I kept you company.Worked seeding aragula,sorrel, ciliantro, parsley ,radishes lettuce etc.Put seeds of eggplants, peppers in the greenhouse.Basically cleaned up a bit.Watched my flies going around me ( not welcomed here!!!described in my previous posting) NOw I am so tired but the garden looks so happy.It was fun and the sun was warm..

Fought with the moss in the lawn, pulled some weeds, and checked the sprinkler system to get it ready. Oh, and I went around looking to see what new plants are peeping up. This is the best time of year, I think.

Woke up this morning and discovered some of the cacti I grew from seed are dead. I later discovered this happened they got too hot and dry. I waited for the hose to thaw out and then watered them and put something over them for shade. I moved a bunch of plants around and potted up all kinds of seedlings and cuttings I had going. I divided a few bamboos and potted them up. And I watered all the larger cacti (first time for them this year) and other plants in the greenhouse. I also went to the library, the post office, the grocery store (twice), got pizza, and went to the park. I have a million more things to pot up, aaagh!!!

I moved 528sqft of sod from the back of my 215ft lot, to the front road. There, folks from all over the place responded to my "free sod" ad on craigslist and took the whole works! My raised bed gardens are now ready for final placement and levelling before I start to fill them with soil. I made the mistake of rolling up the sod into some 20' rolls, that had to be unravelled and cut into more manageble 4' lengths. They were about 200lbs. yikes.

Now, i need another sunny day to make my steel barrel soil sifter :) Come on mother nature!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Pictures of the raised Beds

I had customer appointments but did manage to stop by a garden center and pick up a dwarf Rhodie that I didn't have in a color I needed for contrast with all the purples. :)

Hmmm, I sneezed, dripped, blew...over and over...and stayed indoors. Seems that pollen (probably alder) has become my new worst enemy. The day before, 1 allergy pill served me well. But yesterday it didn't phase my symptoms a bit. Today, I'm pretty much fine without a pill. Tomorrow morning I will venture out and see what I can accomplish.

The weather was not cooperating so made labels for 65 Michaelmas Daisies, planted 200 Ruffled Hanging Basket begonia seeds which by the way looked like a speck of dust and watered the greenhouse. The Weatherman says it's going to warm up. It's too late for April Fools, lets hope he's right.

A......

I think we have been promised a couple more wonderful warm days! Right now I feel quite smug. Got a lot accomplished and everything is not growing like a jungle yet. It's too early to plant annuals so I can just enjoy the respite. The fruit trees are pruned, rasperries tied up and mulched with leaves, flower beds are top dressed and my new lasagna garden experiment is in place. New trees are planted, grass is limed and cut. Rhodies need fertilizing, beds need weeding (nothing new there). Some orchids are divided. I guess I've got a lot done. Didn't realize the list was so long.

I took a half day off work and my neighbor is revamping a whole area in her perennial garden and gave me tons of mature plants. I got a beautiful bleeding heart, huge Devil's Tears, several large Bergenias, columbines, several different kinds of daisy-like plants, sedums, beebalm, peony, Hucheras, irises, daylillies, and more! Now, I just need to plant them in my garden and I have the perfect place! I'm hoping this weekend will be nice enough to get that done! I think (hope) spring is finally here!!!

Fun thread (and nice weather). Well, I worked in the office for 10 hours, but even so I got home with a couple hours of light left, so I assembled four raised beds and arranged them in the small fenced potager I put in my back garden. They look GREAT. I'll put them in their exact, permanent locations this weekend but the effort made a big difference since the space inside the picket fence I put up has been blank. Now at least it has the raised beds which give it some definition.

The back was dark, nasty, and overgrown when I moved in at the end of last summer and it's slowly getting organized. I removed several 30 year old never-pruned English laurels, relocated half a dozen large never-pruned shrubs to the front garden, drained a truly nasty water feature (SHIRTS in between garbage bags as the liner--ugh!) and removed a never-pruned Clematis montana that had eaten the nice, but hidden wooden storage shed. It's not pretty yet, but it's getting there and adding some definition yesterday sure made me feel like my little potager/veggie garden is moving forward.

Anyway, that's what I did. I hope part of the weekend continues as warm. Keep the updates coming.

