I suspect your mystery material is either dead, dried-up moss or a mass of feeder roots from the trees. If the area has had a lot of small rains, the trees will make extra feeders to grab the moisture from the surface. We see a similar effect in piles of old leaves left in the woods; shove the top leaves aside to see what looks like black compost, and you can hardly lift a trowel-full of the loam because all those hairy filaments are so entwined.

You have very sandy soil, and it's likely that water is going to become your consuming interest. Just to keep life interesting, I think your area is in the region of the present drought. When rain does come, it pours. And runs off to the ocean instead of sinking into the soil. I highly recommend using drip irrigation instead of a bucket. If you did nothing but haul water, the more plants you have the less water each will get from that bucket. Impatients are a great watering guide... if they get wilted, that's a signal that more water is needed.

I'm not rambling much in my garden. Deep irrigation [every 3 days) finally moistened the soil enough to permit the veg seeds to sprout. No rain -- is it now into our 9th or tenth consecutive week?- has meant that we must use city water for anything that grows. All the watering stuff normally used in the flower beds has been re-located into the veg gardens. Even so, I ran out of the drip irrigation hose. I used up all the soaker hose, and resorted to those orange sticks for the tomatoes. I am hand watering [horrors!] the flower bed by the mailbox, only because my neighbors enjoy commenting on what's planted there. They've made a point of asking what will be in it this year... how can I disappoint them? Last night the 60' perennials bed got the first water in two weeks. The roses, veronica, phlox and nepeta may make it with minimal watering. I think I wasted my time planting larkspurs, but they haven't actually dried up. Yet. The mulleins bloomed lavishly, but have decided the show is over for this season. The oriental poppies presented only a few silky blossoms and are are obviously packing for an early dormancy. The hydrangea DH bought is surviving, but I suspect only because DH is sneaking water to it when I'm not around. The sedums are alive, but not thriving; the lavenders didn't make it through the extremely dry winter. The shade beds are dying... Rhodies, azaleas, fernleaf dicentra, tridentia, begonias, hostas, etc: I can't provide enough water for them although they get first dibs on the laundry's grey water. Only two of us, so there isn't much laundry. I've performed triage on the triage of last year; the cannas are gone, and the front flower bed is 2 feet more narrow and 10 feet shorter... and if the marigolds and zinnias don't make it, I'll probably just mulch it and forget it. The last water bill was nearly doubled of the normal winter bill, and that reflected only a couple weeks of watering. The next water bill will likely be in the mid-upper triple digits. And we haven't even started the usual July/August dry season. Of course, drought has a good side: I've only mowed twice this spring.

The tree rats have managed to bypass [or dig under] every barrier put up in order to feast on the strawberries -- we have not had one yet, since the squirrels are more willing to eat barely pink fruit. They also decided that corn sprouts are truly worth nibbling. It takes about 45 seconds for one squirrel to make a forty-foot row of 3" sprouts disappear. If only they thought the lawn clover was as tasty...

But there is always something to poke happiness into my gloom. Last night I noticed the english peas were setting pods, and it looks like we will have fresh-from-the-garden peas for dinner this weekend. All things considered, each little round green ball probably represents a dime paid to the water authority, lol.

The dog next door has figured out that if he drops his blue ball over the fence into our yard, somebody will come along and throw it back to him. Last night's stroll found one blue ball [four times], 3 tennis balls, and what looked like a rhino's hipbone. Considering the dog's size, the rhino bone was probably a snack.

I've decided that even drought won't diminish the guara or the Purple Dome asters. Lovely asters, for a few weeks in the fall. I've been desultarily trying to get rid of them for several years, once I realized their roots qualified for the invasive plants list. I mean, a dozen little plants have infiltrated to become most of a 25' bed... they are making the guara nervous. Nothing else slows guara... I wonder why the guara bothers to bloom when it can send rootling tendrils forty feet away to establish a new colony. DH fussses over the nut grass in the ditch because every little piece left in the soil make a new nutgrass. I think the guara has observed and learned and improved upon the method. The nicotiana sylvestris [that originally acted as a middling between the asters and the guara] hasn't yet come up this year. Either it didn't survive the winter or it can't break though the dry adobe-like soil in that bed. Or the guara has finished smothering it.

