Where's that strong handsome young man we had in the bubble when we need him? I'd be willing to share him every second day =:)

I was out for 3-1/2 hours today, and all I accomplished was digging dandelions, searching for, finding,and using mosquito spray, searching for and not finding my fish emulsion, a bit of watering, putting a few indoor johnny jump-ups and dianthus outside to start hardening them off, and cursing the new self coiling hose I bought from stupid WalMart. I also stood and wondered if I had enough guts to trim off the dead branches from my rose bushes where the rabbit and voles chewed, or if I'd have to get DH to do it. The rodent thing really creeps me out.

I have a huge clump of irises that a friend dug up and gave me, lettuce, beans, and peas to plant before it's too late, even though I don't even know where to put them, a Sensation lilac to plant as it's been in it's pot since I bought it two years ago, etc.,etc.,etc.

I know exactly how you feel. I need a plan and some help, and probably even more important........ I need to stop buying anymore plants and shrubs without having a prepared spot to put them !

But, isn't it great to be struggling with all this again?

Well I didn't even mention the time I wasted searching for the transplant shovel I just had in my had a minute before or where I put down my gloves, and I never did find my hat. And yes it would help if I hadn't bought more perennials since the ones I have are trying to take over the world. I can't plant my garden until I remove the over wintering perennials from it. Who knows where they're going to be relocated.
I've started this stupid tradition of having a little plant sale in the spring. The people who come to it think it is great fun, but they don't realize how much work it is. But it's my own fault......I can't bear to just throw out my excess divisions, so in addition to thinning out my perennials, I was potting them up.

I feel like it is ground hogs day..I just keep doing the same thing over and over. Before I can get much time in my corner flowerbed which is the problem child I end up going back to the other beds I have weeded and weed some more.The green house is full to over flowing and getting harder to reach to the far side of the flats to make sure everything is watered.But I wouldnt change it for anything..Jean

I'm a little jealous, I had to work today :(

What you all are experiencing is Maymania and it's just awesome, isn't it?

Here is a couple pictures of my spring work load. It is a wonderful place to go when the weather is lousy outside..Jean

I could be very happy there, Savona!

Lovely! Your hanging baskets look fantastic. Which petunias do you grow?

Wow, almost as good as the bubble!!

I need a greenhouse.

To heck with that, already started a second bottle of Aleve for my husband and I. I want Savona to adopt me! ;-)

A)Looks like a ton of work!
B)I WANT IT!! ;)

North53 and NAF, I just about killed myself laughing at your two descriptions of what "trying to get stuff done" looks like....I'm right there with you! I've also wasted part of the afternoon trying to shoot ground squirrels in the garden(it is a losing battle). I think they're laughing at me. They pop out, I grab the gun, they run down the hole again, I aim and get ready to fire as soon as they pop their heads out again..and wait..and wait...finally 5 min later I see them out of the corner of my eye at a different hole, looking at me. BAH!

Then there is the time spent looking for garden tools(there is no way I misplaced them, it MUST have been my husband! LOL)...followed by some weeding which quickly turns into looking to see how my plants are doing. Then I get really hot and dizzy, so I go sit down in the shade. Then I get disgusted by some revolting spider crawling too close to me, so I head inside. I realise I forgot my gloves outside somewhere - worse, my cell phone - and can only find one of them. 1/2 hour later the cycle repeats itself. :D Ahhhh...gardening!

Pudge I take cuttings from the tidal wave petunias and double trailing petunias about the middle of September and then take cuttings off of them in January which are the ones I save to use. So they are well started by now.I also did ramblin' trailing petunias and bought a cheap packet of purple trailing petunias off the rack.
It sounds like we are all the same, starting a job and then getting side tracked into something else...lol. I constantly deal with working in one area of the garden and ending up doing something I had not intended to do leaving a trail of garden tools behind me. I made up my mind several years ago to quit working so hard in the garden and just take a few minutes to enjoy the moment I was in..Jean

Wow, sounds like we all have gardening ADHD! LOL I still haven't found my small perennials shovel, but i did find a second trowel that apparently overwintered under the deck. :>

I'm feeling it too. I am OCD about weeds but somehow I went to Ottawa for the weekend and came home to flower beds full of dandelions and quack grass. I did some quick weeding this evening which included Round Up. Guilty.

I'm resorting to it too, Gil. The grass in my beds is just awful. I'm beginning to wonder if the birds are planting it.

I know the birds are planting some of the grass in my beds. Made a huge mistake of not baking some bird seed last year, I was desperate to quickly feed the golden finches before they found a new home. Of course the one seed that the sparrows didn't like and tossed from the feeders was a grass seed of some sort. Lesson learned.

