I am happy to announce that with my husband's help, we were able to plant the red twig dogwoods yesterday. Yippie!!! I hope that all four will live and thrive. My back yard is almost a clear canvas as far as gardening goes. I do have 2 small raised beds that will be home to veggies and the other one will hold some of my perennials.
Oh yes, my small back deck has a table with 5 or 6 long planters on it that looked quite lovely last summer with celosia. A few wildflowers also made their way in to those planters too. I am able to see the planters from my kitchen window as I work at the sink. This winter I have enjoyed watching the birds come to eat and play at two feeders that I put out for them in the back yard too.
Alright, I am gonna say it....I have heard so many others of you say it......I cannot wait for spring and warm ground. I have loads of seeds and things that I want to get started with. In the mean time, I am enjoying my houseplants. Hope that everyone will have a great week.
Ruby
got them planted
Good luck, and enjoy them!
I'll bet the birds loved those dogwoods and celosia seed pods. When I was starting out with our garden, who knew there was anything besides plants to enjoy in a garden - not moi! Well, I soon caught the wildlife bug from DH and in recent years have collected the following links from friends and DG. Hope you enjoy them as much as I have.
http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/site/backyard_birds/gardening/plants_hummers.aspx
http://www.bcpl.net/~tross/by/attract.html#4
There are so many invasive plants that birds love, so the following is a good subject to keep in mind:
http://enature.com/native_invasive/
Mustn't ignore butterflies:
http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_wildlife_butterflies/article/0,1785,HGTV_3653_2045973,00.html
The next site is just plain fun - even if it is Maine, not Mid-Atlantic -
http://www.uninets.net/~sarihou/gardengate.html
Nice ta meetcha, ruby and penne,
karen
Thank you both for responses. I was outside earlier taking advantage of this gorgous day. Supposed to be mid 70's here, though I haven't checked thermometer to see what it actually is. I have all windows and even my back french doors wide open. While outside yesterday
I checked on a bed that was planted last fall. I have 6 or 8 fully bloomed freesia (I think) sitting there looking so very beautiful. I will have to get camera out this weekend and take some pics of all the little sprouts and things that I have seen the past two days.
Thank you for the links Karen. I will check them out shortly. I hope that you have a good weekend.
Ruby
Good luck! If they all die let me know...I will go back and edit my post on the other thread to say that you should definitely wait to plant them. ;-)
- Brent
Karen, great links - thank you! I'm especially fond of the last one - Sari's garden, as she lives in the same area of Maine where my gardening endeavors 'blossomed' :)
Ruby, happy to hear you got your dogwoods planted and hoping you have success with them.
I can't believe how fast everything is coming on this year - mild winter has something to do with it, but these warm temperatures are really bringing things on - almost too fast! I was working on clean up chores in the gardens yesterday and thought I had come across a bee's nest close by - only to look up and see our Cherry blooms opening and the bees feasting on them! Unusual - normally this happens the first or second week of April! Hoping that it cools off a little to slow things down, I'm afraid everything's going to bloom so early that they'll either pass too quickly, or get knocked down by frosts!
ruby, my red-twig dogwood provided a robin with her nesting site last year. Here she is trying to look unobtrusive.
I'm feeling guilty that I cut it back severely this year since it wasn't red enough anymore. I hope robins don't return to the same nesting site year after year. Does anyone know about this?
This message was edited Mar 14, 2006 8:09 AM
bluespiral-Karen-
Thanks for the links, they were very helpful...I love butterflies & birds- well all wildlife....Thanks for sharing!