Garden Chat

I've been concentrating on new proposals for at least a month it seems. Sometimes I try so hard that all creativity grinds to a halt, so I have to let my brain relax and go elsewhere. Last week I took a couple mornings to Spring clean. It was lovely. This week I'm taking a couple mornings to garden.

A couple weeks ago, a late freeze took all the blooms from my flowering cherry tree, which is only three years old. Also ruined the blooms on my young lilac bushes. It got my daffodils, the delicate tiger lilies which had broken ground, and other early bloomers. It looks as though my bleeding heart will pull through, and the columbines are blooming now.

The newspaper said to just leave everything and see what happened, so that's what I did. We got a week long monsoon of rain next and then a heat wave. Sunday was in the 90s. Yesterday and today are lovely, however! Yesterday I stirred up my special dirt recipe: good topsoil, peat and compost. Jay will bring me a couple yards of black soil whenever I need it and I mix and keep it all it a wooden-frame in the side yard to work from. Boy, do the worms like it!

I got my bed by the front steps finished. I had already cleaned it, but needed fresh dirt to add seeds. The verbena bloomed and the columbine and a few dainty violas survived. I planted morning glories at the back and will make a trellis against the corner of the house. When the sun comes around there later today, I'll see what kind of picture I can take.

At the side, I cleared away all the winter leaves and the hopeless tiger lilies. Spring is when I clean out the shasta daisies, because it's an impossible task in the fall. Of course we cut back all the mums, but I let most of the flowers go until spring and allow leaves to pile around them, so they're protected.

All this garden talk is making me eager for full bloom!