Whew! Am I ever tired.

Spent the entire day in the yard from 10:30am - 7pm. Now that's what I finally call Spring!

Planted 74 individual plants today. Did some more work on my new shade bed and planted a couple of things in it (bleeding heart, cala lily, and columbine).

Put in some garden phlox, lysimachia, violas, tigridia, lilium, sedum, a couple of the Brown-Eyed Stella daylilies, asters, crocosmia, obedient plant (thanks Nancy!), and a 'Honeycomb' buddleia in various locations throughout the gardens.

Still have about that many more to plant from my Bluestone order and then there's the seedlings in the basement. Still have to harden them off.

Nothing like a good's day work in the gardens to get a girl in the mood for Spring and Summer!

So, what has everyone else been doing around their gardens so far this spring?

you've been a busy girl!!! All I've been doing so far is raking corn leaves over and over, they blow over from the field across the road, and pulling maple tree seedlings that sprout EVERYWHERE!! :)

kooger -- yeah, I know where you're at....I was there a couple of weeks ago. All the neighbors leaves were in my shrubs and beds. I leave them overwinter to provide some protection and then get 'em outta there when things start poking their heads above ground as long as freezes are out of the way. Judging by the weather down this way, I'd guess you'll be digging and planting in a 2-3 weeks!! What do you have planned for this year?

A new one I want to try is tomatillos. I just love the look of them. As for veggies, a couple of kinds of tomatoes, yellow beans, green if I have room, cucs, kale, beets and flowers. Yeah, flowers!!!! Y'know, I used to feel guilty planting them because growing up in an immigrant family with 9 kids and usually one or two other foster or training school kids, flowers were a luxury. I hardly planted any when we first got married, now I have lots and a few veggies! LOL I'm trying those dark colored sunflowers and pink and purple cleome too. Love them!!

I spent the better part of the day trimming the low branches out of our oaks. You just never know when my Dad is going to show up with a chain saw on a stick ... LOL!

Plus, we cut down the camphor tree, again. It'll grow back, it always does ... LOL! Then, I stripped the leaves off of that tree to mix in with my mulch to help keep the bugs down.

Tomorrow I get to haul all the branches to the dump =( wish I had a chipper. *sigh*

Now, maybe my irises will get enough sun to actually bloom. =)

Cheri'

SPRING IS HERE!! I have been busy planting cucumbers,cantaloupes, morning glories, grapes, algerian ivy,grass,just multiple plants and flowers. Had to built trelles's, and worse of all I had to put chicken wire all around my chain link fence as I have "war" with the rabbits and that is the only way I can keep them out of my yard. We are enjoying the blooming petunias, ammarilas, jasmine snapdragons etc. We are harvesting delicious oranges, grapefruit, and my artichokes are hudge The plants are about 3 1/2' tall & the "chokes" are hudge. This is a georgeous time for gardening in this zone. I feed 9 different breeds of birds and they are glorious and my fish are multiplying. The saying "Plays in the dirt" definitely applies to me!Happy Spring to All my DG friends!

I took Friday off as a "mental health day". So, I got to play in the dirt for two days in a row. Needless to say, I feel very mellow now.........and sore!

Due to an above average rainfall last year, our maple trees were full of seeds the entire summer. We have maple seedlings coming up everywhere. And whenever I turn over any soil, I can see tons of seeds sprouting. They are even sprouting up everywhere in the lawn.

Cherí - I know you're gonna groan...but I'm jealous. I wish I just had some mature trees to trim!! I've got one of those postage-stamp lots in suburbia that the housing developers feel compelled to flatten everything and make the landscape barren before they build!!

Shima--WOW! All that growing in AZ!?? I'd have never guessed you could sustain such growth there. Must have a beautiful 'scape to see. Would love to see pics!

Nat -- Two big thumbs up for "mental health" days. I just hauled and spread nearly 3 cu. yds of dirt/compost today and the monster pile in my driveway is essentially gone. I share your "pain" today, Nat. Now I've got 9 cu. yds of mulch to spread around, but it won't be today. Wind gusts are up to 40 mph!!! I'm just hoping Mulch Mountain stays in it's place and doesn't decide to spread itself around in my neighbors yards! No new progress on getting the rest of the new plants in the ground...they're content in the greenhouse when the winds are blowing like they are today.

I am so glad to hear somebody really describe what they have been doing. I seem to spend hours in the yard and nothing happened. OK: I raked leaves from the individual beds and collected the slugs that were trying to hide. Poked about with the tiny claw--I call it airing. Then I wondered why my tulips didn't do anything but leaves, and thos skimpily. I figured location, needed more sun? And I dug most of them out and found another spot, when I realized, no, not sun--Grubs!! I continually pick them up when I "air" the beds and suddenly realized how many there were. I finally got some poison. Sprinkled it and watered. I'll do that one more time before I plant any petunias. Maybe I'll have some this year.

