Winter Has Arrived

The cold last night claimed most of the azalea blossoms. We're expecting it to be even colder tonight so I expect the rest will be gone tomorrow.

Today's Pretties

Lenten Rose / Hellebore

Clematis - variety unknown

Chives / Allium schoenoprasum

Gas Plant / Dictamnus

Geranium - variety unknown

Giant Solomon's Seal / Polygonatum

Garden Progress

Every 7 - 10 days I walk around the garden and take pictures so I'll have a record of what's where and bloom times. After a year with very little time in the garden I've found that while I still could identify most of my plants there were a few that I wasn't certain of and older pictures helped. The old pictures also solved a couple of cases of how did that get there!?

I've started to make some progress in taming the weeds. Some beds are looking better than others. In a couple of instances I've had to dig out everything to get the weeds out. I've separated out the roots and replanted the plants I was able to save. I will be doing lots more of this :(

I took 90+ pictures yesterday but I'll spare you and share just a few.

This bed is weeded, a couple of plants moved and just awaiting mulch.

This end of the bed is going to take time and lots of digging and moving things around. The sweet woodruff and lungwart want to take over and the hostas are starting to crowd each other. I'd like to move some of the giant solomon's seal further down the bed - it hides the ugly block skirt rather well.

I've made a good start on this corner but I'd like to have something colorful here right now. What shall I move?

These iris are pretty and just past the corner so I think I'll move them when they're done blooming.

I've barely started weeding here but this area is currently my most colorful and therefor favorite spot. Just to the right of the picture is my screen room.

Butterflies are always a happy sight! The humming birds and bees also love the rhododendrons.

Shooting Stars

 

A tiny plant with tiny flowers that makes me smile.

I spent several hours in the garden and hauled many buckets of weeds to the compost pile. I will sleep well tonight!

It's a Jungle Out There

Our last few weeks in Florida were both boring and wonderful. The weather was perfect with sunshine and warm temperatures. I pushed to get more painting done and what's not done will be waiting for me in the fall. We decided to wait for the Shuttle launch and we were disappointed with a cloudy morning so we weren't able to see it from the house. We left on Tuesday and have never seen so little traffic.

After having spent so much time the last few months sprucing up the new place I was shocked at how dingy this place looked. We've been here almost seven years, which is the longest we've ever stayed in one place and fresh paint is needed! After being laid up much of last year it needs a good spring cleaning too.

The garden is looking both great and terrible. I lost several plants but others have really taken off. There is little definition as to where the lawn ends and the garden beds begin. I wasn't able to do anything last summer and didn't have the energy in the fall.

The iris are beautiful and this bed is in the best shape of any. The rhododendron has lots of blooms considering that this plant has been just barely hanging on for years.

This is a view of the entire bed. The other rhododendron has really taken off and the one in the middle is finally coming into it's own. Both clematis look good and the lamium is starting to fill in.

Around the corner the azalea is pretty but it insists on growing out rather than up. The bed is overrun with weeds and the daisies and lilies don't not want to play nice with each other. That won't matter if I don't do something about the black-eyed susans and coneflowers which seem determined to take over.

This is the other side of the walkway. I'm thrilled with the delphiniums. Everything else needs to be thinned or moved. The white azalea bush also spread out, with no upward growth which I might be happy about if it had more than a couple of flower buds.

This corner is just ugly. I've never been able to find the balance I want here and of course this is the bed you walk by from the driveway to either door.

I think I will love this bed after some thinning and edging. In two years it's gone from looking empty to jam packed.

The entire bed. It doesn't look too bad from a distance. The ferns should fill in more and the hosta near the step needs to be moved.

Always one of my spring favorites, this bleeding heart never disappoints!

February Blooms!

It's been a very long time since I've had any gardening to write about so Garden Bloggers Bloom Day seem like a good day to start again. I wasn't really expecting to have anything blooming here and was pleasantly surprised to find a pink azalea blooming on the back corner of the house when we got here. It's even prettier today!

