Photos

Here are a few photos I took during lunch today. As busy as I am this week with work stuff, I got super excited to get out in the sunshine to be a little creative.

The Shaded Side

I must first say, "Thank you, Grandmom!" My anxiety about the yard subsided with the wisdom in a suggestion: think of each area as its own. While it's in my nature to see the trees over the forest, the yard was definitely one area I needed to be reminded to do just that.


It was much to my delight to spend an afternoon at the green house picking out shade plants for one such area. Starting in the front of the picture, the plants are as follows:

'Love Pat' Hosta
'Aureum' Lamium
Columbine
'Dolce Creme Brulee' Heuchera




Another big thanks goes out to Diane for all of our adventures, the latest was yanking ugly evergreen bushes out of the ground with the jeep made all the more exciting by the gentlemen cheering us on from their house-building across the street. Good-bye scraggly bushes, hello hydrangea!! The right side of the house has a Nikko Blue, the left All Summer Beauty. With any luck, and the assumed acidic soil, I will have blue blooms -- just like our wedding. :)

Along with the hydrangea on the south side, there is a wonderful little ground cover that was hiding beneath all the overgrown grass. With the weeds pulled, I'm hoping to get it to spread out and decorate more of the area.

I also planted a few things in the back garden. I am trying out the wall-o-water and planted a Roma tomato. I also added three Painted Daisies to the garden. The fourth I put in the bed right by our Maple. The tree attracts hoards of box elder bugs. I've heard about a pestiside made from a synthetic chrysanthemum substance. The painted daisy is of the chrysanthemum family. I have on idea if only one crown will deter the bugs, or if the flower would do it at all, but bring on the learning!

And, last but not least, I have a few questions for all my garden-wise readers.

1) Has anyone ever used cocoa shell mulch? What'd you like, dislike, and what was the effect on the soil?

2) Another mystery flower. It's tucked away underneath the lilac in the back corner, and I want to find out what it is before I try to transplant it.

Frustrations

The beautiful weekend should have brought joy in the garden. In some ways it did: my asparagus is growing shoots already and my saturated-green grass has required two mowings already. But all of a sudden a cloud of frustration has settled overhead as I realized how overwhelmingly parts of the garden have been neglected.

Last fall, I thinned out a group of iris. Iris are supposed to be split every 3 to 4 years. In the 3 years DH owned the home, it had never been done, and who's to say how long it had been before that when the house was a rental. Little did I think at the time that it was just the tip of the iceberg.

We've power washed our fence, and now that it's nice, we want to get it painted. I really wish we could just rip the thing out and put in a vinyl one. Every time I see the stupid paint chips laying in my garden, I have to stifle an anxiety attack, fearful that I will be poisoning whoever eats my home-grown goodness. Not to mention the mini freak-outs provoked by the thoughts of the new white paint chemicals we will be slathering all over the boards.

At the end of picket fence is a completely overgrown mess. It has Oregon grape, yellow forsythia, choked out roses and a couple trees of unknown species. Every plant is trying to take over the other and it's just completely tangled. I'd love to save what I can, especially the forsythia, but I don't even know how to go about thinning it out.

I ended up killing all my zinnia starts. The marigold and alyssum are doing great, but I drowned the zinnia. All 24 starts. Oops.

Note to self for next year: trim the myrtle periwinkle vines early in the spring to promote new growth that will flower.

My creative outlet.

I've always been a contradictory numbers/artistic person. It's forever been a struggle to balance the spectrum. While I am thoroughly enjoying my job at my small company keeping the books, this time in my life is no exception. However, my wonderful, 70 year-old yard has sparked two new passions: gardening and taking pictures of what unfolds. So, here's a taste of spring.

Easter morning treasure hunt.

This beautiful Easter brought the sun and my own little treasure hunt. The pictures above show the fun things found in my yard. (A number of slugs were found, but I wouldn't count those as treasures. I didn't even know Idaho had slugs until a few months ago!)
Kyle's only answer when questioned about the mystery flowers was, "We've always had flowers but other than that, I don't know." Proof of this was when I mentioned the tulips and he asked if those were the red ones.

Thanks to Grandmom, I discovered that the middle picture is Narcissus poeticus L. The purple clumps are all over the place, including in among the grass. The redish purple feathery thing is also in the grass on the north side of our lawn right above the patio. It's fascinatingly odd and I didn't have the heart to trim it down with the mower. Anyone have any idea what the heck it is?

The tulips beat the daffodils.

The rain finally stopped enough for me to get back into the garden! As much as I was antsy to plant, the ground was too wet and I didn't want to compact the earth by stepping in it. With the help of my wonderful husband, yesterday I was able to plant wildflowers in place of the over-run grass between the sidewalk and our fence. Today I planted the third round of lettuce and asparagus. (I have around 5 or 6 2-year asparagus root clumps that I did not plant. I was nervous of over crowding. Let me know if you want them!) My bee house is up and my toad house is in place waiting for their repsective garden creatures to settle in.

The tulips truly did bloom before the daffodils, but the hyacinth beat them both. The blue hyacinth is on the south side of our front steps, the pink in the back yard. Since they were out of the same package, I am assuming there is a difference in the acidity of the soil.

Note for next year (or maybe something that can be planted later this year?): find shade loving plants and flowers for the north side of our front steps.