from Costco, another pole apple, two raspberry shortcakes for the garden, some primrose arculata I couldn't resist and a black iris from edeilweiss perennials. The stuff from edelweiss is quite nice and healthy. I highly recommend them.

Hopefully, we'll be able to get the canopy off the truck today so that we can go get some dirt.. It's much cheaper to go get it (like, half the price), than it is to have delivered. This will be the first of many dirt trips, I'm sure. I'll use this one to top off the garden beds, plant the rapsberries, and start working more dirt into the back. Eventually we'll switch to bark mulch to help with less watering, and keeping the dirt in place.

The good news is, there is some hope.....
I'll have daffodils any day, lots of them....

There's just something happy about these guys.

completing the compound

and another check on the list......

See that roll of fencing back there? It's hopefully going up today. This last little bit will make the whole back yard completely fenced. The first time ever that we've had a completely fenced back yard. It will hopefully do a couple of things......keep the dogs in, and the DEER out. The first one has a pretty high probability, the second one may be a pipe dream, since those beggars can jump up to 8 feet.   We'll see.......

In any case, it's nice to have that little item off the list.....moving on to the next one which will be getting the canopy off the truck (apparently much harder than it seems), and getting some more dirt, mulch, and misc. garden fillers. I also want to finish the pump house, paint it, and add the solar panels and pump so that we can water the garden this summer with the cistern, the way we intended.

In happy news......the crocus are up and out, and the daffodils are doing great......I got caught up planting yesterday, so I'm ready to stockpile some more.....
There's a lot of promise out there...

Rain, rain, go AWAY!!!

It's just been raining like mad here, like, boat building rain.....I think I heard on the news that we'll get somewhere between 6 and 12 inches, just this week!

Needless to say, when you add the 50 mph winds, there's not much happening around here. Everything is living in a puddle, and I can hardly wait to see what survives.

My spring fever has not retreated a bit, though......this week at the nursery brought a new tree peony, some bare root grapes, a half price daylily, some checkered lilies, and a couple of packages of bulbs for half price.

The bare root stuff is starting to arrive at the nurseries, so I've been on the lookout.....bare  root plants are a great deal if you can get them into the ground fast enough. In a couple of years, they're just as big as anything else, and just as nice, for about a quarter of the price.

This week.......the hunt for new stuff continues, and, if it STOPS RAINING, I'll go out and plant what I've got stacked up in the garage.