This weeks weather has been very interesting. It was sunny and in the high 80s on Monday but today it is raining and in the 50s.

The plants have been responding to the warmth, sun and rain. Some of the current happenings in the garden include the following.

• The hostas in the back yard are breaking ground.


• All of the grasses are finally greening up including the ones that were just recently divided.


• The red and yellow tulips in the oval brick bed in the front yard are all blooming. From the street, the display is beautiful.


• The daylillies have doubled their size.


• The radishes and the lettuce mixture in the four pots have sprouted. They need to be thinned.


• The pansies that I grew from seed and planted in the wheelbarrow are doing better. Unfortunantly, not all of them survived.


• Two of the carpet roses are up. However, I had to dig the middle one out last weekend because it did not survive.


• Ken and I dug up the bulbs in the small bed in the back yard. I planted the four Marguerite Daisys around the butterfly house. I still have to dig up the perennials in the bed at the back of the house and transplant them.


• The Yukon Gold potatoes were planted last Sunday in the barrels.
• The coral bells are beginning to send up new leaves.

FALL 2009 AND SPRING 2010 SUGGESTIONS

FALL 2009

• Order Orange Emperor Tulip Bulbs from Van Engelen (100/$31.75) and plant in the front oval bed.

• Order giant crocuses and Tulip Tarda or Tulip Dasystemon (50/$9.25) from Van Engelen for large back bed.

The weather today is unbelieveable. Yesterday, they changed the weather report several times. First there was supposed to be rain in the evening, then in the morning and then not at all! The one thing that stayed consistent was that forecast said that the temperature would be in the 80s. Right now it's in the mid 80s. I hope that the warmth doesn't harm my cool weather flowers or crops. This picture shows the violas that are planted in one of the pots in the front side yard brick bed.


Two yellow Carlton daffodils have blossomed in the large bed and I see several other buds. However, all of the bulbs that I put in this bed in October 2007 have not come up. Some of them may have rotted away or were destroyed when I put other plants in the ground. I love spring flowering bulbs but they can be undependable. That's why I usually treat them as annuals and not perennials.






I decided to dig out the minature bulbs that are in the left small bed. Even though a lot of the green leaves came up this year, less than a dozen crocuses and daffodils bloomed. I want to transplant perennials in this bed and add some vegetables later this spring.




The perennials in the right small bed are bursting out of the ground. There are Stella d'Oro and Happy Returns daylillies, Nana coreopsis, salvias, irises, delphiniums, and a grass in this bed. I'm still having trouble with the Obedient Plant cropping up. Even though I have dug it out twice this spring, I see that some more leaves are coming up! I bought the ornament in the picture above at the Meier Gardens Gift Shop last summer.

Ken mowed the front yard for the first time this year. With all of the heavy rain that we have had this week, it really looks good. However, that still doesn't make me a turf fan! I would be happy to eliminate all of it in our yard. I might not be able to do this in the front but I'm doing my best to get rid of the grass in the back yard. Every year, Ken digs up more of it. Unfortunantly, it's difficult to do so all at once. Right now, Ken has a huge pile of old sod next to the composter that he will turn into "black gold."

April Showers Bring May Flowers! Well, it's not exactly May yet but the rain that we have had since Sunday evening is really making everything green. Today, the sun has come back out and it is in the 60s. This picture shows the minature tulips (I can't remember if they are T. tarda or T. dasystemon) that have been coming up in the garden by the front door for three or four years. I love them especially mixed with the scillas.

The forsythias have been blooming this week and the ones in the back yard look beautiful. I love their free flowing form and they are covered with flowers. The lilacs are also getting purple buds at their tips. Last year, we cut the height of the lilacs but this year we need to thin out the dead wood and overlapping branches. This morning, Ken started to create a rock border around the base of the pine tree. So far, it looks really good.

On Monday (April 20th), I sowed some more tomato seeds. I started three Celebrity tomatoes, two Mild Jubilee tomatoes and three Lemon Boy tomatoes. This time I decided to put them under the lights right away instead of starting them in a warm dark room. Even though, the Celebrity and Mild Jubilee tomato seeds are from last year, the Lemon Boy seeds are the ones that I bought last weekend. Today, I noticed that one of the Celebrity seeds that I planted several weeks ago started to germinate so I put it under the lights.