Saturday Jumpstart

Went to Lowes and Home Depot today to check out their perennials. It's still really early, but I found a few things.


The haul.


I'm trying to fill up the little roadside garden. I planted Mediterranean pink heather, sedum 'Stonecrop', lithodora 'Heavenly Blue', and stachys 'Silver Carpet'. I also planted a hardy geranium 'Striata' that I never got planted last year.


Stonecrop.


Heather.


Planted hollies in pots and geraniums. I'm thinking of toning down the blue doors with some stain. I really just need new front doors.

I also bought lettuce seeds, gourmet greens mixture, and sunflower seeds.

I moved my good and evil girl.

Pitiful pansies! I haven't finished weeding this garden. I'm hoping to fill it up with lots of foxgloves and other cottagey flowers.




Bad chicken!

It's Spring

I've been weeding front gardens. I checked my journal from last year, and I'm getting over a month's head start, so that's a good sign, right? I'm trying not to have unrealistic expectations, but I really do hope to have everything looking nice again this year. I have lots of work to do.


Roadside garden weeded and ready for the planting of more beauty.


I have a few things leftover from last year that I never got planted (and they actually lived through winter), one of which is a Bartzella peony. I think I bought it from ebay.

Paeonia'Bartzella' has flowers of deep sulphur yellow with red flames at the center; some blooms can be 9" across. Plants are very big; they can ultimately reach 4' with a similar spread after 5 yrs, although more likely to be 2-3' in height and spread. Plants can take 3-5 years to reach full maturity. 'Bartzella' is a very rare plant, a hybrid of a herbaceous and a Tree Peony. While 'Bartzella' more closely resembles a Tree Peony in growth habit and flower form, its culture is the same as any herbaceous peony, except that it will tolerate partial shade as well as full sun.

It sounds wonderful.

Went to buy chicken feed this morning and found lots of sweet chicks! I resisted.

Long Time No Garden

I love moss. My happy place is a bed of moss under a tree by a stream. I want to plant moss under my Japanese Maple, around my fountain.

This moss wall is what I really want:

(photo from Moss Acres)