What a beautiful weekend! I was able to get out in the yard both days, and that hasn't happened in quite a while. I took full advantage!Yesterday was Moving Out Day, the day the houseplants that have spent the winter indoors make their move to the great outdoors. This is followed every fall by Moving In Day, when they move back in. Moving In Day is a long time away and not for us to discuss here today, so let's just ignore that part of the tradition for now.
I have three big houseplants that get to be part of Moving Out Day: a ficus, an umbrella plant, and a fern. They all look worse for wear after the long winter. The umbrella plant does the best indoors, the ficus does the worst. All three made the move outdoors, the ficus and umbrella plant to the front porch, and the fern to the back patio. The fern is still a little crooked in its new home, but it's safe with the slide for support for now. It will get straightened up before long.
I had a neat discovery when I was cleaning up the front and getting it ready for summer. Last fall I put some curly willow branches in a pot for winter interest; just stuck them in some leftover potting soil and poured in water to freeze them in place. I was pulling out some of the branches and noticed green leaves in there. "Weeds", I thought, "already started growing."
I looked closer and they aren't weeds after all, it is the curly willow branches greening up and sprouting! How neat is that? After being cut from their home, and shipped who knows how far, and frozen outdoors in frequent sub-zero temps, they still have life at their center. After seeing them greening up, I couldn't pull them out. I will leave them in their pretty pot out front, and plant a few annuals around the base of the branches, and see what happens.
Today, I ran out to Seargants again. I needed water crystals. They are an essential part of my VIP plantings and I hadn't found them at Walmart or Home Depot, so I made a quick run to where they were pretty sure to be found. Before stepping into the store I strolled through the flower pot area. I love the blue pots and ornaments, and I really loved these tall blue pots. One side of the lip is lower than the other, and that would make for a really nice front to a flower display. Plus, they are a beautiful bright blue. I even liked the blue bunny, although he would be less useful. I'm unlikely to get either, unless there is a really good sale, because these are not cheap.
Nothing, actually, at Seargants, is ever cheap.
I did find my water crystals, as well as a couple other things, of course: organic fertilizer that was buy-one-get-one, and a small cobalt flower pot for the spider plant my sister gave me. One can never walk out of a garden center with only the things one went there explicitly to find.
When I returned home I set up a workstation in the garage for potting up the hanging baskets. This is always kind of a hassle. I like to work on a waist-high table, and it's never easy to put something together. When we had the truck, I'd drop the tailgate and use that. Hubby didn't appreciate the resulting mess to his truck, so it's probably just as well that the truck is gone.
This year it was a snap. Two sawhorses were still set up from a previous staining job, and I just place a slab of osb across them, and voila! Instant potting bench. A very comfortable workstation.
My little helper was out there with me. The water crystal gels caught his attention, and after looking at them and touching them and remarking how they felt like the fake snow he made in a craft project at sacc, he had a good time adding more water to the container and stirring it up. Then we'd add a few more gels, then more water, then more stirring. Finally he pronounced them ready and we dumped them into the waiting yardcart of potting soil.
I always love it when my little guy joins in and is interested in the gardening. Of course, it helps that after each basket was potted up we'd play a few hoops in the driveway. Hey, whatever it takes.
The flower baskets went together quickly. The new Ray petunias for red and white look good right now, but time will tell if these are good enough to return as VIPs. I can't understand why Supertunias are becoming hard to find; they have been super performers in my somewhat-challenging front porch. The baskets are sitting on the grass on the east side of the garage for a couple days, resting, before being hoisted up to their summer home. There they are subject to unkind winds and hot afternoon sun and a terrible risk of drying out, the kind of drying out that means they have to sit in a pool of water and absorb from the bottom. But for the moment they get to enjoy the easy life of shelter and morning sun. 
One other thing I got to play with is a new toy hubby gave me last fall - an electric hedge trimmer! I didn't have a chance to use it before winter set in, so this was my first time firing it up. We have three arborvitae on the front of the house - two globe and one tall - and they all need regular trimming because they grow pretty fast. The globes especially need frequent whacking back because they get tall enough to block the view of the window boxes, and that is to be discouraged. In the past I've always used hand clippers, but it's hard to shape a round bush with little manual clippers.
This was much easier. A lot of evergreen came down; you can see it in piles in the picture here. The trimmer sliced through those branches like buttah, I tell you, and it was easy to wave the trimmer around making curves and sculpting the shrub. Sculpting! See, there really is a lot of artistry to gardening. Granted, the two globes didn't end up looking perfectly globe-like, and I did accidentally slice through one of the water lines even though hubby had repeatedly warned me not to, but it was a heck of a lot of fun.
That was my weekend. Moving Out Day for the houseplants, potting up the VIPs, a little shopping, and a little bushwhacking. Awesome weekend, can't wait for the next!
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