Spring is near! It’s been in the 70s most of this week, and today, before a few days of rain set in, I did the following:

Transplants

• Transplanted 5 mums from out front to out back
• Moved bottlebrush
• Transplanted the only rosemary that still looks alive to out back by the birdfeeder. I’ll be surprised if this survives> I think I brok off some of its taproot, and the hole I dug for it wasn’t deep enough for its root. The shovel kept hitting gravel, making it difficult to dig any deeper. It also had very little root system, and no dirt clung to its roots when I moved it.
• Transplanted a rue to the hill. Even after cutting it back, the rue was massive — probably a 2′ diameter disc of soil and roots
• Consolidated 5 scattered creeping phloxes into a clump next to taller phlox out front.

Seeds

Last night I scraped each blue bonnet seed across an emery board to rough up the surface, then soaked the seeds in boiling water over night. After moving the mums and rue out of the way where I wanted to plant the blue bonnets, I smoothed the dirt as much as possible and drew a pattern in the soil for where I wanted to plant each seed type.

I sowed chamomile, feverfew, and blue bonnet seeds and sprayed them in. Coreopsis seeds need to be sowed when it’s warmer. I can expect the seeds to sprout anywhere from 10-25 days from now, depending on the weather. It may take longer, but I think now that they’re out there they can make their choice about when to emerge.

Colder weather is coming — it will still be warm during the day but will drop below freezing at night, so we’ll see how everything does. Here are some photos of what the garden looks like in late February:

Blue salvia leaves emerging

Front bed in February

Phlox leaves emerging

Mums at top of hill

Hill bed transplants

And planning diagrams/seed packet instructions:

Back hill garden plan

Bluebonnet bed plan

Feverfew seed instructions

Chamomile seed instructions

Bluebonnet seed instructions