But truly, I don't even get to planting for moving stuff around and pulling out the phlox, asters, obedients, praire sunflowers, vinca minor/major, flowering garlic, monarda, thistle, not to mention mints of various types, and on and on. I am finally learning to throw out stuff, I think. Then I go to the nursery and see the same items sold at $7.95 a piece. Gracious----maybe a big pink sign on my house would do? I specifically threw away those very pretty tall fall plants: not golden ruds, they have tiny golden stars, almost like an aster. But they do crawl as badly as obedient plants. Easier to full though. Oh, I have to learn the names of stuff so I can talk to you all.

Welcome knees! Cute nickname! Have you introduced yourself in the Welcome Mat forum? Lots of people waiting to say hello! .......I've read about a number of people that just put their extras in bags or buckets and set them by the curb with a free sign on them and they always disappear. Would that work for you, then you don't have to have the guilts of pitching plants. :)

A big DG Welcome to you knees!!!

You can post in the Plant Trading forum anything you're wanting to get rid of and then do them for trades of plants you do want or for postage.

Hi Knees, another welcome.

I've been doing the same as everyone else... planting when I get a chance, moving things around and WEEDING!

Hubby decided today that he wanted to put topsoil on the bed I dug out this weekend, so I hauled 1/2 ton (bagged) top soil in my Mini Van.... (don't advise anyone doing this if you have to drive very far) LOL

Thanks for all the welcomes. I like the idea of buckets or bags. Will do that.....maybe put them in front of the neighborhood CVS Ha ha. I have not been able to take time to find my way around the site here (i.e. introduction etc). I just peek in when I find a second at work. Once home I try to catch the daylight in my yard and then I am too tired. Such a nice break, though, to read your posts at work.

knees....do let us know how the experiment goes at CVS! LOL! Seriously, would love to hear how it turns out. Brenda

Welcome, knees! I, too, hate to compost healthy plants. I give away what I can in the neighborhood, ship extras to my relatives all over the country, and offer the rest for postage here. I've still got a three year old aloe vera looking for a new home ... LOL! Not to mention, the new crop of babies. My DD's ex-almost-in-laws came to visit a couple weeks ago from Tennessee, and they left with aloe veras and hostas. No one is safe! ;-)

langbr, I'm groaning, but it's from hauling branches! LOL
DD & I hauled most of them Sunday, but there are still a bunch left. We took the day off today, will finish up tomorrow. Then the clean-up of the leaves and twigs ... *sigh* But I do love the trees.

I know what you mean about flat neighborhoods. Ours isn't like that. The developer purposely left two ancient oaks, and planted an oak on each lot, before they were offered. This was over thirty years ago ...

Whoever owned our lot first planted at least ten more oaks along the property line (like, one every twenty-five feet or so). Eight of those survived ... now they are killing each other, so we've had to take out three so far (one because it was causing problems with a neighbor's house). Another one is slated for removal, prolly in the fall. It's so sad, but it's got to be done. Once that one is gone, there will only be two that are too close together, but the one that would be removed is a live oak, and I'm not taking that one out unless it gets dangerous!

Cheri'

Cherí - Golly, I'm sure sorry to hear about having to remove your trees! That's gotta be hard to give 'em up. I sure wish they developed subdivisions like that these days! Mine is actually pretty good. It's 15-20 years old (the subdivision) and is built around a creek and there's a pond. There are trails running throughout that area which is kind of in a small valley. Unfortunately my part of the subdivision is newer (Phase II or III, I'm sure) and is about 9-10 years old. We have the top of the hill where it's pretty bare (as is typical in Kansas). The folks in the older, valley part live in a woodland setting whereas our area is more suburbia. (I have a secret wish to sell our house and get one of the ones down off the pond. How's that for moving like 2 or 3 streets away!!?? I can't bring myself to suggest it to DH!)

LOL! That's not as bad as you think ... I know a couple who built a house, 2 years later decided they didn't like it, bought the lot across the street, built another house and sold the first one. LOL!

Ya gotta wonder who brought up that idea .... honey, I was thinking ...

But, about the trees ... I try to look on the bright side - now I can grow irises again! And lilies! Well, a few, anyway ... I've got about 100 sq. ft that gets something like full sun ... it's a good thing daylilies like part sun. =)

And we are done hauling branches!!!!!!!!!

Cheri'

They moved ACROSS the street!!! Hmmmm...you know all the houses across the street from me have heavily wooded backyards. I keep tellin' myself that I've got all the sun over here. My neighbor she's jealous of my sun and I'm jealous of all her shade. Grass is always greener, right? LOL!