Pussywillow Shrub 'Salix discolor'

Every spring I bemoan the fact I can't find any pussy willow branches for an indoor display.  So when DH saw this tag, he called me over to the shrubbery section of Home Depot. Since the shrubs had already put on their spring show, they were marked 50% off.  I was thrilled that DH took an interest and alerted me to this bargain.

 I grabbed two without hesitation, thinking I would plant them in my front border.

Luckily I googled a bit before planting.  This innocent-looking little shrub can get 25 feet tall and 15 feet wide! WHOA--that certainly changes my mind about where to plant them. I put them in the rockwall garden where they can spread as much as they would like. 

Two hours ago we pulled about twenty pots of cannas and dahlias out from winter storage.  I just watched the weather forecast and it said FROST tonight -- down to 28 degrees.  Good Grief!  Now I have to go out and cover everything. I am just glad we only brought about half of the tropical plants out.

I spent another full day out in the gardens and am making some real progress. Today I painted a bunch of milk cans and wooden crates in a robin's egg blue.  I will use them all in some part of the gardens.

I was thrilled to find that a mourning dove has chosen my unadorned heart wreath for her baby's nursery.

I have not had a nest in this wreath for the past few years.  The robins usually use it when I have it decorated.  If it's bare, they don't like it.  This is the first year I have had a m. dove nest.

This afternoon I thought I would lie down in the family room and watch a TV show. Then it hit me that I had nothing to lay on! I still have not gone out looking for a sofa and love seat.  I really need to do this soon...maybe tomorrow.  I just have way too much to do in 4 short days off work!

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!

A Few Days of Warm Weather & my Front Yard is Aglow

In the front yard the crabapple tree is in full  bloom. This only happens every two years, so we really enjoy the few days it blooms.  Please forgive that I took these pics when the sun was in the wrong position. I think you can still get an idea of the pure pink/purpleness of my front yard today.

 With the purple creeping phlox under planting,  my pink star quilt is a perfect complement, don't you think?

 Here is the full quilt hanging on a crabapple branch. Note the lovely white-flowering tree in the neighbor's yard that obediently bloomed at the exact same time. 

 Try not to look at the black top soil where my dear husband has removed a flower thug of mine that invaded the yard. After digging it all out, he replanted with grass seed....hey, I told him five years ago to get that awful sedum coral out, but he did not listen. So every time he mowed the grass, he was tossing more of the thug and every piece grows.  He had a real mess! My saving grace is that his mother gave it to me, so he can't say much. LOL.  I have posted numerous times about this awful plant...we will be forever trying to rid our yard of it.  Just look under the label "Garden Thugs" if you want to know more.

 I have a pink azalea blooming in my foundation garden.



There is more purple creeping phlox in front of the azaleas.  My quilt looks just as nice with this planting :)

I think this would be a nice spot for a lunch picnic, don't you?

After a nine-hour workday today, I am off for the rest of the week.  Whoo Hoo!!!  This is my working vacation.  I will be tending to my gardens, my deck plantings and doing some heavy-duty house cleaning.   I will probably be posting more this week since I will have more free time.

Tomorrow is supposed to be thunderstorms all day.  That is OK with me.  I just planted 3 blueberry bushes in my rock garden and they need the moisture. 

They already have a few berries:

 I planted three of them back in the rockwall area.

I also have cherry trees back there. So maybe one day I will get a fruit pie from these plantings!

Tulips are a big DUD this year

Last year I made this Monsella tulip centerpiece for my dining room table.

This year I have only one teeny tiny Monsella tulip:

It's about the size of quarter...very sad little bloom. I don't think I will be having any tulip bouquets this year as the few tulip blooms I have look similar to this one.

Just three years ago, I had oodles of these multi-flowered tulips.  This year not one of them returned.

Four years ago, I spent a wonderful Saturday morning  chasing butterflies in my bathrobe in this tulip-laden garden:



The butterflies were so drunk on my lovely tulip nectar that they landed right on my hand!
In my garden tulips just don't do well after the first year. I am so sad to say that the tulips (like my high enery level, tiny waistline & nice {albeit artificial} fingernails) are gone for good.  After spending hundreds of dollars planting hundreds of tulips, I have given up trying to maintain tulip gardens like these.


The only blooms that look halfway decent right now are these primroses, grape hyacinths and blue forget-me-nots in my Arbor gardens.

 On the opposite side of the path, I also have a nice little patch of creeping phlox:

There is some ajuga about to bloom in back of the phlox.   I am afraid this is about as good as it's going to get this spring.  So sad!

Marsh, Mojito and Artichoke

Today I looked online for Lazy Boy sofas that do not look like big bulky LB recliners.  I don't want the big recliner look that I just got rid of, but I do like to put my feet up when watching TV or working on a quilt.  So I was just browsing to see what new styles they had. 