Take care and happy gardening,
Grant

Being gone several Junes related to grandkids being born and having birthdays has caused severe weed problems in most of my beds so I'm still fighting the consequences but wised up and did my visit in March the last 2 years so I hope to get on top of the weeds eventually, but I was weeding, cutting out grass, ugh, and then dug some plants for the GE exchange coming up in Portland. My tomatoes are mostly transplanted and I await their achieving 11" of height to set them out. I put my tunnels out to dry out the beds for them. I spread newspapers belately in other beds destined for vegetables in late May to June and hope it will kill the grass coming up in them. I'm doing general cleanup of brown ornamental grasses and perennial tops from last year and a little belated pruning. Most of my apple trees have outgrown my ability to prune them so must fend for themselves. I find they still bear fruit anyway.:-P

Regarding hay fever, I found a long time ago that eating a food I was allergic to daily made me hypersenstive to pollens. Also that eating beef tripe, a couple of tablespoons a day for 2-3 weeks, would totally cure all the symptoms of hay fever- itchy eyes, throat, congestion, sneezing, etc. I like the Chinese way of cooking it with some ginger and onion, and also Menudo that can be purchased canned in the Mexican food section.

What a nice day today was!

Planted a pee gee and lace cap hydrangea in my shade bed.

I placed my peony supports and planted some scarlet runner beans behind them. It's a wee bit early for them, but my microclimate runs on the warm side and I've got a half packet of beans left if I'm being too optimistic.

Watered seedlings, weeded.

I saw two honeybees today working my muscari. I was happy to see them as I'm worried about the bees this year, and was a tad bit disappointed that they weren't working my asian pears. Tomorrow if there are no beeses in the treeses I'll get out there with a paintbrush to ensure a few fruits at picking level.

Two Stellar Jays are making a nest in my photina. I'm probably going to discourage this tomorrow, as anytime the cat goes out they raise an incredible racket. I've done enough time with jay babies around to realize I will have no peace once they fledge.

I spent the afternoon de-winterizing my pond, cleaning all the algae out of my waterfalls, retentions, streams, etc. Took the net off, treated the water for parasites and spent some QT with my fish. As I sat on the park bench, I was thinking about how much I had missed them:-) Mowed and crossmowed my lawn and marvelled at every pass how beautiful my St Browards rhody was and thought about where I can plant another one. It's the most gorgeous blue/purple....the color is a lot like Crater Lake. My Malus 'Sentinel' is just popping as are my Hinos, Purple Splendors, Unique Marmalade, and Osmanthus. My 'Briotti' is just opening it's leaves and teasing me with all the future flowers to come and my 25 year old Sango is leafing out. God, I love SPRING!!!!!!!

I'm off work for 5 days, so I slept late, then wandered down to the office anyway for the free BBQ lunch! Ah, first BBQ of the year, gotta love it!

After that I took 7 of my houseplants on to the back deck and repotted them all. Going to do outside plants later this weekend.

I also took some pictures of my magnolia tree in full bloom.. haven't got them off my camera yet though. :)

Amy

My husband and I had lunch on the deck for the first time. It was lovely - we sat around in the sun for a while, dazed with warmth. Then I took the dog for a walk on the beach. The tide was way out, children were poking around in the sand. I also watered some beds - raised ones and under tree areas which were very dry, I was shocked. Tomorrow I may do some weeding but today was one to be enjoyed. I hear it was 75 o in Seattle today, and almost 70 here. Happy Spring, everyone!

The weather was so gorgeous these past couple days! I had purchased a couple plants over the weekend, as I was at the plant sale at the Federal Way Rhody Botannical Gardens (it was a freezing 42 degrees there last Saturday!). I planted those, weeded, pruned, and prepared my vegetable garden. Planted some snow peas and Chinese green beans. It was so warm today, 84 degrees, I was tempted to get some tomato starts, but the forecast says it'll drop to 50 by the middle of next week, so I'm holding off to be on the safe side. I plan to get the pond up to speed tomorrow, putting the pump and filter back in. The goldfish have all been swimming to the top and are ravenous!

Today I worked all day, then I cut the grass. It's still warm enough, maybe I'll get out the headlamp and pot up some plants.

Boy, it's hard to juggle all the outdoor chores that need to be done with everything else that presses at this time of year (where, oh where are the design clients in winter when the planning of a new garden makes so much more sense and I have the time available?!?).

I spent the morning cleaning up and pruning (too many vines!) and the early afternoon loading up the pickup and going to the dump. Appointments called in the afternoon and I have a full schedule of them today. But I finally dug the lawnmower out of winter hibernation and intend to give what little lawn I have left a sharp cut later this afternoon.

Grant, I'm impressed that you can manage to be so productive after a full day at work! I come home and just melt........:-) But maybe I should try getting a bit later start in the morning - I wake up too darned early. The only benefit to that is I am able to get my indoor work done then before the sun - when it appears - entices me outside.