Garden happenings

LOTS of rain this spring. Just sayin'.

May 21: iris poised to bloom, and allium looking good

May 21: baptisia starting to bloom, and poppies sending up buds

May 21: dianthus looking gorgeous, and lilac starting to fade

May 21: remember the weird allium that sent up only a bud, no leaves? It bloomed anyway! Small but sufficient.

May 21: Sweet pea seedlings direct-sown around the lower lamp post.

Today: front left. Iris looking great!

Today: front right.

Today 

I made this seed bed...

A week ago Emma and I transplanted what was left of our mini-greenhouse seedlings (none of which looked too robust; I would say we waited too long), and I threw a lot of random seeds into the garden just because a moment was here and would pass and they'd never get planted if I didn't take immediate action. I remember foxglove and poppy and pepper and sweet pea seeds but was overall just not worrying about documentation. Sometimes you just have to see what happens, because you don't have time for careful plotting and recording.

But now I spend some time every day staring at the ground and wishing things would appear, and I'm fuzzy about what I'm expecting. There's a lot of green stuff sprouting, but who knows whether they are weeds or seedlings? I made this (seed) bed; now I must lie in it.

In other news:

Perennial tulips wide awake on Apr 23

Perennials tulips waking up on Apr 25

This is actually the first time I have spotted a rabbit on my property, remarkably, even though I have occasionally seen them elsewhere in the neighborhood. Just another critter to eat my beloved plants. Sigh.

A more welcome creature: mourning dove with fluffed feathers. Note the allium getting taller on April 28

Last year, I got a free pot, and when I emptied the soil, I found mystery bulbs. So I threw the bulbs in other pots just to see what would happen, and two of the pots sprouted these things. Lilies? Random weeds not from the bulbs at all?

If you look at the photo below, you'll see our azalea being glorious in front of the house, but my new favorite part of it is this random branch that has grown back through the other shrubs toward the house, such that I can see it from the front window, though not from anywhere else. Lovely!

May 1

What the heck made this huge hole on the right side of the front garden? Was it something burrowing, or just a deer stepping into a soft spot?

Poor dianthus

Lilac, obviously, but also transplanted Shasta daisies on the left, in front of hydrangea. The daisies have been getting a little uppity on the left side of the garden.

In front of the street number sign, there used to be a thriving anemone - now it is just sending up a very few tiny leaves. Will it recover? Close-up below. Interestingly, this was the anemone that replaced the one that didn't make it after the first winter when we redid this front garden.

I think this shrub is pretty, in front of 14 Brookside Dr., in Maplewood, on May 2

Another view

I passed these pots in the city on May 3. Love the Columbine.

The cherry tree blossoms are now more on the ground than the branches, like a fluffy pink carpet surrounding each tree. This is in front of the library.

Accidental tomatoes and other adventures

Select Seeds was selling plants for $5 each so inevitably I bought some.

Three primroses, which are inexplicably blooming now.

Looking at the dark soil spot to the back, there are three new anemones, and then on this side of the lavender (which is not new) is a delphinium.

My beloved foxgloves are looking glorious.

This four-lined plant bug was on Emma's zinnias. I don't want to make the picture too large because yuck.

Remember the dianthus that was mixed in with some sort of super-enthusiastic grass? Well I ripped out the grass, and now it looks *great.* Ha ha,

Here's the other one, looking all alive and whatnot!

For weeks, amidst the zinnias, I have been eyeing some mystery plants. They look like tomatoes, I told myself, but naw, how could they be tomatoes? Must be a look-alike weed. They got bigger, and they still looked like tomatoes. I considered and rejected the idea that tomato seeds might have been mixed in with the zinnia seeds. They got bigger still, and it finally hit me: THESE ARE TOMATOES. And then I came belatedly to the realization that my compost must have had some tomatoes with seeds just waiting for a spot in a garden.

Even if they grow fruit, I fully expect the accursed squirrels to make off with them, but still, it's a little exciting. Since they are amidst the zinnias, they probably feel staked, but I am wondering whether I should truly stake them. But that would be admitting I care, and then I'm just asking for my heart to be broken when tragedy befalls them.

See, this is why I don't grow vegetables.

See also the grassy-looking gypsophila, and the tall cornflower appear poised to bloom.

This is the general scene of Emma's plants (plus tomatoes!). Note the anti-deer spray in the foreground, which has clogged up every spray bottle I've had it in, so I've taken to painting it on the plants, which is a total pain. But darned if I'm going to lose the zinnias, cornflower, and balloon flowers to the wicked deer.

Finally, last year I cut back the Shasta daisy stems, and when they grew back this year, it was to the side of the dead stem stumps. I just pulled those stumps out, and look how beautiful they are!

Garden happenings

Offered without comment.

Garden happenings

Allium in the back plot, on the verge of bloom! 

Foreground: Larkspur. Behind that are virtually invisible allium (like blades of grass), and then foxglove. UPDATE: The foxglove disappeared within the next couple weeks. Eaten? Died? No idea. Sad.

The fall parsley seeds! UPDATE: these died within the next couple weeks. I think something pulled them up.

Peppers

Spanish bluebells. Should really plant some more of these bulbs in fall; they do well and are pretty.

I must confess it took a while to dawn on me that the sweet peas would not climb a huge lamp post; they want something small they can attach too. So I put strings along the lamp post in two different configurations to see which works best.

Funny story about the dianthus, above and below: I was so confused why the one below only bloomed on one side and then I realized (lots of realizations lately) that the brighter green leaves are actually a huge mound of some type of vigorous grass. Must pull it up.

Foreground to background: Zinnias, cornflower, baby's breath (not really visible, so short) and more zinnias.

More zinnias! Up to our eyeballs in zinnias.