And it comes to me that there is another good side to relentless drought. DH is notorious for refusing to mulch his garden which means most years, he spends hours every day pulling weeds. This year his garden is a desert of powdery gray-brown, with the occasional oasis of raised hills for squash and cucumbers. It's so dry even the chickweed hasn't sprouted.

Went to OC the 7th of May. Disaster. Wife spent 10 days in hospital. Getting better every day. Planted green beans this morning. Late because we were supposed to be in Washington State. Iris and peonies blooming out. Roses about through first bloom cycle. Next dahlias and gladiolus. Veggies coming on nicely. Dry, need rain. Steve in Baltimore County

Considering planting rice and water chestnuts.

LOL, Gandle. I don't want all the rain you've had, but a nice gentle couple-three inches would be wonderful.

Di, for years I grew more impatiens than anyone in town.
Red, I bought every red impatien our small nursery at the time could get.
I loved them and each year my garden was beautiful and RED.

Then I branched out, I mixed hot pink, purple, red and
white. The more color I got the more I wanted. The past 2
years my impatiens have had a fungus that ruined my love
for them or I should say has made me cautious about
planting them. Well that and the fact that i've lost a lot
of shade and now have to plant sun loving plants.

I'm filling in the front with Pentas, hummers love them
and they are hardy and disease free. I can't get down on
my knees and plant like I used to so I drag my little
stool along and plant a few plants and then go sit on the
porch catch my breath.

I do have 4 baskets of impatiens and i'll place those in a
shady place and hope there is no fungus. They are such
beautiful flowers and I really think they make a shade garden.

The watering shortage is a problem all over the south
east. We are on wells here at the lake and we installed a
pump and put in a sprinkler system to pump water from the
lake when we first moved here as soon as they told us we
couldn't water anything. It has been a godsend to us. If
we had to pay for water we'd go broke. The lake is spring
fed so it pretty much stays the same level.

I'm excited for you Di, shade gardening has so many
possibilities for lovely flowers. The different ferns
are so facinating to me. I've found that all the mulching
i've done over the years is paying off. It stays damp
underneath and cuts down on the watering.

May all your flowers live and make your garden as special
as you.

After three years of drought, we re now 7" over our normal rainfall & at a level it took us until November last year to achieve. I know this is only a temporary pattern, so I'm trying to enjoy it, despite spending what seems like every waking hour when it isn't raining pulling weeds.

I've got about an acre planted here & with only me doing the work, it's hard to stay on top of everything. Despite being an over-achiever, I've come to the realization that someone will always have a better looking garden with less weeds than I do & have been trying not to stress out about the fact that yesterday's deluge washed away a lot of the mulch that I painstakingly put down only last week.

We're just about through with our big flush of blooms for the spring & I've got to say that the plants have loved all the rain. My daylilies look the best they have in years and are sending up scape after scape full of buds.

The roses are onto their second series of blooms, and I'm glad that most of them are old garden roses, versions of Knock-Out or Buck roses that are disease resistant and need very little care. Winchester Cathedral, one of my few David Austin roses, got black spot so badly that it lost every leaf on a 5' X 5' bush within a week. Enough of that, I thought & ripped it out & replaced it with a white Buck rose. I refuse to deal with finicky plants.

We've got the first tomatoes ripening and have been enjoying out Noonday sweet onions as well as the first blackberries and blueberries.

For those of you, who are in a drought situation, I'd suggest you look into installing a rainwater harvesting system. The Ag Extension down here is heavily promoting this method of water conservation as despite out recent heavy rains, the prediction for Texas within the next 15 years is to be in a state of permanent drought. This is sort of like back to the future as I remember my grandparents having a cistern underneath the house where rainwater was collected and used to water the garden. My grandmother also used to use it to wash her hair.