That's it for blooms, unless you want to count the yellow weed growing in a pot. Most of the plants here are either dead or in need of severe cutting back and crossed fingers. The next two pictures you can see the front planter full of dead shrubs that we need to replace. You know I'm loving my palm trees!

There are terrible restrictions on the size of the planter you can have out front here but I notice many ignore them. I'll see what I can do with it but I'm not sure I'll ever be happy with such a little space to work with.

This palm still needs to be trimmed. We did borrow a trimmer but even with the ladder it was too high for us to reach. I have a very tall person in mind to take care of it for me.

 

Here is one of the things I'm going to try and cut back and hope it recovers. I'm afraid it will take me awhile to learn the names of things.

 

And one finally for today, a photo of our back yard. With the screen room on the side of the house I don't see us using the yard much but it is nice and shady. Not sure what type of pine it is paired with a tropical something that needs attention.

So I have some research to do but I see new plants going in very soon!

Monthly Update

Somehow I've gotten out of the habit of blogging. So here is a brief update and hopefully I'll follow up with some more detailed posts.

In my last post I mentioned that I fell and hurt my foot. The most recent x-rays confirmed that it is indeed broken. The surgery repaired the first and second bones, the break is on the fourth bone. I can walk on it as long as I'm wearing the ugly black shoe but to go shopping or walk any distance I still need to use the crutches or wheelchair. The good news is that I seem to be healed from the surgery and I have almost no pain, even when walking. The doctor isn't sure that I'll be able to go back to work when school starts in September but being out of sick days I really need to be cleared to work then.

We went to Florida for a couple of weeks and finally got to see our new house. We John cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. The place is in much better shape than I was expecting. There are some repairs to be made and we probably have to have a new roof sooner rather than later but over all I'm am very pleased with it. It is two miles in from the front of the park and therefore quiet and the few neighbors we met seemed quite nice.

My garden is a huge mess and it's only been in the last week that I've done anything outside and that wasn't much. Despite the weeds and the flower stalks that need to be cut back the garden still delights me. I can sit on the end of the bed and watch the hummingbirds just outside the window. The smell of oriental lilies wafts through the house. John planted just a few vegetables and we're enjoying the first cucumbers of the season and hopefully we'll have tomatoes before too long.

Mom celebrated her 85th birthday last month! She's been doing well. She goes to PACE every Friday and some weeks she enjoys more than others. She spent the weekend at my sister's and we had her party there. We've haven't been able to get down to her house as often as we should but I do try and call her every day or two.

It's been quiet here. The boys have been here two or three days a week and I've worked on my genealogy. Not much else going on........

Irish Eyes

Things continue to plod along here and I continue to feel sorry for myself. I managed to quit smoking for a week and then had a melt down and started again. Gov. Patterson has insured that I will quit with the new tax passed yesterday.

We have jumped through several more hoops on the path to getting Mom accepted into PACE. Sis has had to do most of it. I did the funeral preplanning and ordered the headstone. Both were much harder than I thought they'd be, through the whole process I felt like I have been wishing Mom dead which is certainly not the case.

The school year is winding down. Twig had his moving up ceremony at preschool last week and Sprout had her preschool graduation later the same day. The other four are now on half days. The boys will finish on Wednesday and the girls on Friday. We had just Alex yesterday and took him out to lunch. It was nice having one to one time with him. Today we have the girls and they are a bit anxious about riding the bus out here. In the past they always just rode with me and I brought home with me after work. Unless something comes up we'll take them out to lunch today. It was sad for me to pick up all of my things from my bus yesterday.

It's been 10 weeks since my surgery now. The friend that lent me the wheelchair needed it back. I had an appointment with the doctor this Friday but they called and canceled it. With babysitting and other commitments it looks like I'll be going on July 6th. That will be twelve weeks and I have to believe that I'll have grown bone by then! I'm not going to bet everything on that though, so I'll be borrowing another chair from the VFW. Depending on how things go at the doctor and with Mom we hope to get down and see the new place in Florida next month even if I'm still on crutches.

