Seedlings and grass seed

On Mother's Day, instead of giving myself poison ivy as I did last year, I cleared out the plot in the back that I redesigned in my garden design class. It was hard work, since it seems never to have been improved by whatever stupid person last planted things there, and so no wonder the topiary was the only thing left standing. Anyway, I hauled out a ton of the clay soil and used it to fill patches in the lawn caused by years-ago tree removal and the (huge) "divets" caused by taking down the tree recently, then I put grass seed in those spots.

My little helper.  Naturally the hose did not reach as far as all my grass spots, so we're using the watering can, like people with nothing better to do.

The grass seed spots. Most are at the top of the hill.

I also finally got around to planting the poor trapped seedlings in my mini-greenhouses. They were in there soooooo long. Heaven only knows whether they will make it in their new homes, plus what kind of crazy person creates a box of basil, marigold, and poppies? The kind who is exhausted from hauling clay around her yard, that's what kind. Whatever. I can transplant them later if any of them even make it.

Poppies and alyssum.

Basil, marigolds, and poppies....why? Why not.

Are my lavender seeds still in the fridge? Of course they are. Get over it.

Azaleas and bumblebee

Goodbye, dead trees

SavATree removed chopped down three dead or dying trees last weekend, including the three-trunked monster (and its sidekick, the scraggly pine) in front. I now need to decide whether I can stomach putting another, albeit smaller, tree there when Birch Hill Landscaping re-does that spot.

We left a stump in back so Emma can play on it. As you can see from the chainsaw wound, they nearly cut the whole thing down, but Pat flagged it in time.

And the third tree was on the side of our house - we left most of the trunk as a draw for wildlife and because we like seeing the trunk out our windows.

And here is what the flowers look like in front these days. They really need some serious company. It has been raining a ton here and I have been working quite a bit, so I haven't found the time.

Wormwood in foreground; lavender behind it. I cut both back to nothing in early spring.

Phlox

What the heck are these plants?

This curly tree was in Bromley, England. Love it.

And this yellow flowering shrub is across the street. There is also a version in pink in front of another house.

This yellow one below is gorgeous, isn't it?

Garden happenings

Apr. 19. You can see the flowering viburnum. It wasn't spectacular, but nice.

Phlox (it got looking much nicer a couple weeks later)

Tulips on Apr. 19

Tulips on Apr. 23. These are Dreaming Maid. They are darker purple than I expected; I was a little disappointed. Also sort of short for tulips, which I knew.

View from the front door - not terribly lovely, is it? Need to fill up this space!

Spring! Ahhhhhh.

I took this picture to illustrate the purple finch sitting on the wire - we had a ton of them this year. But it is also a nice shot of the back yard. The tree on the right, in back, is the one the pileated woodpecker enjoyed.

Why do we have these yellow patches in the grass? Concerning.

This shows where the daffodils are.

And speaking of daffodils, we visited Reeves-Reed Arboretum to see the daffodils in the "bowl" - perhaps we were there a week or two early (on April 10) or late, but it wasn't as spectacular as hoped. And it was so COLD!!

This is a lovely sampling of the three types of daffodils I planted last fall. From left to right, we have Narcissus Erlicheer, which was pretty but too small and whitish to be appreciated from a distance, and the smell was super intense and off-putting and made me sneeze; Narcissus Pink Wonder, which just wasn't pink enough; and Narcissus Rijnveld's Early Sensation, which was marvelous and, indeed, an early sensation.

Pileated Woodpecker

I have always wanted to see one of these "Woody Woodpecker"-type birds! It was on a dead tree slated for removal.