On Monday morning I didn’t get up until 5:45AM. I got my post up and went out to the gardens by 7AM. It was to be another beautiful day like Saturday and I was hoping to get at least 1 big flowerbed cleaned out and planted.
I selected the New East bed because it had not gotten any attention this year. These are before photos.
This is once I got it cleaned out. I’d lost the veronica, the bleeding heart had 1 stem, the species spiderwort was much smaller, but I had 2 volunteer columbines doing well, and an American ginger was growing in the astilbe.
Most of what had survived was doing pretty well, except the geranium. The verbascum (pink at center) has seeded all over and I transplanted 6 or 7 of them into the bed at the other end.
I planted:
3 Pansies
1 stock
1 begonia
1 stock
3 impatiens
1 begonia
2 delphinuims
The foliage from the bulbs was still strong so I put BulbTone down and then FlowerTone. Once I had cleaned up the area, I set up a sprinkler as the ground was very dry. It ran for 3 hours.
The mock orange
The saddest thing about this congestion and cough is that I can’t smell anything. This mock orange was planted under my bedroom window and I can’t smell it. There are multiflora roses all over the area and the farm smells heavenly when they are in bloom, like right now. Nope, can’t smell them. I also planted lots of clove scented dianthus which flowers now. Again, I’m missing that too.
I had moved all the equipment up to the East Shed in hopes I’d feel like tackling that later. By the time I had my notes taken, photos taken, sprinkler set up and cleaned up it was 11AM. It wasn’t hot, in fact very pleasant, but I was pretty tired so I went inside.
I rested a couple hours, unable to lie back in my chair due to the cough, and read. I went back out after lunch to tackle the East Shed garden, at 1PM. It also hadn’t had any attention this year.
The first thing I had to do was prune the 7 Sisters rose back and up so it wouldn’t be grabbing me as I worked underneath it.
I heard something overhead and sure enough, the baby robins were still in the nest.
I got all the winter kill off and the pruning done. It has thousands of buds this year.
I had it cleaned out just after 3PM. I put down BulbTone and FlowerTone and set about planting.
I planted:
2 begonias
1 snapdragon
3 pansies
2 stocks
2 verbena
1 zinnia
I also got several of the tall plants into supports.
I got my notes, photos, cleaned up, and before I could set up the sprinkler, I had to water all the seedlings in the cold frames. That took about half an hour. By 4PM I had the sprinkler going.
East Shed: l-r: Freckles violets, 7 Sisters rose, geranium, Sweet William, begonias, snapdragons, impatiens
East Shed: l-r: violets, balloonflower, Sweet William, purple loosestrife
By the time I’d finished, the coughing had gotten very bad. I went inside and got a shower and rested. I had an early supper and was in bed by 7PM. The coughing finally responded to the meds just after 8PM and I went to sleep.
On Tuesday I plan to start planting the New Herb garden. In the afternoon, I will either do more windows with my brother, or mow the yard and up by the barn. It’s to be another beautiful day.