Category: spring

Apr 17: garden status — blooming trees, salvia, and tulips

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The grass is greening, more perennials are starting to push up leaves, and the dogwood, redbud, and first tulips and salvias are blooming.

Rose bed
Front beds and dogwood
Dogwood starting to bloom
Joe Pye, pineapple sage, and orange milkweed emerging
Columbine flower buds
Dogwood flowers and sky
Mexican feather grass out back
Mexican feather grass out front
White salvia blooming in rose bed
First tulip, by mailbox
Dogwood flowers
Russian sage getting leaves
blue salvia blooming
Rhododendron in its new spot
Tulip buds
Back hill

Apr 16: plant tags for new perennials

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One of the small orange milkweeds is coming back — its just started poking through. Also, I put a few things in the ground today:

Thyme for the rose bed
My favorite grass: Mexican feather
White Coneflower to replace one that didn’t come back
Lollipop Vervain to fill in out back
Dwarf agastache to fill in out back

Apr 10: garden status

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I cut back the forsythia today, and the redbud is starting to get buds. Otherwise most everything looks the same as last week.

Front beds, redbud, and bright green grass
Karl Foerster grass starting to come in
Back hill before I pruned the forsythia
Back hill after I pruned the forsythia

Mar 23: rain and rest

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I always take a lot of photos this time of year because I’m eager for every bit of new growth each day. It’s easy to see progress when everything is starting fresh; I walk the garden multiple times a day to see if anything new has emerged.

Today it rained most of the day, which is excellent for the garden, and also for me since I need a break. I took my camera out in the drizzle to record some of the stuff going on.

New rue growth
Columbine
Lilac growth
New rose growth
Ornamental onion emerging
Sedum filling in

Mar 22: mulching done

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I finished spreading the second pile of mulch today. This year I didn’t need to spread it as thickly as last year when I needed to start the new bed; 15 yards covered all the beds, including along the side of the house, gave me enough to spread a little at the base of the oak tree, and I have about 4 wheelbarrows full to touch up areas where I dig throughout the summer and need to re-mulch around new plantings.

All in all, it took me 4 days to spread all the mulch.

Back hill before mulch
Back hill mulched

Mar 21: first mulch pile done, plus Oriental Poppy

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I finished spreading the first pile of mulch. It covered all the front beds and most of the new back bed I built last year.

But before I started spreading, I made one more trip to the nursery to get another bag of fertilizer, and I also came home with an Oriental Poppy. I saw some in bloom last year on my walks around town, and they were stunning, and I wanted my own. So when I saw some at the nursery, I grabbed one. I’m not sure how it will do, but it’s worth a shot.

Here’s what the first pile of mulch covered:

Front before mulch
Front mulched
Rose bed before mulch
Rose bed mulched
Front lobe before mulch
Front lobe mulched
Back bed before mulch
Back bed with last of first mulch pile

Mar 19: new plants

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I could barely wait for the nursery to open so I could see what perennials they had in stock. I was able to get my hands on these, and I’ve already put them in the ground:

  • 3 Coreopsis ‘Jethro Tull’ (tickseed)
  • 3 Agastache ‘Blue Boa’
  • 3 Salvia nemorosa ‘Snow Hill’ (white meadow sage)
  • 2 Salvia nemorosa ‘May Night’
  • 1 Achillea millefolium ‘Desert Eve’ red (yarrow)
  • 1 Eryngium planum ‘Blue Hobbit’ (sea holly)

Feb 17: snowdrops and crocus

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Today was warm and windy. The dry winter grasses whipped like ponytails out back. When I took the compost out on my lunch break, I carried my camera, too. I thought the snowdrops might have come up, and I was delighted to see that they have.

One crocus has opened as well, despite its greenery being nibbled to the ground.

snowdrops
crocus