Happy Easter!

I decided to go out into the garden and take a few pictures of the garden sprouting. We have gotten so much rain for the past few weeks!

Daffodils!

One of the Japanese maples. The pots that are on their side is because they are probably root-bound and they take in too much water. I’ll have to work on them.

The first tulip:

A pretty heuchera:

I had to remove one of my Japanese maples because it was not doing too well. So I planted this one. It was one of the easiest holes I have dug! Most of the time the ground is just full of rocks.

And my bridal veil bush and my flowering almond bush:

 

A New Fence!

Thought I would show you my new fence! It took two guys 7 days to build it. It has 2″X4″ wire on the outside so it will keep skunks out and Sophie in!

Because of how it was built, some of the wire along the front side was a little off the ground. Jay was going to put a board there, but I kept looking at it, and finally said to him, what if I just move the stones closer to the fence? That would give me more room to plant a few things. Which is what I did, but not without a lot of effort! Some of those stones were pretty buried in the ground. I had to use a shovel to get them out. I was surprised that I moved them all in one day. Then I had to get a ton of dirt to fill in the spots.

And here’s a few plants that are blooming:

The forsythia bush:

The camellia:

And the bridal veil bush:

There are  daffodils popping up here and there. The tulips are taking their sweet time!

Before it Snows!

We were supposed to get a big snowstorm yesterday and today, so I ran outside to get some pictures of some of the Japanese maples and a few other plants! So far, there’s just a sprinkling of snow on the trees…

My laceless maple turned bright red this year! I think in the past its been orange/yellow.

I took this picture of some of my roses a couple weeks ago.

And just when I said this plant was not blossoming this year, all of a sudden it was filled with blooms!

Also, I complained about this hydrangea not blooming. All of a sudden there was one bloom on it!

Some of my little roses. They never stop blooming!

Two more Japanese maples.

And the dogwood tree, which absolutely has the most beautiful colors in the fall. It hasn’t bloomed for years. This year I’m going to prune it, and see if that helps!

A close-up of the dogwood tree’s leaves.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am staying home this year, and looking forward to it!

Noah’s Birthday

Baby pictures of Noah:

2 Months old:

4 months old:

This past Saturday Noah turned 10 years old! Since it was Saturday and his trainer has a class on that day, I drove over at the end of the class and took some Apple Hill donuts over. I am very appreciative of all the work she’s done with Noah, and also a couple of her helpers that worked with Noah. Of course, I forgot to take pictures over there. So I took a picture when I got home. Noah had just had a bath, but the picture doesn’t look so much like that.

When I took Noah to a special vet to be neutered, I asked how long these dogs lived. She told me that many times they escaped and were hit by cars or other terrible things happened to them. Noah has surprisingly never tried to escape from my yard. He has occasionally run off when I leave the gate open, but he always came back. Noah is slowing down. He still takes walks with me, but he usually walks behind me. Of course he never picks up sticks on our walks. But he does still enjoy barking. And he does enjoy sleeping most of the day!

A little rant: this bit with PGE turning the power on and off is getting VERY old. I am very glad that I got a generator this year, and that my neighbor Tom has been very helpful in giving me advice on how to keep it going. I wish it would rain a BIG rainstorm.

And here’s a few pictures of my garden. Its also very hard to water the garden when they turn the electricity off (I have a well, so I run out of water frequently.) Today at the gym, one lady told me they filled their bathtub up so they could flush their toilet–brilliant!!

Carnation:

Rose:

Petunias:

And one more new thing. I am going to have my contractor put the fence all the way around my whole yard. Please don’t ask me how much it is going to cost! I have a large yard, and I was even shocked at the cost!

Oh, one more new thing. A friend gave me her mom’s Keurig. I never thought I’d want one, but I do love it. The only thing is that I think it might be old and it gets clogged up frequently. So Keurig sent me a 25% off coupon, and I bought a smaller Keurig. Then I researched what kind of water to put in it, and they said Distilled water. Walmart has a lot of water on sale, so I bought 10 gallons of distilled water!

My Generator…and a Little Garden Update

So, after living up here for 32 years, I finally decided to get a generator. I got the same model as my neighbors, and Tom helped me TREMENDOUSLY with setting the generator up. I was supposed to run it for about an hour once a month. But it has a key fob that turns it on and off automatically, and I forgot to turn the start buttons to OFF, and the battery went dead. Aaargh. So, after trying to order new batteries (wrong size) Tom took my old battery to his house and powered it up! Just in time because PGE decided to take our power out all day yesterday and today. I have one light, the computer and wifi machine plugged in, and the refrigerator. And, in the morning, I bring out my coffee machine and plug it in and make myself a cup of coffee 🙂

So, here is an abbreviated garden report. The salvia seem to love the cooler weather. Their color is so brilliant blue! You can also see the zinnias that I planted in front of them. They aren’t blooming as well as I thought, maybe because the weather is so cool.

One more pic of the salvia with my magenta geraniums in front of them.

One zinnia.

Okay. Have you guys ever heard of Giant Poison Ivy? All those red leaves are poison ivy. And this past summer, I actually got poison ivy on my arm just from a little shoot that was starting up. Anyway, it is starting to come into my yard. So I have a plan. In the middle of winter I am going to get disposable clothing from the thrift store, going to put a plastic bag over my head, and get good gloves from Walmart, and I am going to cut that sucker down, along with the little tree it is climbing. I have poison and a good sprayer all ready to go. After all is done, I will throw away everything that I was wearing and go take a shower.

