This is Soooo Wrong!

This is not what I was going to write about today.  April 22 is Earth Day.  It is snowing.  What Global Warming!  I also have the day off.  Not getting any gardening done today.

Okay, rant over.  Back to what I was originally going to write about...procrastination.  I made the decision last fall to not rake the leaves off the flower beds and use that as mulch.  Worked in the past, usually not an outrageous amount of leaves.  I only had 4 bags of leaves in the beds surrounding the house.  A typical amount.  Last Friday on my day off I tackled the perennial bed.  A wonderful 75 degrees (hence my outrage today!) and not a cloud in the sky. Armed with my rake, trash bags and sunscreen, I tackled my final flower bed.  45 minutes and two blisters later, this is what I had accomplished.

Two bags were not going to be enough!  I ended up making two trips into the house to get more leaf bags, for a total of 6.  I think that is a new record.

But the bed looks so fresh and all the little plants can breathe and stretch toward the sun....

                                                 ...unless the snow kills them off!


I also bought new pots for the front porch on Friday.  These are very cool.  Adds a pop of color to the front porch.

And they coincidentally have the same turquoise as the big pots on the patio.  Hmmm,   Will they eventually migrate to the back of the house?


As a side note, for all you ghost pepper fans, the new crop has sprouted and been transplanted into their red solo party cups!

Maybe I should have procrastinated a few more days!  What global warming!!

I Have Seen Signs of Spring!

Having the day off today, not for Good Friday, but I have to work on Saturday, I felt ambitious and cleaned up some of the leaves that we left on the flower beds over Winter.  Low and behold, some of the plants are waking up!  Our temps have been relatively moderate so far this Spring, hanging around in the 40's.  (We did have a 70 degree day this week.  Yippee!)  Here are a few of the early risers:

Now granted, these hyacinth and daffodils are kind of in their own protected micro-climate, by the front porch, sidewalk and driveway.  Still, the daffodils are usually in bloom by Easter but not sure they are going to make it this year.  (Editor's note:  I didn't get the blog finished on Friday and these particular daffodils bloomed on Easter Sunday)

The roses are slowly coming to life also.  All the late snowfalls we had were a little tougher on the roses than first thought.  I might need to be picking out a couple more new rosebushes.  The new one we did order should be shipping in the next couple of weeks,  Yeah!

On the East side of the house (aka the Pink Garden)  there is much more going on.  The sedum is going gangbusters.

If I were to take a picture of the whole bed, you could see that there are bunches of these little plants coming up.  I don't mind if it fills in some, but I'm going to have to make sure it doesn't take over the whole bed.  The weigela  hasn't started to bud out yet and I probably killed my clematis.  It was looking pretty scraggly so I kind of cut it a little too far back, something that should have been done in the Fall. We'll see.

The hydrangea is just starting to bud out (really hard to see):

The delphinium are coming up, at least two of the three:

All the bleeding hearts (both pink and white) are accounted for:

Okay, I realize that all these pictures look like a bunch of brown dirt.  But, to us Garden Nerds, this is the best time of year.  Our environment is coming back to life!  Let the Spring Begin!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all!  Here is my first attempt at a peeps sunflower cake.  Not too bad.  I am working on my next blog post and should have it done in the next couple of days.  Until then, enjoy this holiest of days.  Weather is beautiful here.

db