Hey Sally, Glad to have you in the area
Yardening Midatlantic Late april 2015
Congratulations to your DD, Sally.
WoooHOOOOO !! Getting a good shower with some heavy stuff coming in behind it. Feels like Christmas morning ! Lots of the area should be getting some of this system.
That rolled thru here awhile ago the garden got a good soaking, quite a wind with it as well.
Yes... we had pretty strong winds and torrential rain for about 10 minutes. But the rest of the time, probably a good hour, we got nice, steady, soaking rain. Thank Goodness ! Maybe more tonight and the next couple days.
Thanks, gang! Ceremony was nice and not TOO hot, from ten to near noon, then pictures, then pack up and clean the apartment for three hours straight. Phew! They packed and cleaned, we sat and carried.. Got just done before the downpour.
Congratulations to your daughter and pats on the backs to you and Mark for helping her reach that milestone!
My added congrats, Sally. That's a huge milestone. I think the day I graduated college was one of the top 5 in my life. I'm sure it was a day she will never forget !
Wonderful, Salky. Congrats to her for this milestone!!!
took advantage of the nice damp soil after the rain, got a nice size chunk of the Evergreen grouping weeded. Going to try and go out tomorrow and finish it up.
Congrats to your daughter Sally! A great milestone for her and for you and Mark.
I really hope to get a lot of yardening in today. The plant acquisition volume has to be dealt with. Last year I was keeping up with it, but I haven't seemed to be able to this year. The majority of the things that I ordered over the winter have arrived and the big spring plant sales are behind me, so I should start being able to catch up. I haven't looked at the weather forecast yet, but I'm hoping I'll be able to get some hours in between rain if we are expected to get any.
It looks like good weeding and planting weather. We'll be out there shortly.
Thanks again for the further congrats. It brings back bittersweet college memories for me. I would never want to go through adolescence again! I think she had a really nice three years there, and I know she has some wonderful friends.
Sally, Congrats to you and your daughter. Does she have any plans for the next step in her life?
I'm glad for the rain!. I'm glad any day I can sit on the deck in the morning.
I still have cukes, squash, okra to plant. I guess I am really not late for those. But I have to move leaves off those beds.
laptop maintenance method, Sally's way: "Sit on the deck in a very light sprinkling rain. When the rain interferes with the screen and touch pad, wipe with bathrobe."
Crossed, Holly.
She is coming home for now and starting to work at David's Bridal. Oh yeah, great use of that degree... not. What are ya gonna do? Better something easy now than nothing. Maybe she has some motive like setting aside 'that perfect dress on discount' and not working too hard for the summer.. Customer service experience is good. She also will do part time social media marketing for a very small company through a personal contact. That one IS in her line.
I hear these rumors of empty nests..what is that????
Empty nest, Sally.... is when your kid becomes a Fire Fighter in the Air Force and gets stationed in England. Nest = Empty. Yeah, sometimes wish he got stationed at Langley or Andrews but I know when I spent my early 20's stationed in Germany, it was an experience that I will always treasure. So while I do miss him a lot, it's more sweet than bitter.
I think we got a little more rain here over night. Rain gauge picked up about another quarter inch. Every little bit helps !
Sounds like a good summer plan Sally. Jobs like these pay the bills and sometimes leads you in a direction that you never thought of.
Oh that empty nest!! =( Sally, CONGRATS to your Darling Daughter, and to you and Mark! While that empty nest may hit a bit hard in the beginning, it does get easier with time. When mine (my little one and only) moved out, I was a MESS for a while, it was awful!! Now I really appreciate the time with just DH and me.
Sally, don't you still have sons at home?
I don't know about David's Bridal, but work schedules in retail stores can be grueling, especially when shift work is involved. It might be just the ticket to spur her into looking for another job!
speedie mis understood, but I think the others got it right. Our nest is still chock full! I think this is the phase where we say 'Let's take trips and make the kids take care of the house and dog"
Yes Muddy, she'll be working either "open" or "close" I suppose- she has shopped there several times over the years of high school formals and friends weddings, so hopefully she has seen there are some nice staff there. She didn't ask my opinion before applying...
I made some birds happy by unearthing a lot of worms and grubs today!
I went up to my hillside bed with the only goal of planting Liatris spicata from Sequoia and the Coneflower from Marta, and ended up digging up large clumps of Liriope and some NOID grasses I decided I didn't like. I also dug up a Viburnum dentatum I had planted 2 weeks ago because it was not happy, potted it, dug up a large clump of Carex grayii and planted it in the Viburnum hole.
