The Thunderstorms Held Off

and I got a lot of work done today!  It was a gorgeous day, nearly 80 degrees.  I was outside before
7:00 a.m. when the temps were way more reasonable for hard physical garden work.  I dug out tons of stuff where grass had invaded and hauled 4 heavy wheelbarrow loads away.    I actually worked two hours, came in at 9:00 AM and did some laundry, rested a bit and went back out for another hour. At 11:30 AM, I came in showered and did another small load of laundry--all the clothes I had on during my morning work spree.  I dirtied 3 pairs of socks during my morning shoveling!  Once my garden work clothes were all dried, I put them all back on and went back outside around 1:00 pm for another couple of hours of work. It felt so good to feel that muscle soreness.....only we gardeners appreciate that feeling. :)  It means we have accomplished a lot.

My largest arbor area is one of the spots I worked on. I hauled out one big wheelbarrow load and replaced it with 80 lbs of fresh top soil.

Then I planted 5 seeds of 'Ruby Moon' Hyacinth Vine on each side. 

I am determined to get a vine to grow up this arbor! I have been trying for years and have never succeeded.  This time I removed everything that could shade out the vine.  I am optimistic that it will work this time!  If not, I am done trying.

I had planned to dig out all of these daylilies. But exhaustion caused me to come to my senses and I decided to leave them as is. 

This area is extremely difficult to dig in as it's all rock. Since these daylilies enjoy living here, I think I will just leave them as is.

I  spent considerable time in the back rockwall garden area pulling out dead creeping phlox by the handful as it was too tough to rake up (even after sitting there dead all winter). I also edged around the rocks. I am very happy with the gold spirea shrubs I planted last fall--they all survived and I love the chartreuse color!

Tomorrow I plan to work on my small rockwall garden you see above. I need to remove that red thug ground cover plant behind the chives--it is more of the dreaded sedum coral carpet.  It haunts me every time I walk through any of my gardens.

I really love chive buds, don't you?  I have planted a lot of chives in my gardens to flower (the pot on the deck is for eating and I don't let it flower as the chives get tough once flowered). Here are some more chives about to flower in another area:

I also crawled under the house storage space and brought out my blue milk cans.  You can see a portion of one below:

I was amazed to see my crabapple is already going downhill. It just started blooming on Sunday!

Once the thunderstorms finish tomorrow, it will probably be gone for another two years.

I had a very productive day off today.  I have not even shown you everything I accomplished.  I think I will sleep very good tonight!