I kind of like this contemporary sectional:

I think I want a shade of green, so I searched all the green shades they had.  I found these three that I like. The colors are called respectively, Marsh, Mojito and Artichoke.   DH likes #1-- Marsh. It's hard to tell on the computer, but I think I like Mojito (the center one).  I guess we will have to go to our local LB furniture store to see the samples. 

I am in no hurry. When I feel like doing so, I will go look.  I have not even looked at prices yet.  As some of you commented, I may be shocked when I do!

Bare Family Room & Overwintered Plants that Survived

I have been thinking of buying new family room furniture for the past five years. During that time, I made numerous visits to the few local furniture stores we have, but never found anything I really loved.  The Lazy-Boy furniture I had was still is very good condition, so I was in no hurry.

Recently a close family member needed furniture, so I donated mine.  Today my two nephews came over to get the furniture.  We had it all ready to go.

Lazy-boy sofas and loveseats are very heavy, so we removed all the backs to make them lighter. I was amazed how those two strong burly men picked it right up and carried it out through the deck doors with no problem at all!  Oh, to be young and strong!

Now I am left with this:

There are still two chairs, so I don't feel rushed to find something.  I really have had no desire to go furniture shopping, even though I have known for at least a month that I needed to.  For now we will live with a nearly empty room.    One of these days I will get my decorating mojo back and then it will be fun.

See the window without the curtain?  Some of you may remember I have been trying to find those curtains since I took down my Christmas tree.  I finally found them two weeks ago in a plastic tote in the basement.  Now I probably don't need them. It depends on what the new family room colors will be.   "C'est la vie."


Anybody know what this is?

I am thinking it's some kind of mint. It is a pot I overwintered on the deck near my herb pot.  I can't remember what mint I bought last year....spearmint maybe?  I guess I will just have to wait and see.  I really need to write down what I am saving!  I always think I will remember, but I never do.  Do you have that same problem? 

I am pretty optimistic with the two French urns that I overwintered in the garage.  This one has a dahlia coming up.

 I thought I removed all the Trebbiano dahlias last fall because I felt they were too tall for this urn.  I must have missed one.

I was totally surprised to see this coming up in both of the urns. I am guessing it must be the Purple Heart I planted last year.

I am totally thrilled that these two urns have over wintered. I really thought that I would lose everything in them.

    These are the urns I am talking about:

So far only the purple fountain grass and the sweet potato vine have not thrown up new shoots. It is still early, so I am still hopeful.


I hope you all have a wonderful gardening weekend!

Horticultural Magazine Hermit

It's been a cold, rainy week.  Right now we are under a severe thunderstorm watch.  I spent only an hour or two outside the whole week.  I stuck my camera out a couple of windows to give you an idea of what 3:30 p.m. looked like today--pretty dark and wet.

We need the rain, so I am not complaining.

I stopped by my local library after work and picked up some gardening magazines.

The tall yellow Ligularia caught my eye on this cover.  You all know how I love the one plant I have. I don't think Ligularia takes kindly to being divided.  I wish it did as I would really like to have more of it and I have never seen it for sale since I bought mine years ago (I actually purchased two, but one died out the first year).

The next best thing to being outside in the garden is reading about other people's gardens. I think we will get pizza for dinner and then I will settle in with a few magazines and see if I can find any good ideas for my own garden.

My Breck's Order for Spring 2012 Has Arrived

For some people it's scary to mail order flowers. I thought there may be a few people who would like to see exactly what you get when your order arrives.  Both of my Breck's orders arrived this week. I am happy with what I received as it all looks healthy.  I got everything planted after work yesterday.   I thought it would take about 30 minutes, but it took three times that long. 

Here is what I got:

I ordered 12 Lionheart bulbs. They come in packages of 3.

I think the brown spots are supposed to be there.


I was surprised to see the toad lily "bulbs"

It looks like a root to me.

I don't really care, I just hope they grow! I planted 11 of them all along one of my garden paths. I forgot to soak them in water as it says, but I think they will be fine as it rained last night.

I planted 12 Crocosmia 'Fire King' bulbs in two containers.

+

I can move these containers anyplace I want them in the garden. I hope they bloom this year!

  The last time I tried Croscosmia it died after the first year.  I am hoping I can bury these containers in the soil against the house to help them survive next winter.

It's been quite the week for receiving mail orders. I also received these three tanks tops--all the same, except for the color.

I wouldn't be caught dead wearing these alone, but I think the bright colors will be fun to wear under summer shirts. 

Gigantic Pot People in a Gorgeous Garden

It is still cold and windy, so I was happy to find the current issue of Midwest Living in my mailbox when I got home from work. 

I love this Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin  garden  with huge 12-ft tall pot people! The article says they are appropriately named Terra and  Cotta.....gotta love that!

Here is a close up:

I think the skirt is an upside down flower pot, but I am not sure.  This garden belongs to Dale and Joan Jeanquart.  Their garden is on two lots--just like mine--except their second lot is much more manicured with nice trees---I don't see any ugly pine trees.  I think they have done a great job working together to create this wonderland, don't you agree?