Hot Hot Hot!

As cold as it has been this spring, suddenly, overnight, it is hot. Today was in the 90's and humidity was high. I spent most of the day in an air-conditioned office building of course, but was gloriously free to spend some time outdoors after dinner tonight.

First order of the evening was to water the VIPs. The hanging baskets are up of course, as are the window boxes. They are settling in nicely. Jeff fixed up the automatic watering tonight - unfortunately it was cut somehow - and they should all start getting watered twice a day. Last year we tried this but the emitters were too slow and hardly any water trickled out. This year sees new emitters and hopefully better automated watering.

The flower pot out front with the living curly willow is looking very nice planted with red salvia. The green of the willow is getting bigger all the time, and I wonder what it will look like by fall. I wonder what would happen if I planted it in the ground come autumn? That might be a fun experiment to try this winter.

I did some weeding of course. Thistles, nettles, and grass, oh my. The pleasant part of weeding tonight was that I was doing it near this big Miss Kim lilac bush. The scent kept drifting over to me as I crouched next to an enthusiastic William Baffin rosebush, carefully yanking nettle and prying up thistles and doing my best to avoid getting poked by William. I planted this bush years ago right beneath our dining room window - you can see the window - with the sole purpose of having that lovely scent drift into the house through that open window. Years later, it actually works as planned. How sweet it is.

Another chore I accomplished tonight is the tying up of peonies in the front yard. "What?" you exclaim in horror, "Tying up peonies? Everyone knows you use peony cages and stick them over the plant early in spring!" No, no, little grasshoppers. Let me show you a better way.

All you need are the tools pictured here: garden twine and a sharp scissors. Dull scissors will do in a pinch, and so will any kind of string for that matter, but garden twine and sharp scissors are best.

Pull a length of string out of the can. This depends on the size of the peony, so eyeball the diameter of the bush and cut it off at that length. This isn't spaceship trajectory calculation, don't worry about being super accurate. Then take the twine and pull it around the peony, keeping toward the upper third of the plant. Hold onto both ends and then tie them together for the amount of tied-togetherness that appeals to you. This simple technique will hold the bush up for the entire season, is completely hidden by the leaves, and easily cleans up in the fall with no peony cages to store over winter. Nothing could be simpler. I've done this for years and it always works. Try it, you'll never do cages again.

I took a few snapshots tonight of some things that are looking good in the garden. This peony is always the first to open in my yard, it sits on the west side of the house and always blooms about a week before the others.

The alium is one of three that are up this year. I planted maybe 6 a few years ago, and it seems they are slowly dwindling. I really like these plants, and may have to order more of them this year. I've never had the actual Globemaster, but this may be the year to get one.

My little brunnera is still blooming and looking pretty with its cloud of blue flowers above nice green foliage. It's been blooming for at least 6 weeks and is one of my favorite plants. I saw they had these at Sargeants this spring, and am tempted to get another, but have resisted so far.

The sad stick-tree is a lilac tree. One of those balls-on-a-stick looking things, which hasn't looked very ball like in a number of years because I haven't been a very effective pruner. This spring I went after it with the clippers, and now it's not looking too good. As in, not many leaves, not many blooms. Whole branches are clearly dead. I don't know if it's because I trimmed it up, or if it's because we had such late frosts, but the poor thing is clearly struggling. After bloom time is done I'll trim out the dead parts, leave the growing parts alone, and then hope for the best. I do love my lilacs, I'd hate to lose it.

Camper Fun

We spent this weekend at our camper, a.k.a The Camper, a.k.a. Daffodil Love. When we bought Daffodil Love a year and a half ago it came with a great deck, as long as The Camper itself and about eight feet wide, plus a lower extended deck for a picnic table and grill. Circling this deck and The Camper is a ring of brick, with black plastic inside it and mulch on top. It's an effective means to keep weeds down and maintenance low. It is, however, ugly as sin.

There were a few weigela bushes scattered here and there in the black-plastic-mulch. These added nothing for beauty, but did manage to catch the dogs' long leashes as they wandered around the site. There were also some solar lights that the dogs constantly knocked over. The absolutely only thing worth anything in this homely arrangement was a clematis, placed at the front, easy to see, full and lush. But even this is kind of diminished because the only thing it has to climb is a rusty cruddy arch, and the rusty cruddy arch makes the whole thing look worn and weary.

Last fall I divided a bunch of things from the garden here at home, and Jeff and Ian and I took a day and drove up to the camper. We ripped out the weigela bushes, pulled up the black plastic, and spent an afternoon planting the little garden. Common things: Karl Forrester, daylilies, monarda, nepeta, lambs ears, sedum, hosta, primrose, siberian iris. Nothing fancy. All things tough enough to survive the dogs cables dragging over them or getting jumped on by the dogs as they leap up and down the deck or going a couple weeks without water other than what the rain may bring.

