More springtime pictures from the backyard

Tags

Gardening, postaday2016, spring

The lilac are just beginning to release their lovely scent, it is one of my favorite smells in the world, when the flowers are all open I like to bury my face and inhale deeply, lilac is as relaxing as lavender is in terms of aromatherapy in my opinion.  The bees have been circling all of my lilac bushes which is such a great sign considering all the literature has been warning us of the weakened state of bees worldwide. I used to be scared of bees, but since reading about the disastrous toll all the pesticides have taken on our bee population, I see bees as our life link to produce and without them we are in serious trouble. Bees are sacred to our existence and I hope more people become pesticide free, if only for our own good.

I am very excited that all of my blueberry bushes, planted last year, came back healthy and strong. My friend Tracy who has experience with both wild blueberries and regular blueberries told me that I have to wait at least 3 years before I get any fruit, it doesn’t take away my excitement over the fact that they survived the winter and the dogs. The three dogs love hanging out where I planted the blueberry bushes but they haven’t trampled them so I consider that lucky. Gardening is part patience and luck, you hope for plenty of both. 

I’m surprised the pansies came back from last year, they are a gorgeous deep purple, a great background color for the Russian Sage I planted right next to them last year which is coming back as well. All in all I’m happy with what is popping up in the back, I can’t complain.

Start of spring in my backyard

Tags

Gardening, postaday2016, winter

Even though this past winter was mild compared to the previous two winters, some of my plants seem to have suffered more then they should have theoretically. Perhaps it was the yo-yoing of frost to warm that did damage, I’m not sure. Case in point, the picture at the top featuring my crawling phlox in my pond garden shows one red tulip where there should have been at least a half dozen, in addition to hyacinth which never appeared. I’m hoping the iris do much better, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for their arrival.

On a positive note, the winter didn’t put a crimp on my wild strawberries, their tiny white flowers, so adorable, are carpeting the area near the pool, so come early June, I should have a fine, healthy harvest of tiny wild strawberries. I can’t wait, I love carefully picking them for my family, I’m allergic so I can’t eat them but I love feeding them to my husband.

The small purple flowers that come from vinca minor are everywhere, both in the back and the front of the house. I am sometimes conflicted by my vinca minor, there are days where I want to rip them out because they have taken over in too many parts of my gardens, there are other times, like today, where I don’t mind their prolific presence because the huge splash of color is quite beautiful, so I am torn.

Gardening is never boring, though I confess I haven’t done any work in my gardens as of yet, I am still too tired. I’ll ease into it nice and gently, no pressure, at least I will try not to put any pressure on myself, there is no need to do so.

My little bamboo forest

Tags

Gardening, plants, postaday2016

My little bamboo forest, which has been one of the banes of my gardening experience, has come back as healthy and vibrant as ever. I swear, if there is nothing else that I can count on in my garden, it is the bamboo coming back with a vengeance, no matter how many times I pull them up or dig them out. The bamboo in my garden self-propagate on two levels, by their insane root system and secondly with their seeds transmitted by their late summer flowers, it is a full-time job to stay ahead of their spreading everywhere. This year I am fatigued so the bamboo are being left to their own devices, I may end up regretting not doing anything this spring season, but I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

I have to admit that if the forest stayed like this, young, tender and short, I may be inclined to not hate them as much, but they will rapidly grow out of control and annoy me, I can promise you that.

Itching to put the plants back outside

Tags

Gardening, postaday2016

  
When days are as beautiful as this one, 70 degrees and sunny, I want to take all of my hibiscus, hanging plants and the bougainvillea and put them outside where they belong. My impatience has to be tempered with reason because if I did what my feelings told me, it would be a death sentence to all of my plants. Our nights aren’t even close to the temperature minimum required to keep my babies alive. This time of year is always so hard for me, I am bitten by the gardening bug and bitten really hard even though the ground isn’t ready and the overall conditions clearly aren’t what is needed for a successful transition from indoor to outdoor. I have no patience, darn you Inigo Montoya “I hate waiting”

Late summer harvest

Tags

Gardening, postaday2015, vegetables

   
 
  
   
   
Late summer harvests are always so welcome, it’s a last hurrah for great vegetables. My husband and our children did a fantastic job of keeping the garden not only alive, but thriving during the rainless three weeks I was away, no small feat. I was able to bring a nice bagful of vegetables to my mother this week, the queen of vegetables, she was duly impressed.

I learned quite a few things this year with our vegetable garden and next year it will be not bigger, but more diverse and better organized. The most important lesson I learned was space in between plantings is a huge element in the success of your crop, something I will be very mindful of next time. I also learned  that propping up your tomato plants is not a choice, but really a necessity and I need better fencing to keep my omnivore pooches from snacking on my vegetables.

I can’t wait for next year. 😀

Snowdrops in bloom

Tags

Gardening, leaves, postaday2015, rake

    

  

Today is the first day that I made the annual tour of my gardens, too early for anything except crocuses and snowdrops, these snowdrops are the only ones I have, but I think that they are precious. The other sprouts, I forget their names, but they are cousins to the crocus, they should bloom in the next week or so if the weather continues to hold in this pattern. I went over to my mother-in-law’s house and her crocuses were up, they were in a cluster of five, delicate in their tinyness just like my snowdrops. I think that it is just amazing that something so delicate can withstand the brutal freezing shocks that we had this past winter.