Slowly getting things done around here, my son's new strawberry patch is almost completed. Few more plots of veg to get in, couple more pots to do for a friend.

Then all I need to do is beg for sunshine and some heat.

Come on summer. C

Actually I'm trying to keep the Round Up to a minimum but I have a policy that it's the only thing I will do to creeping blue bellflower. I've been using it for 2 years on that and it's quite effective. If I pull it by hand it grows back from the roots. So when I go out to weed I take the Round Up sprayer because there always seem to be a couple of bellflowers.

I think that's what's causing me so much grief, Gil. I've painted some of the leaves and they're starting to turn brown, but there's a long way to go with those things. In places, i'm going to cover the plants with a container and spray around them. I really hate doing this, but they're getting the better of me - that and all the grass!

Well remember it takes 2 weeks to kill most plants. I do find it very effective against bellflower overall but obviously it will take years to germinate all the seeds. Creeping Charlie seems quite resistant to it, it just looks unhappy and then starts growing again.

I bought a big container of RU with a sprayer you don't have to pump, you just pull a handle every so often. I use it on the foam mode and I find it easier to control where it goes.

Well, as much as we've had too much rain and I'd like to see more sun I actually don't mind the rainy days so I don't have to get out there every day! Totally exhausting to try to keep ahead of the weeds, remake beds, pot up perennials to move, etc. At least it keeps me from buying new plants as that would be totally overwhelming to have even more pots sitting around waiting on places.

I also was all over the garden earlier this spring thinking I'd grab the largest weeds from everywhere but that didn't work well as they seem to grow 6" overnight and the roots on the dandelions are over a foot long.

So I just picked the worst bed and finished it, then went on to the next worst, etc. Of course all the ones I've ignored are now worse than the worst and I'm only going to pull the flowering weeds for awhile there while I finish one bed after the other.

When it gets too discouraging I just admire the nice weed-free beds I've done. I can say I've 'done' 6 1/2 of the lebenty leben perennial beds in my garden. *rolleyes* Plus made mulch and a new compost pile and a half. I try to work 4 hours every day but some days can't and some days go out late in the day and get a bit more done.

And the beat goes on... and on... and on! But when I think of moving to a smaller property I know I'd miss so many things I have here. Altho a few pots on the deck would be a lot easier! Then I'd have to find more hobbies to keep busy!

My punishment for whining about being too hot...today it's 3C with a windchill, plus it's snowing.
Oh well, at least it's not a tornado.
I wanted to get my plants out of the basement and sunroom, but I guess they'll stay put for a couple more days.
If I dress warmly, maybe I can weed.

Jean- I love your greenhouse! It would be wonderful to have a beautiful place like that, when there's so much snow outside :)

Luckygal- I have so many weeds, too. It's one reason I'm staying with the beds I have now and not adding any new ones. I'm redoing the kitchen garden, to work around the worst of the weeds. I'm moving the raspberries and that section is getting a hay mulch this year! LOL

I'm overwhelmed and exhausted again today after spending 5-1/2 hours outside. But......

It was an absolutely perfect day !

Slight breeze, and just enough to occasionally smell some blossoms from the Schubert chokecherries that I hate all year except for now. Not too hot out, just really pleasant. No mosquitoes. I think they went on a day trip. Birds chirping, and one even landed in the Amur Maple we planted a year and a half ago. Just the kind of thing that makes you forget winter ever happened =:)

I planted some scarlet runner pole beans, 12 glads, 2 Rubra whatever they are, potted up 4 teensy hostas, and stared at my new Jacob's ladder, Little Joe pyeweed, fernleaf peony, that other peony I bought, 3 shrubs, the poor lilac, and wondered over and over where to put them. I also mowed the lawns and decided it's time to break down and get a whipper snipper. My hand snippers just don't go fast enough.

Oh the joys of gardening :D

We got started on the vegetable garden this evening. Dh planted potatoes and i did lettuce, mesclun mix, radishes, carrots and onions. Had to come in because my hands were freezing. :-/ Send your perfect weather this way, Lynne!

Sorry, looks like half the country is going to get rain this weekend =:(

We need rain here, actually(near Saskatoon). We've basically had one shower since the snow melted! Lots of beautiful weather, but I REALLY don't have time to water, and my perennials REALLY need it. I've been digging holes for trees that I'm planting for a shelterbelt...burr oak right now, which, BTW, have ridiculously long roots for being 6 inch tall plants. So the holes are depressingly deep. And it is essentially dry all the way down! I couldn't believe it.

Plus if it rained, maybe I could pull some of the dandelions out easier. Right now I am completely resigned to snapping them off 2 inches down..my ground is way too hard to get them all the way out!