Here you can see the base of it. It is a pretty good sized vine.

This abutilon is huge, and it didn’t bloom this year. So it is going! Hopefully I can dig it out myself.

Here is a part of the garden that I am very pleased with. It got shadier over here, so I planted heuchera and ferns. They are all doing so well.

All the maples are doing well, and all the trees. I got quite a few apples on my apple tree this year, maybe because I pruned it last winter. But mostly I am a little overwhelmed by the garden. It hurts my back to bend down and pick weeds, so I mostly don’t do that. I am having my tree guy come to prune the flowering cherry this fall. It is getting too tall! Anyway, that’s the report for now. Hopefully I’ll have some fall color to show you in a little while.

New Stuff in the Garden

I know I haven’t been posting much this summer. It has been a busy summer. My mom’s health hasn’t been that good, and also I finally got my little patio put it. I’ll take pictures of that later. I’m also going to get some real gates (I’ve had cattle gates for YEARS!) My good contractor Jay has been doing all this for me.

Here are some new things in the garden. I have reverted to putting things in pots again. Here’s a trio of pots.

And here is the big plant a few weeks later:

Here are some more potted plants:

This begonia sits atop an oak stump. I haven’t had much luck here, but the begonia is doing great!

Outside the fence I always look for plants that are deer resistant. I found this plant. And then I saw on Lori’s blog that she had a similar one and called it bee balm. Sure enough, I checked the label, and mine was bee balm too!

Only one of my hydrangeas bloomed this year. I’m going to have to investigate and see if there’s a specific fertilizer that I need to put on them.

My daisies are always pretty, but they are in the shade too much, and eventually they just fall over.

The day lilies put on a good show this year. I’d like to get some more of them.

And I had lots of oriental lilies all around my yard:

One day I went to my local nursery looking for a few plants. They just didn’t have anything I wanted. So I stopped at Lowe’s (which I usually avoid) and they had some really pretty plants that were in good condition. I got two geraniums, and planted them in front of the blue salvia.

And I got a really pretty heuchera. Once again, my garden is getting more and more shady, so I am turning this little bed into a shade bed.

Here is something very interesting to me. I had a “Raspberry Dazzle” verbena from last summer. Because we had a mostly mild winter, it stayed alive. So I was super excited to see it bloom again. But it just sat there for the longest time. Just this week I went out and it was covered with blooms! Sometimes it pays to be patient in the garden.

I just finished doing this. It was a big job. I’ve had ivy growing below this lace leaf Japanese maple almost as long as I had it. But this maple is fairly short, and I decided that the ivy detracted from it. So I spent several days pulling the ivy out. I am planning on getting some of my favorite corsican mint to plant underneath it.

And to end, here’s a little chicken report. Did I already tell you that I got 8 baby chicks? What a mess! But finally they were old enough to move out to the big chicken house. All the literature warns that older hens can be quite hard on the baby chicks. So for a couple of weeks, they stayed in the big chicken house in their rabbit cage. And finally I took their rabbit cage out. They just didn’t know what to do with themselves! And they still haven’t gone outside. I’m not going to try to make them go out until they are ready. I don’t want any chicken massacres on my hands!

What Happened in my Garden

Here’s what I saw when I drove up. This is that little wild rose just loaded down with blooms! I pruned it pretty severely this winter, but it does seem to be getting bigger and bigger!

Here’s the garden with my roses, the canterbury bells, and a foxglove that managed to get in there. I even have a few delphiniums blooming there!

A close-up:

And this was a big surprise. One of my little trees is an azalea, and I was so surprised to see it blooming.

I walked outside the yard to get this picture of my honeysuckle vine. I also pruned it pretty severely in the winter. It is huge, and I love when I walk outside in the evening and get a whiff of that beautiful perfume from them.

And this is what the chickens do ANY TIME I walk by them. They are always certain that I am bringing them food or a treat. And usually, they are right 🙂

This week its supposed to be in the 90’s all week, so I will be walking early in the morning, spending some time in the garden, giving Noah the big white dog a bath, and then spending the majority of time in the house rug hooking and quilting.

Someone Else’s Garden

I went to Cambria Pines Rug Camp again. It is one of my favorite places to go. Partly because it is fun to spend four days doing nothing but rug hooking, and partly because the grounds are so beautiful and the food is so good. The first day I took a walk in a back area. Even here, they have made a pretty landscape.

I love the way they have hung hanging baskets all along this fence.

This picture just makes me want to have more and more snapdragons!

And this was such a pretty arrangement of succulents.

I love these little bird houses with plants on top of them. This one is filled with succulents.

And here’s what I did while I was at camp. This is a design I drew illustrating “The Parable of the Seeds” from the Bible. I even looked up “Israeli birds” and those are some birds that I found. They really are brilliant green! This is a simple pattern and I really had fun working on it.

Cambria is very near to the sea, so the temperatures were moderate all week. I don’t think it ever got over 70 degrees. One of my nurse friends retired recently, and she was interested in rug hooking, so we went together–so fun!

While I was gone, the temps soared up by my house, so come back in a couple of days to see some of my own garden.