Di, when your brother comes, I'd suggest going to the beach. The painting and the chores will get done eventually, and the world always looks better after you've taken some time to rest & recharge.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rainwater Harvesting

Di, stop judging your adequacy as a person by your productivity, dammit! Just be. You're not in denial. Nobody is going to think you're "all better now" just because you're working in the garden, and any guilt you have belongs in the bottom of your compost heap where it can rot into something better. Easier said than done I know. But I do wish you'd be less harsh on yourself. Rant over. You are as beautiful as you are loved, and I hope that the nurturing of life around you helps you to continue to heal. You'll never turn off the grief like a switch... it's just a new part of you...

As for gardening activities, I'm going a bit frantic myself. Mostly because spring and early summer are make-it-or-break-it times for those of us in colder climes and there are certain things that just need to be done. But they mostly got done.

My fingerprint is now clearly visible on our yard. It has come a long way from the 30-some nasty spirea, 5 unkempt and gianormous pontentilla, and swaths of rock and landscape cloth that greeted me when we moved in. The perennials I planted are really coming into their own, and I beam with pride when people stop to ask me about plants or for advice in their own gardens.

I almost typed that I had hardly planted anything at all this season... and then I realized that I've put at least 500 individual plants into the dirt, and have no clue how many seeds I've planted. I suppose that's "hardly anything at all" compared to what I've been doing the last few years though...

I'll always have a bit of grass because the dogs (ours and the neighbors who come over daily to play) need space to poop and romp, but I'm using Steve's love affair with his ridiculously oversized riding mower to justify a nearly constant expansion of my planting beds. As much as I dislike that mower, I owe many a bed to its lousy cornering capability! ;o)

I am well pleased with last year's rain barrel project, and would heartily recommend them to anyone who is struggling with feast and famine rains. I have a total of 220 gallons of capacity, and a half an hour's worth of rain will fill my barrels to the brim. The drip irrigation system I built for them last year made watering a couple beds completely effortless. I can't say enough nice things about them and am grateful to Leaveswave for the guidance.

Of course my neighbor is laughing her butt off at me for my planting idiosyncrasies. I have a bad habit of "not wasting" seedlings. Who is she to say that 45 hot pepper plants is too many (for a woman with a low tolerance for "hot")? I think I showed restraint by not planting all 150 that I started! (She's also laughing because my labels washed off when I was hardening the plants off and I have both "Bulgarian Carrot" peppers and "Tequila Sunrise" peppers... they look nearly identical and now I don't know what's where, so I'll be playing Capsicum Roulette come harvest time!)

And I "only" planted sixteen eggplants, ten tomatoes, and who-knows-how-many beans, peas, cukes, zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuces, spinach, radishes, and chard...

I planted so much in my raised and expanded beds this year that I decided herbs can grow just fine in the flower beds. I'm not sure if that's a form of denial, or a nod to French Potagers... (I'll probably claim the latter, but know secretly it's due to my lack of horticultural restraint.) I have several plants each of rosemary, thyme, sweet marjoram, basil, parsley, oregano, cilantro, dill, and mint (the mint lives in strictly-policed holeless, sunken pots).

But I hardly grow any vegetables and herbs at all. I'm mostly a flower gardener... (sigh... restraint is for sissies...)

The last 4 years my garden has been confined to pots but big ones hold 15-foot Black Bamboo, 6 foot variegated Cotoneaster, 12 foot Eucalyptus, 8 foot Erythrina, I've got Vitex coming along and Japanese Maples, Acer griseum, Deodar Cedar and Chamys. Interspersed are large perennials like Thalia and Macleaya and Arundo donax varieg. Then I fill in with Canna and Elephant Ears, Vines and grasses. When my indoor tropicals are added I have a jungle enclosing a large umbrella table and chairs and room to drag the hose but it's every bit as magical as my former larger garden.

Every year I add a few (well, this year about 15) large pots... I combine several hardy things like Erythrina and gold Barberry, often adding a Coleus or ornamental pepper...easy to replace or vary the annuals next year. Manettia and Japanese Climbing Fern climb walls on that lightweight netting hung from hooks under eaves. Annual vines on fence.