It was a muddy mess by the time I was done, but I did get the Liatris and Coneflower in the ground.
David, why have you gotten rid of your pyracantha? Were they dying? I don't know what it is about mine but they get scab so easy it's ridiculous. They are about to bloom so I won't have to spray them much longer. All the things I've read say you can stop after the blooms fade. They didn't get scab the first year ('13) but they have since.
We didn't get rid of them, at least that was not our intent. Two winters ago we lost some and after this last winter the remaining one is barely hanging on. A portion of the remaining one leafed out and has flowers. The cold appears to have caused the larger branches to split, sort of like how ice can crack a jar if it is full and freezes. Having had this happen, we're trying to replace them with some natives that will still give the birds shelter and perching spots when they are feeding. We've pruned off some of the dead stuff but are leaving the rest for now, again for the birds.
This message was edited May 18, 2015 1:24 PM
Interesting on the cold splitting the branches. Ours have not experienced such a thing but they certainly are high maintenance. What variety are yours? Mine are 'Mojave'. If I had to go back and do it again, I would not have planted them but it's not like I'm going to rip them all out and replace. They were $500 to put in. I think once I get a handle on the scab season after season I'll be better off. It's my thought that since I had a decent infection last year; if I can diminish the infection each year, it should be less of an issue as long as I'm treating them regularly in the spring.
I don't know what variety they were. They were planted 12 or more years ago and I think there were 2 kinds since some had red berries and some had orange berries. The only other problem was that during an ice storm one of them had a V trunk that tore. If there were things like scab on them, we were not aware of it, so for us, absolutely no maintenance until the cold winters seemed to do them in. Sorry you are regretting yours. My only regret of sorts was the color of the berries since we have Callicarpa (beautyberry) in huge pots on the deck and their lavender berries really clashed with the orange and red ones on the other side of the rail.
Mine do keep their leaves all winter and heavy snows can be an issue but they haven't sustained any damage from that yet. The only thing that happens with heavy snow is they get weighed down so the tender shoots at the top are now at rabbit level and they get eaten.
On a side note, I think orange and purple together in the garden is one of my favorite combos. My orange geum is lighting up my purple allium right now and I love it :-)
Wow, a lot of you also get that big storm that's rumbling through the area ? More coming too. I can put the water sprinklers away for at least a few days now. :)
got storms in Anne Arundel Co
And again now! Even heavier this time around.
Ooohhhh, I love orange and purple together, also.
We got a LITTLE rain. NEED. MORE.
Raining here in Frederick again... steady too. YAYYYYY !! I can hear my grass singing happily and the plants are dancing (the older ones are teaching the new ones). hahaha
We had a few dribbles this afternoon, but heavy rain just started here. Lots of thunder!
Flash flood warnings here. We have had a bunch of rain in Frederick... Guessing over two inches and more coming. :))
Don't know how much we got down here in St. Mary's County, but it suuuuure did storm up..a ... storm (heh) last night! We got the thunder and lightning for about an hour first before the rain started falling, and it fell nice and steadily for a few hours at least. Wheeeee!!!!!!! =)
WooooHoooo !! We got a bunch of rain, even into the middle of the night. Grass is already six shades darker green. Back to mowing every four days ! :)) Happy grass, happy plants, happy me!
More rain here last night, too. Sure makes for good weeding, this damp ground. Hoping to get back out there today to do more of the weeding, they are calling for scattered thunder showers so we may get more today.
Yeah we got about .40". It was a nice soaking rain rather than a heavy deluge. About 20 miles north of us got over 3.5".
I don't water our grass, mainly because a lot of it isn't. We have viola, small white clover,ajuga, fescue, just a bunch of other stuff growing through out. It survives drought well and has no strict monoculture requirements. We focus more on the plantings, beds, and gardens. Just keeping those watered can be a chore. Our one neighbor has a Lowe's ad lawn, not a blade out of place. They even have his and her matching push lawn mowers so it stays picture perfect.
Lol...his and her matching mowers...how crazy is that!?!?
I always laugh at the people who waste time and effort watering their lawns. The grass doesn't die in drought, it just goes dormant. And when it's drought, it doesn't grow that much if at all so you don't have to mow every weekend. Am I missing the issue here? Our lawn is an accent to the landscaping efforts. I always try to stress that to the fertilizer people that come. I tell them that I care way more for the gardens than the grass. You know....I try to make them feel expendable so they do a better job...LOL