In the Garden Today....

Waiting for the arborist.

I contracted a professional arborist to do the pruning on the trees along my western border, the one that abuts the duplex. They're due early, with the utility boys soon after, to turn off the power, because the power to the house runs through both trees. I'll be power down for six hours at most, prolly less.

After setting up the contactor, I'm going back to bed.

The two-man crew arrived about 8:30 am and were gone by 10 am. They did the job without shutting down the power. It looks like acceptable trim work...it cost me $400.

And, yeah...trees can wait.

CROCUS! Multiple screaming yellow blooms in the front, next to the public walk and next to the lower course of front steps, in the western front slope.

Our snow is gone! Not too many crocii yet though.

Iris reticulata blooming in the spring bloom pots!

My first Tete-a-tete miniature daffodils, too!

Oooooooo what an exquisite day in the garden.

Shirtsleeves. I had to wear a hat to protect my baldness from the sun. It was glorious.

Tomorrow, I plant sweetpeas!

Grow everywhere and are difficult to remove? That has NOT been my experience. I planted last year and a few shoots emerged, but I never got a flower and they all died.

I'd love to see this 'grow everywhere' trait of which you speak.

You think sweetpeas are bad? I'm planning on planting morning glories in pots along the same line as the sweet peas. Now, when folks say 'morning glory', that 'grows everywhere and is hard to kill' typification immediately jumps to mind. But...I am assured that these 'heavenly blue' morning glories are not the same as the white bindweed morning glories which are the bane of local gardeners. Nonetheless, I'm planting them in pots, just to be safe.

Well, I'm talking about Lathyrus odoratus; in this case, the variety 'Old Spice'.

They are annuals. I'm hoping that they are climbing variety, rather than bush variety.

You may well be talking about Lathyrus vestitus, the wild sweetpea. I note that it is listed as a perennial, and I think I know to what you refer. We have it growing alongside major interstate highways which don't get enough grooming (along with Scotch broom, another pest). It has a characteristic soft carmine pink color and covers a fair amount of ground.

To get rid of it, you will have to track every vine to its root and dig up the root. Before it reseeds. What I'm planting, for their scent, are annuals which will not return unless I do a monumentally poor job of maintenance, or replant each year. Their ability to generate volunteers the following year is not vaunted.

My first hyacinth amongst the recently potted spring bulbs. It is pink. Bright pink.

Vinca minor and even a couple of real, full-sized daffodils are abloom.

The roses are done. I just started in on the grape. The clematis was a short work.

The rhubarb is up!

Weeds and grass everywhere.

Ai, Murray!....
I invited a neighbour experienced in maintaining roses to help me prune my rambler. It has to be pruned back a lot since it has grown through fencing we have to remove this year.

I have a daffodil too! My vinca major is also doing its thing. One of my hebes died though as has a skimmia. No idea how that happened

So...The katsura is leafing out. Always the first of the trees to leaf and first to shed them.

The sweetpeas went in the ground more than a week back.

Sunday, I planted the morning glory seeds in two pots next to the garden shed porch.

With all the greening, I rushed off Monday morning to the nursery. I came home with a tray of sagina subulata...Irish moss and Scotch moss, compact growing, traffic resistant, ground cover. As its name alludes, it looks like moss, but it isn't. It requires sun and actually blooms, with tiny white blossoms. So, today, I spent time planting in plugs of this stuff on walkways in the back garden. I had an established spot on the walkway from the garden shed porch to the crossroads; this addition completes the west side of the crossroads square and starts all the way down the rosebed pathway to the patio. I'm presently lifting rudies from their intrusions on the plaza and hope to use the last of the sagina subulata to start them in the spaces between the slabs....it's prolly a multi-year project that I'll rush this summer.

I big beautiful day in the back garden. Still, the grape did not get pruned. Bad goat.

The miniature daffodils are a lot of fun. They are also early. I also have a couple of full size daffodils in each pot, for which you might discern the buds, which are Mt. Hood variety, so they'll be pure white.

Right now, I'm reworking 'the plaza', the space bordered by the garden shed and the hen condo, made of chunks of former sidewalk concrete.

It's been a weedy mess for several years and I'm trying to clean it up to add sagina subulata and other traffic tolerant ground covers in the interstices of the slabs.

I have a collapsible sunbrella w/stand to go with my cheesy plastic chairs. Viola! It's a large violin! On 'the plaza'!