Friday, May 26, 2006


I have a number of flowers blooming in the front flowerbed now. This lily plant has looked like it was ready to bloom for about three weeks. Finally a couple of days ago one popped open. By the end of the day another was open. Now a half dozen are open. I hope they last for awhile. They're very pretty. I think I'll plant some more things like this.

Last year I invested in a lot of perennials. And "invested" is the correct term. Gardening is not for those who hesitate to whip out the Visa card. It can get quite pricey. But this year when things started coming up on their own, it seemed like it was a good thing to spend time and money on last year

I lost three coneflower plants. I didn't even know you could kill those things - they're suppposed to be very prolific - but I lost all of mine.

One of the garden tour folks told me the other day that although this was a mild winter, the two cold snaps took a lot of things because the plants had not hardened off. My lambs ear stayed green all winter. I have vinca blooming in the snow. So, I'm not sure how weirded out all the plants are.

The mint is doing well. I know some call it "invasive," I just call it "hardy." And I have quite a few morning glories coming up already. I did the string for them last weekend. I always think I'm incredibly optimistic that I'm putting up 12 feet of string when the plants are an inch tall. But, once they start growing, they can really grow fast.

I love viney things that give that wild, overgrown look. My honeysuckle bloomed ever so briefly but I missed getting a photo of it. Hopefully it will bloom yet more.

This year I have also planted a few tomato plants, a cucumber, a pepper, some shallots, and basil. I'm hoping all those things do well. I so desperately want to enjoy home grown tomatoes with fresh mozzarella with basil flavored olive oil this summer. We'll see if that can happen. I hope so.

Unfortunately, it went from days of temps around 70 to days of temps in the 90s. I need to harden off just like plants, but didn't get the chance this summer. Summer just arrived with a vengence.