Finally some Spring photos

Ok, sorry it has been forever, life is really crazy these days between work, Eric, and you know . . . just life for me in the Spring. Anyway, this past Sunday Eric reminded me that I needed to take photos of my Spring tulips to share with my sister Jennifer, so we took a few pictures and I thought that I would share. Cletus kind of likes them too :)

This is Cletus and I with my flower pots.



A new mix that Diane and I came up with of Blue Muscari, a funky mini daffodil and a faint little pink tulip. We both decided we loved it!



Just the house in bloom. Thanks to Eric for getting the lawn mowed so that it could stop looking abandoned. We had so much rain and I was just so busy it was starting to look a little scary.

I finally decided what to do with it . . .

Just in case you don't know me or don't know much about me, I kinda like the outdoors, plants, nice weather, that kind of stuff. So I am just a little bit excited about the coming spring. I am excited to see my yard come to life and to be able to start spending more time outdoors.

Anyway, so there is this spot in my backyard that I have been struggling with what to do with. It is a long narrow bed area that is up against my fence, just an odd spot so I killed the grass there last year and created a bed, but never got it planted with anything. But, I think that I have finally come up with a pallet that I like.

It starts with Solidago 'Fireworks' which is this kind of crazy yellow flowering perennial. Then mixed in the back with that will be the Stachys 'Humello' which I think was the subject of a previous blog post. I really like it if you can't tell. Them mixed in front of those will be these fun Echinacea 'Coconut Lime'. I really just love the form and the color. And planted with those to add that little touch of pink that I seem to really need these days will be Coreopsis 'Heavens Gate' which has dainty bi-color pink flowers.

All of these should combine to create a nice bed for me. I am going for a nice mixed/naturalized look. I am excited about the variety in color and texture. Once I get them planted and they start flowering this summer I will post a few pictures so that ya'll can see how it turns out.

I'm excited for this one . . .

With the arrival of March I am anxious for Spring. I planted a ridiculous amount of bulbs last fall but there is one that I am particularly excited to see in the next month or two when it comes up.

It is called Allium schubertii . . . I love alliums, but this one is a little different, and as normal for me I had to go with the funky one. These are planted in my front flower bed right by the front door. I am counting down the days till I get to see them.

But, alas it is still winter for 3 more weeks and then the Spring weather will probably be slow to come, but still . . . these give me something to be really excited for and something to look forward to. I planted a lot of tulips, hyacinths, muscari, and daffodils too, but I will share those with all of you when they come up in the Spring.

Glutton For Punishment

This summer has been quite a productive one for my home landscape . . . I somewhat started from scratch and for someone who works as much as I do and lives alone I feel like I have accomplished a lot.

On Friday at work Michelle mentioned that Midwest Groundcovers (one of our wholesale vendors that I have bought most of my plant material from) was having a cart sale in their retail section this morning. Which meant that you put everything you can on a cart and the total price is $75.00. Which comes out to be cheaper than my wholesale pricing even with my discount. So we decided that we would check it out.

Well I came out of there today with about 30 1 gal. perennials, two large shrub roses, and some groundcover. Sounds like a lot to plant right? Well the planting part is easy really . . . the labor intensive part for me at this point is prepping the beds to be planted. I have an area for about half of it almost ready to go, but now I have to hurry and get the other bed all done so that I can plant it in the next two weeks before it gets too late in the season. So that is where my next week and weekend and possibly further will be spent.

The somewhat depressing part is that so much of what I planted this year was done so late in season that I really didn't get to appreciate it . . . so next spring should be awesome.

What I forgot to mention that just when I finish planting all of this I will have the bulbs that I ordered delivered and then there will be planting all of those. Whew . . . this is gonna get tiring.

It's Raining, It's Pouring . . . And It Won't Stop

I woke up yesterday morning to the sound of rain. I turned on the news knowing that the hurricane was supposed to hit Texas to see how things were going. As the morning progressed it just kept raining and I really didn't think anything of it until I looked outside and saw 2" of water covering my entire patio. And now a day and a half later it has finally stopped raining. The bucket on my patio that was empty now has 10+ inches of water in it. Having grown up in the what is considered desert this was crazy. There are parts of this country that get that much rain in a year. Anyway, I just thought that I would share. The pictures don't quite show just how crazy it was.

What the?? Ugh

I have to admit that despite my involvement in the green industry it has been a lot of years since I have mowed a lawn and quite a few years since I have actually had to maintain a landscape. But, with my new homeowner adventures I am getting that opportunity again (please tell me that you picked up on the sarcasm in that). Can I just tell you that this is a never ending process!! Yes, I know, live plants are a renewable material and will constantly grow. My degree in horticulture taught me that one, but still . . . can't it just take a break for a while?? I feel like that is all I am doing every night when I get home from work. Granted, it is spring and I have to get it all up and running so really soon enough all I will have to do is mow and weed. But still.

Actually though, on an exciting note I bought my first lawn mower last week. I'm kind of excited about it, but still the patio set for the same price seemed like a much better investment. But in the end, practicality prevailed and I bought the lawn mower. Couldn't quite get the manager to throw the new patio set in for free. But this new lawn mower has the coolest feature (sad I know that I think lawn mower features are cool, but give me a break, its the business that I am in). When you finish mowing the lawn there is a place to attach a hose to the mower and you let it run for a minute and it washes the deck of the mower so you never have to scrape the build up off. How cool is that?? Ok, for those of you who have never mowed a lawn you have no idea, but for anyone who has spent hours scraping the bottom of a mower to get built up grass clipping that smell awful off the deck of the mower you can understand just how totally awesome this is!