It’s only April and intellectually I know that it is way too soon to see anything happen, either in the front or the back, but still with the gorgeous day outside today, it’s hard not to wish for something to show its lovely green bud.

What needs to happen during the next several weeks is the annual spring cleanup, raking and uncovering the beds, giving everything lying below the ground some much needed air and access to sunlight. The carpet of dead leaves, which provided much needed insolation and protection, has done its job and its time for the leaves to be removed. It’s a big job but someone has to do it; that’s my cue to get busy.

Putting in some annuals for color

Tags

annuals, Gardening, ponds, postaday2014, water aeration

Today my husband and I went down to pick up a new water aeration pump for our pond mostly to keep the mosquitos at bay; when water is being whipped up it is much harder for mosquitos to lay their eggs, or at least that is what I read somewhere. While we were shopping for the pump, we spied some very pretty annuals which the front yard was very much in need of, while we are waiting for the perennials such as the peonies and lilies to bloom; some discreet splashes of yellow and purple to perk up the front, always a good idea.

So while I planted the annuals out in front, my husband put the pump together, submersed it into the pond and voila, a pretty fountain effect:

Now that we have the pump working again, I feel better about not contributing to the mosquito population, I might be wrong about the idea that moving water inhibits egg laying, I hope that I’m not, but I still feel better.

I thought that two trays of annuals would have gone farther than it did. I still have at least seven more containers to fill out in front. I could always use some annuals in the back, but it isn’t needed as much as it is in the front. I’ll probably get the rest of the containers planted with different colored annuals next weekend or at least I hope so.

I am very happy with the work that we did outside today; it’s always nice to add some beauty to the house, either inside or out.

I am fighting with the bane of my existence again

Tags

bamboo, Gardening, plants, postaday2014, weeds

It is that time of year again, I have to get down and dirty and beat back the two invasive pests in my gardens; the Bishop weed and the bamboo. If each of them would just stay in check in their respective spots, I wouldn’t have an issue, but no they both creep forward towards my other plants choking the life out of them,so I have to go to town against the Bishop weed and the bamboo to keep the biodiversity of my garden active and healthy.

The reason that I spend hours digging out these two plants is because they have root systems that can be at least a foot long and go very deep; they both also love to hide within the middle of plants that are much more delicate, making it very difficult to completely eradicate them. If you leave a tiny piece of the root, you are guaranteed to have them come back the following year.

Today sped by so quickly; without being aware of it, I spent seven hours at weeding and I barely made a dent. Though I am happy with how I left one of my garden patches, but I still have two other garden patches that need my attention.

It may seem weird, but today was such a relaxing day; me kneeling in the dirt, quietly and methodically digging deep and pulling up root after root, following each root to its lengthy end. Meditation and relaxation are the wonderful outcomes when I weed. I may be tired, but I feel very happy with how my day went.

The promise of a Hibiscus bloom

Tags

blooms, Gardening, plants, postaday2014

I had to show all of my friends the ultimate sign of hope for the upcoming spring, a beautiful red bloom. What makes this bloom so amazing is, if you look closely at the Hibiscus bushes, they are so sad in the sparsity of leaves and yet I have quite a few buds; granted they are taking a long time to bloom, but their promise is there nevertheless.

Another little fact is that with the extreme cold temperatures, the dining room has been on the really chilly side and I have been concerned about keeping my Hibiscus, my Bougainvillea and Mandeville alive. These plants aren’t used to such cold even in the house and to see the Hibiscus blooming, despite a lack of leaves and being chilled for the past few weeks, it made me so happy. I’d be so sad if I lost either one of these plants, I have been nursing these plants for several years and I love them. I was nervous this year because when the cold hit, it hit hard and so many leaves fell at once that I thought oh no, poor babies.

So today being the first of February means that we are inching closer to spring and I am so looking forward to it. My red bloom is making me very hopeful for a glorious spring and a healthy reawakening of all of my plants both inside and outside.

Daily prompt: Playtime

Tags

baking, Gardening, playtime, postaday2013

Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

I try to see most of the things that I do as play, when I’m in the kitchen, I consider it as playtime, playing with different spices and seasonings to produce a desired flavor. The same can be said for baking, especially for baking, getting your hands all sticky with butter, flour and sugar, it reminds me of playing in the mud or playing with clay and then using all of the special tools to make different shapes and forms, how can one not see that as playtime.

I can’t think of playtime without thinking of my gardens, getting down and dirty in the dirt, finding all the worms and other insects scurrying and burrowing within the dirt, digging out the boulders whenever I want to add a plant, I do live on a mountain and mountains are primarily made of rock, that is playtime. It helps to see gardening as playtime because it does entail a lot of physical work and if you didn’t see it as something fun, it would just be dreary physical labor and how fun would that be?

I discovered this mode of thinking quite a while ago, it actually came from my warped anorexic thinking when it came to exercise; for every physical activity that I had to do no matter how boring, how onerous or however monotonous, I was burning calories and that made everything okay. I decided to think of everything associated with cooking, baking and gardening in both ways, first it’s playtime and fun with the results being worth all of the effort and with every movement incurred by these activities, calories are burned and muscles are used, circulation is accelerated which is good for the veins, arteries and your heart.

Life is all about perception, I know that when you are in the throes of depression or things are really not going well, trying to get yourself back to a happier place seems daunting but it can be done. I speak from experience, I know depression but keeping these little mind “games” in play does help keep the depression at bay. I’m always a work in progress.