I'm pleased to say the garden is looking much better this spring. It looks like a garden, not a wasteland, for one thing. For another, daffodils are up and look very bright and perky. Here are a couple pictures of flowers that were blooming this weekend. I don't know if it's a fact, but based on the daffs that are blooming there now, I think the latest blooming daffs must all be small ones. These are cute little flowers, and while I didn't want late blooming daffs at home I may have to change my mind. They would like quite pretty in my garden here at home right now, and fill in what seems to be a time of astounding lack of bloom.

The clematis is blooming right now as well, and it looks very pretty. Lots of white blossoms, and interestingly, I noticed one blossom that is purple and white. There were also a number of unopened blossoms, and those might be more of the purple flowers since the white ones are already so profuse. I think there might be two clematis planted in there together. The one nice thing about the garden that was there gets a little bit nicer.

You notice that I did not take the picture in such a way that the rusty cruddy arch appears.

A nice thing that happened this weekend involved irises. I think I've mentioned here before that most of my irises died a couple years ago. Nasty nasty iris borers. I've been missing them (the iris, not the borers) and thinking about getting some new ones.

This morning Don and Mary - two campground neighbors - were planting irises around one of their trees. A friend gave them a great big bunch, more than they needed, and they gave the rest to me! Common purple, they said, and that is fine with me.

Just look at this nice bucket of irises! There is water in the bottom which Mary added, which I would never do, but I poured it out before we came home today and planted them already in front of a row of daylilies on the west side of the deck stair landing. They should do well there, and next year this time, when I now seem to have a lack of anything at all blooming, there should be purple irises, and possibly pretty little late-blooming daffodils as well.

Experiments

We've been doing a couple experiments related to gardening here around the house, testing whether some common knowledge is true.

The first experiment is The Pineapple Top. One of the frequent things you hear is that if you buy a fresh pineapple, cut off the top, and plant it, it will grow. We had a fresh pineapple a couple weeks ago, and decided to give it a whirl. We cut the top of flat and put it in a pot of dirt. Kind of laid it on top of the dirt really, because it seemed like the right thing to do, rather than burying it.

Its had a little while to adjust to its new location, and it kind of seems to be growing. It's hard to tell, actually, because the lower leaves seem to be dying off, but coming up in the middle are green shoots. This plant theory seems to be true, and I will continue to monitor my little pineapple plants growth.

Another well-known belief about plants is that if you pick a bunch of daffodils and put them in a vase, any other picked flowers or greenery that shares the vase will wilt very quickly. The common thought is that something about the daffodils will poison the water for other plants.

Ms J9 Scientist and her Fabulous Assistant Sprite are tracking down this particular story. We took two cups of identical material - plastic, of course, and filled them with identical water, straight from the tap. Into each we placed greenery from phlox, nepeta, and lamium. One received four daffodil flowers, and the other did not.

They both looked very nice and we took a picture to show how nice they looked at the start of the experiment. About a week later we took another picture to show how they looked after a little time had passed. There is a really remarkable

difference between the two arrangements in the after picture.

The cup without the daffodils is still green and perky, no visible signs of wilting. The cup with the daffodils is wilted and droopy, leaves of the greenery are curling and some are developing black spots. This seems to be one of those stories that everyone knows is true, that is actually true. Proven scientifically right here!

Now, here is something to think about with the daffodil-thing. Look again at the after picture and you'll notice that the daffodils have also wilted. They don't look very good, so even if the greenery looked as bright and perky as the other cup, the arrangement still wouldn't look very nice. The daffodils are old; time for the arrangement to go.

Therefore, my conclusion is that while yes, daffodils cause greenery to wilt faster, the daffodils will wilt just as fast causing the demise of the arrangement anyway. Go ahead and add greenery to your daffodil bouquets if you want, it won't extend the life of the arrangement but it won't hasten it either.

Long live scientific experimentation!

Moving Out, Potting Up, and Bushwhacking

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!

Cold Cold Days

It has been a cold, cold, couple of weeks. Typically the last frost date around here is around May 12th. I'm not sure what the official last day of frost is, but that's what I usually go by. It's the date that I'll start planting out annuals, hanging up my baskets and filling the window boxes, and, most looked forward to, start moving houseplants outside.

I have three big houseplants that spend every summer outdoors. A ficus and an umbrella plant move to the front porch, and the big fern goes out to hang under the deck. They are all kind of weak and spindly after the long winter, and each enjoys their summer vacation and grows strong and lush and green. Then they come inside in the fall and grow weak and spindly again. It's the great circle of houseplant life around here.