So even when you can't easily get "down and dirty" in the garden...there's still a lot of fun out there. no green knees here but still dirty fingernails...LOL josh

Sorry my first paragraph got lost...I meant to add my thought to Di that the beach sounds like a good idea...be kind to yourself. It's very good to have you posting again.

And to Oscar, I'm very sorry about your wife's illness but glad she's recovering. And very sorry you didn't get to visit Washington again this year...I remember your mentioning it before...maybe later this summer? josh

What's blooming now? Aster, Echinacea, Dianthus, Brazilian verbena, Gerbera daisies, Phlox and the Violas which are fading, but hanging on. I really like the Dianthus Michelle gave me, as it is hot pink. I smile every time I pass it. We ripped out all of the weeds in the sideyard (6 or 7 feet X 50 feet), turned the soil, planted grass seed, and it's a lush green. The other half is still weed ridden. And I'm planning a bed there. I have a blue million seeds sitting underneath the buffet in the dining room, with intentions to start them, but haven't done it yet. I waited because these are the ones which I want to bloom later on (autumnish), basil, sunflowers, etc. I guess it's time to get them going.

Lazing at the beach may be hard to do, but it sounds like just the ticket. No kissing or mooning webcams, thinking, planning or anything else strenuous. Just rest Di because you deserve and need it!

Robin, I think Gillian gave those to you... because you then shared one with me! Mine is right next to my garden bench, and is really two plants mixed together. It blooms kind of a chocolate burgundy color and a lightish pink with darker tinges on the edges (I think... it's been a while since I've seen the flowers, but they'll be open by the time I come home). But I think of both you and Gilly when I see mine...

Listen,there are gardeners and there are GARDENERS..and we all the know the difference. In the spring you can easily spot which is which by the degree of mania..and I really do believe this. Well,I have to because I'm so manic right now it's pitiful. I'm out there all the time seeing what needs to be done rather than what I've done. I have all these silly time frames in my head..this needs to be done before such and such a time,this can wait a day etc. etc. So couple that typical spring gardening thing with a new property to landscape and geezy peezy Di,I don't think it's denial at all. I actually stayed inside today and cleaned house most of the day. It was such a relief from the pace I've been setting..7 in the morning until 7 at night..except maybe an hour or two break away from the sun. If housework is a relief and I'm enjoying it,then I'm a certified member of the nutso gardener's club and it's a big big club.I can't believe everything you are putting in..it will be glorious and I hope you take some pictures. I went to my Spanish class this morning and our teacher whom I love,told us that Americans try to analyze everything to death. I think she has a point.

June 8-10th I'll be visiting my house and garden that I haven't seen for a year. I have no idea what I'll find in my yard as I have been unable to contact the woman I hired last year to maintain our gardens. She supposedly did yard work through October, but never submitted a bill to our management company, and doesn't return e-mails or phone calls. I'm hoping for overgrown, not gone. We move back in late June early July, with our household belongings expected to arrive by the second week of July (fingers crossed for a problem-free customs experience!).

Our Danish shipping company has informed us we can't ship any spices so I have a huge order going into Penzey's -yay! They also don't want to ship my paint, which is fine art oils and acrylics. That is a more expensive problem so DH is trying to coordinate shipping in a separate crate through his company's inter-office mail.

Customs could also red flag our shipment because of DH's bicycle and two garden benches.

I have to say the customs forms are somewhat amusing.

Absolutely prohibited:

Pornography, firearms, drugs, spices.

Sounds like the cargo hold of a pirate ship.

Bean, Fingers crossed for your US garden. Overgrown will be work but definitely better than gone.

I went to the local plant farm this morning for mulch, some good potting soil & "a few" annuals to tuck in here & there. The stock is pretty well depleted as we're heading into the hot, hot season down here, but "a few" turned into four flats - LOL! Poking around in the hoop houses I managed to nap a couple of shrimp plants in quart pots for $1.50 each & two gorgeous little flowering maples for $1.00 each. Prices have gone up, but are still really cheap by big city standards. A flat of zinnias & a flat of angelina were each $9.00. I've been a planting fool this AM.