Found another nursery

I received an offer I couldn't refuse through the mail from Perennial Gardens in Bedford, New York: a gift card for $20 off a purchase of $75. Now, at first glance, $75 seemed like a lot of money to have to spend but my husband pointed out that plants are not cheap so it wouldn't be difficult to spend that much!

We went to look over their plants and of course spent more than that, but with the discount only spent $75. Their stock is good, so I consider this a good find. Now I just have to find the right spots in the garden and then plant! Well, Scarlett, tomorrow is another day.

I still need more plants for my semi-shade garden under the linden (gee, someone should write a song like that). The linden is getting ready to bloom -- wonderful white flowers and scent!

My redbud tree isn't looking all that great. I don't know if it likes the spot it is in anymore; and my husband keeps pruning it when its branches interfere with the satelite reception. Redbeds are tought trees, so maybe it will just endure, anyway.

Once again, my "Porch Garden" is being overtaken by the hygrangea and the Miss Kim lilac.I guess they really liked the weird winter and spring weather. Both plants are loaded with blooms. So far, the standard irises in the front of them are doing well and are far enough out of their way -- I hope. I guess, except for some low border plant (maybe aguga or liriope) nothing else will go in that area. I did move the spirea and mock orange out and into the perennial border where they are much happier.

We have been having non-rain weather and warm at that! Interesting that the soil is still fairly moist, but I will have to watch carefully so plants do not dry out. I will probably do some selective watering tomorrow.

OK, time to sign off and look at my border plot for tomorrow's toil.

May Flowers bring Pilgrims

Just an old joke: April showers bring May flowers; what do May flowers bring?

Two of the plants that I bought from Wayside very late last year did not make it. Lesson learned -- order eary in the fall and forget about waiting for late season sales if one is buying through the mail.

I have been buying some plants from Home Depot and actually planted them (well, the liriope is still waiting, but at least only one plant is waiting).The soil is still moist but diggable. Plants are coming up and some of them lost their markers and some of them I have no recollection of planting, nor do I know what they are, except that they look vagely familar! I guess this will be a wait and see season. I hope that they are all worthwhile.

The area around the Linden tree is fairly shady so I am trying to pretty-up the back edge with some shade tolerant plants: Bleeding Heart (pink and white), yellow Columbine, and a red azalea, and some Hosta. So far, it looks good. I hope the mix of sun and shade is right. I am also going to trim some of the lower branches; the tree grows wide and we are back to being "bopped" on the forehead by them. I try not to prume too much because the tree is well-established and has a wonderful shape.

The moisture laiden winter and spring certainly caused some plants to shoot up in growth as I have never seen. My purple beech (a slow grower) put on at least two feet!

My gardening spirit still has not gotten up to snuff -- but I keep pushing my gardening along.

Mud, mud, and more mud

I know that other parts of the country have it much worse than we do, but still ... my gosh ... I surrender! Pretty soon, the water table will be above ground and we shall be swimming next to the ducks that like the large "lakes" in my back yard.

Maybe the end of the world is coming? ... Just being facetious ... I think ... Anyway, I have some plants to plant but it's all mud out there now. I bought my beautiful Foxglove into the house as a temporary houseplant ... at least, I hope it's temporary. The radar map doesn't show any respite until Sunday.

Oh well, enough for this day.

Planted some shrubs

With my husband's help, we planted two shrubs along the property border: Inkberry....

and the red-twig dogwood.. ..that we bought from Costco. I think I should have bought two Dogwoods, but the thought of putting up with Costco traffic and sales lines, got me to think again.

It was amazing-- we actually found friable soil in the holes and no large rocks! We still had to add some soil from our purchased soil pile and some peat moss, but that was easy. We did not water them in because the plants had been well-watered by me, the soil was already moist, and rain was on the way. We put some of the wonderful wood chips our tree service made for us around the plants, and called it a successful day.

A couple of the plants that I bought from Wayside so very late last year do not show signs of life. I will write to them and ask for replacements.

I still can't quite get into the planting spirit -- I guess the winter-spring weather just took its toll.

I may garden this year, after all

What a winter ... what a spring ... I can finally walk in my yard and not feel mud under my feet. I suspect that the water table is not very far underground which will be great in July and August, but a horror right now. My neighbors with sump pumps have finally stopped pumping and my neighbors with wetlands are no longer seeing standing water. While I was definitely unhappy with all the snow, it seems my plants loved being under three to four feet of the white stuff! Amazingly, all the following rain did not cause them to die of "wet feet".

I never got all my wood chips moved to my garden so now I guess its time has come. I was hoping that my landscaping helper would return this year but I have not heard from him. There is simply too much for me to do, so I may have to find another.

I noticed that a number of foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) from the old garden and a nuber of reseeds are alive and well. I love foxgloves and always try to grow as many varieties as I can find.

Today, my husband and I went to Costco for food, and I looked at plants. They had a nice variety but I wonder how the plants survive in that closed environment. People were buying a lot of them so maybe the plants won't have to stay there long. I bought an Inkberry (Ilex glabra), a large group of generic Hosta, and the Dogwood with red stems (Latin name eludes me, for the mo'). I gave them a BIG drink of water when I got them home. Tomorrow I will give them another drink, a spray of Miracle-Gro, and try to figure out where they should be planted! So much for advance planning.

I once read that the definition of a cottage garden was "controlled chaos". My cottage gardens are "almost controlled chaos". I refer to them lovingly as romantic gardens!