Right now it's mission-critical that it warm up because these plants are dry. I stopped watering them a couple weeks ago, knowing it will be time to move them soon, and knowing that adding a little water to the plants adds a lot of weight to the pot. Being the kind, thoughtful wife that I am, I hate to burden hubby with undo back-stress. He already gets a little crabby on plant-moving day anyway; for some reason he doesn't seem to see the joy in moving a seven foot, fifty pound tree from the stuffy indoors to the fresh outdoors. I don't know why he doesn't enjoy it, I hold the door for him and everything.

Anyway, every spring it comes down to this exact thing. It turns slightly warm. I stop watering, preparing the plants to become as light as possible. It turns cool, but I don't water, knowing it will warm up soon. It becomes cooler, and I still don't water. We have frost, but no water. The plants are starting to dry up, the leaves are getting brittle. The ficus drops leaves and the fern starts shedding little brown bits. It stays cold while I grow more and more nervous, wondering when and if I will ever be able to have the big move to the outdoors. Will it will happen before the plants have serious damage, or will I need to give in and give the plants some water?

Most years, I hold off until I can stand it no longer and then the plants go out no matter how cold it is. None of that moving them out, move them in, move them out, move them in, trying to get them acclimated to the outdoors. Plants around here don't get coddled very often, and the houseplants are no exception. They move out, I soak them thoroughly with the hose, and they are on their way to a glorious summer vacation.

I've already decided this weekend is the big weekend. The fern might get a reprieve for another week or so, it really does take a cold snap harder than the other two, but Saturday morning out will go the ficus and umbrella plant. Hubby is working Saturday, so I would have to do the heaving myself. Hmmm. It may have to wait until Sunday morning.

Mid-May Bouquet

My arrangement this week was a small simple one of honeysuckle, cosmos, and lemon spirea. It is very cute and very small. It was a bit of a challenge putting something together this week; if I didn't have the cosmos I'm not sure what I would have done. There are still a few daffs out there, but I wanted to move on to something new. There is one dark purple iris blooming, but when there's only one, well, you hate to cut it off.

I think the message here may be that I need to plant an additional something that blooms this time of year.

The trouble is I'm not sure what that would be. My lungwort, brunnera, lamium and bleeding heart are still blooming, and a few daffs, and the honeysuckle are going strong. But most of these are small, I need a good strong center flower to make a strong center for the bouquet.

Maybe I should get a few more irises. I do love irises, they are one of my favorite flowers in the garden. I had quite a few for a while, then sadly the dreaded iris borer found its way to my yard a couple years ago and those nasty little grubs just devoured everything in their path. I tried digging up the plants, soaking them in a bleach solution and drying them out, but all that did was leave me with withered, dried, bleach-smelling rhizomes with large holes chewed through them. Now there are just a couple plants left out in the yard - not nearly enough to meet my need for iris love.

The more I think about it, the more I think this is a good idea. I love iris, I need something that blooms this time of year, iris bloom this time of year - therefore I must find some iris and add them to my garden. Completely logical! Next year this time, my bouquet of the week will include iris!

Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day! In case you missed the excessive advertising for flowers, dinner, and greeting cards, today was Mothers Day. A great day if you are the mom in my house. I had breakfast in bed! Followed by cards! And presents! And then we had a fun day heading over to the river and playing mini-golf at Lark Toys.

The best presents are homemade, especially if you live with a six-year-old boy sprite. Ian made me two homemade cards, plus a flower pot, plus a candle holder, plus a snowglobe, plus a garden stepping stone. It was like Christmas all over again. I told him that because it was Mothers Day I could hug and kiss him whenever I wanted. He groaned all day about that one.

Jeff also gave me a gift. He had my bicycle tuned up and also bought an odometer for it. I've been wanting one since he got one last summer, so that is a great little present too. Now I'm more excited to get out and go on some longer bike rides.

I did have a chance to do a little bit of gardening this afternoon. My perennials are now planted, and a few weeds are pulled, and everything is deadheaded. This time of year it's only the daffodils that are getting deadheaded, but soon there will be more, so much more. I did another round of photographing the yard, and also made a new bouquet for the week and got it up on facebook to share with Patti. There are still daffodils out there blooming, though not many now, and I'm ready to move on to other flowers for my bouquets so I chose something different this week.

Patti is very artistic and also has more flowers than I, so I can't slack off on my arranging efforts. This is why it's good to have the sharing facebook arrangement - if not for that, I probably would have avoided putting something together this week. It's kind of like having a workout buddy - except she's a flower-arranging buddy. I can't wait to see what she puts together next. It is kind of weird though, she has all these flowers to work with that are just budding for me. It's not fair! I'm in zone 4 and she's in zone 3, I should get the lilacs and irises first, but she had them a week ago and I still just have buds. Hmmph. Some things just defy explanation.