moss boss

May and June are the prettiest time in the garden.  It's still early, but I love seeing things come up that I planted years ago.  

Front garden, which had a few desultory daffodils when we moved in

I'm especially glad that I planted "cemetery moss" - the color is so vibrant and it spreads like crazy!

Side "rose garden" is starting to fill in, all perennials

I'm waiting for the peonies to start...they're so beautiful with the purple of the false baptisia and the yellow of the irises.  Total accident!

I've had a little trouble up here, though.  The deer, which have never bothered this garden in the past, have been mowing down my bee balm.

En route, they're stepping on and crushing the little seedlings I've planted around it.  I'm going to have to replace about a fourth of what I've planted.  

Our front red maple has filled in quickly.  I'd never noticed one before we moved here, but I love it so much.  A few more weeks until it's totally lush!  

I've been doing some work in the garden, but I have to pace myself.  I have so many other projects, and my regular job as well.  One really pleasurable project is this pair of bedroom side tables that I found at a thrift store for $14 each...on half-off day.  That's right, I got the pair for $14!  I knew they were good quality...solid wood...and checking inside, I saw that they were Ethan Allen.  When I did a price check, I discovered that they're selling for hundreds of dollars online.  Score!

They were a little beat up, though, and I didn't like the orangey stain.  I'm in the process of sanding them...

...to give them a really natural finish.  I'm about halfway done!

I'm continuing to spot spring ephemerals on our walks...

celadine poppy

trillium flexipes

dwarf larkspur

jack-in-the-pulpit

white baneberry

...and lazy kittens while working at home.

We're loving this time before the dread humidity and heat of summer sets in.  As long as it's not too bad, I'm going to try to continue to take short reading breaks on the porch swing.  It's so peaceful, especially with the garden filling in around it!

Have a great week!

smashing pumpkins

What a beautiful pop of color!

I've left our fall pumpkins out because they're so pretty, and for the animals, but they're slowly starting to decay.  One after another, Todd tosses them into the garden, where they split and reveal their fantastically vivid guts.  A new usefulness: birds steal the seeds and possums scoop out the flesh, and we admire the saturated color against the barren ground.  What a treat in January!

We had thirty stingy minutes of snow yesterday, and the remaining pumpkins, even those in a dejected slump, looked cheerful.

Snow!

It's been so warm here, in the sixties just a few days ago.  Everything is confused.  My bulbs were starting to sprout.

Bee balm was making a low carpet under a bird feeder.

German chamomile peeked between stepping stones.

Our muskrats have loved the warm days, making frequent laps around the pond with their beloved cattails.

Spring peepers, feeling the warmth, have burrowed out of the mud and begun making their spring song.  Our nesting pair of herons have been by to take advantage of the bounty.

Turkey vultures keep a vigilant watch from above, observing the uncharacteristic January activity and waiting for an opportunity for a good meal.  

We've been living in a long, delayed autumn with the warmth and frequent fog.  The dark days make it feel more wonderfully cozy inside.  

Now the weather is turning decidedly colder.  The spiderwebs that were hastily spun in late December's warmth are filled with snow.

Claudia, now positively fat on late-season voles and canned cat food discarded by our haughty girls, will be coming into the garage this week when the temperature dips.  She's used to this and seems happy enough to have an occasional glimpse at the frozen landscape.

The cats will be warm and fed...the bird feeders will be filled...and every so often, when we need a lift, we'll smash another pumpkin.

Have a great week!

bright eyes and (anti-mouse) war cries

In these chilly early spring days, we're getting a few projects knocked out of the way before the fencing and trenching crews come.  Todd cut up the last few stumps in the back field to help them burn easier.

When we first moved here, the lean-to on the white animal barn was full of metal and rubber debris.  Todd hauled it into the barn yard so that it can be hauled away...then he shoveled out the rich soil and laid out a new bed for spring (I'm thinking hollyhocks and sunflowers).

Finally, he put up shelving in the newly-cleared space for wood storage.  It's so tidy!

I planted more seedlings.  The sweet peas, which love the cold and will fizzle out when the heat hits, went in right before the rain.

I amended the soil with compost and popped them in.

To protect against birds, deer, and rabbits, netting was strung out over the whole row.

It's amazing what you can find, even in the cold.  This trio of dead plants look, well, dead.  They sat outside all winter, buried in snow.

But I never throw anything away until late spring,  because sometimes you will find...

New growth!!

Other exciting new growth...I paid $10 - $20 each for my first group of dahlia tubers last year.  I've been reading about multiplying them by potting up the tubers in late winter.  Now, I didn't store mine well, and several were wrinkled and shriveled.  But I potted up a couple of them anyway, and...

When those sprouts get a little bit bigger, I can cut them off and plant them.  The tubers will send up MORE sprouts, and repeat.  Best of all, I can still plant the original tubers in about a month!

Our first bulbs are sprouting...dwarf iris.

And hooray!  I had about 30 little pea-sized "bulbettes" that had broken from the main bulbs in one of my packages in the fall.

I didn't know if they'd grow, so I potted them up in a container and forgot about them.  This week:

I planted THREE pink bee balm plants in our back side bed last year.  They re-seeded...prolifically.

My winter sow containers have been sprouting, too.  IF all little seedlings prosper...it's going to be quite a year!  This is flax "Bright Eyes" and I think they're so charming!

photo courtesy of Etsy

ALL of these containers have sprouts!

The year of experimentation continues.  I've been potting up more seedlings that are a bit too crowded on their soil blocks.  It is so satisfying! 

It hasn't been without troubles.  I've been seeing a lot of this:

Because my set-up is so scattered, I don't have fans set up.  Good air circulation helps keep mold from forming and strengthens seedling stems.  Without it, they grow to a certain height and then flop.  I've replanted this one, deep, in hopes that it can be salvaged, but we're going to have to set up fans soon as the seedlings get larger to ensure good health.

I found this when I went into the potting barn yesterday:

Mice had gotten in and eaten about 40 seedlings!  Todd set some humane traps, and Claudia is sleeping in the barn for a few nights, to get rid of any pests.

March is definitely a bit of a challenging month.  Mainly chilly, mainly overcast...

We've gone hiking, but everything still looks like this:

To keep my "spring!  spring!  spring!" excitement up, the flower puttering helps...as does seeing all of the promising green in the garden.  It won't be long now!

Have a great week!