I am getting out into the yard more and even puttering in the garden a little. I still can't manage the stairs on the crutches and have given up and go in and out on my butt instead. Embarrassing, but with the fear of falling gone I do feel like it gives me a little more freedom.

A Pretty Good Day

Twig had his adenoids out yesterday and is doing fine. We enjoyed having Sprout here for a night but she is quite happy to be back home.

My eight week appointment was this morning and it didn't go well but I didn't expect it to. The xray is still not showing new bone growth, maybe in another couple of weeks. I have tried to quit smoking and I'll continue to try. One bit of good news was that I can start walking with the crutches. I can still only put weight on the heel and not my full weight but this may allow me to get to sections of the garden that I haven't been able to.

We stopped down to Mom's after my appointment and her ramp is almost done. I was quite happy to try it out because I'm still having trouble with steps. She had someone else coming from the program we're hoping to get her into. It has been a long drawn out process but hopefully by the end of the month she'll be in and all set.

Some of the things we've had to do have been tough and it's good that my sister and I are splitting the chores and have each other to lean on. The ramp is done, she met with a lawyer and I've taken care of preplanning Mom's final arrangements. That was harder than I thought it would be and hard to talk to her about. There are still several things that need to be done before the end of the month but we are checking them off, the toughest one's are done and the end is in sight.

On the way home I got John to stop at a big box store and push me around. I have new respect for people that are always in wheel chairs. We'd get to the end of an aisle and have to turn around and go back because the way was blocked, there were aisles I couldn't get down at all because there were hoses all over. John was able to maneuver me over to a markdown rack where I picked up a new daylily. I picked up a couple of other things too. They were a great price - because they were unmarked so it will be interesting to see what they are next year!

Because I am still struggling with stairs I don't go outside as much as I should so when we got home today I stayed out for awhile. John picked up some vegetable plants and put them in yesterday and while I was looking them over one of the little snakes that are about came by.

Everything is so early this year! John has a bumper crop of strawberries and my flowers are all 2 to 4 weeks early. The lupine are about done but the penstemons and jupiters beard are pretty. This section of the garden was full of butterflies and dragonflies but they all seemed to be camera shy.

These delphiniums are right outside my bedroom window and a favorite of the hummingbirds. The delphiniums on this side are 5-6' tall but the ones on the other side of the walk are less than 2' and I have no idea why! The one that looks bright blue is actually a rich purple.

This gas plant really got big this year and I love the dainty flowers.

Most of my blanket flower is yellow with some red so I was pleased with this one. The ox-eyed daisies are just about done already! In another week or so they'll be replaced by shastas. I hope they last until the red beebalm gets going.

Right now I'm planning to get outside in the morning and get some weeds pulled and my new plants in the ground!

Update and Flowers

I haven't been posting because things have not been going well. Mom spent last weekend in the hospital but she's home now and doing ok. I'm still on crutches with no end in sight. I need to grow new bone at the fusion site and so far that is just not happening. The doctor claims it is because I smoke and I'm sure that is a contributing factor but I think that being so sick a week after the surgery and all of the stress I've had have set me back as well. I am trying to quit, obviously not successfully yet. Adding to my stress - my youngest grandchild has been having hearing problems and will be having his adenoids out this week. Not a big deal but I'll be relieved when it is over.

I'm still not great at going up and down the steps but I'm forcing myself to do it more often. I went out and took some pictures in the garden yesterday and even pulled some weeds and if was wonderful to get my hands in the dirt. I really thought I'd be able to work out there by now. I did a good job weeding and cleaning it up before surgery but the weeds are starting to creep in and there are many volunteers that need to be given away or moved. I'll keep working a little at a time on what I can reach from the edge and the rest will just have to wait.