On Friday I don’t know if the biggest thrill was this bud on my dianthus in March! OR
Finding this in my driveway at noontime. They took the dumpster! It’s finally gone from in front of the Big garden after nearly 2 years!
There’s great mounds of dirt that need to be smoothed out, and I should find a small amount of grass seed and put it down.
Friday I got up late, again, and was running late all morning. Both my general helper and my helper friend arrived at 8AM. I sent my helper friend off shopping again and my general helper and I went out to the gardens.
As I hadn’t gotten organized before she got here, it took a while to collect all the stuff we needed. The plan was to put loam down in the gardens I had cleaned out, then bio-char compost, then Bulb-Tone and Flower-Tone. Finally we’d fix the edging that had frost heaved.
We started with the South Herb and got down to the west flowering almond when I realized I’d never dug the meadowsweet out of all the places it had invaded.
So we sat down and did that. There are a very few Russian tarragon still surviving that we replanted after removing the meadowsweet and lily of the valley. That’s it just on the other side of the downspout, with a stick in case it grows as large as usual. This garden is ready to plant.
Just about then my helper friend finished the shopping and came out to help. He took over the wheelbarrow duties and my general helper and I spread what he brought. He also helped with putting the edging back into the ground. So a second garden, or 2, are ready to plant.
When we finished these 2 we went looking for edging to repair. It was still cold and the sun had just burned off the fog and it was too cold to be sitting on the ground weeding.
Because of the compaction through this area from the construction, it has a deep puddle often and the soil washes away from the edging here. I hope to be able to fix this when the excavator guy comes to do the woodshed. So we built it back up again after putting the edging back into the ground. (It’s really not curved like that, the camera does it…)
My helper friend noticed 2 things over here. One was this downspout had eroded the area badly. So my general helper and I found a big stone and fixed it, maybe.
And the second was the high winds the other week had blown a piece of soffit off the roof. I’ll see if the contractor will climb up and put it back before birds nest in it.
Most of the rest of the beds had never gotten edging last year, but we did find a downspout by the azalea that we put a stone under.
By then it was nearly time for my helper friend to go so we cleaned up our mess. I set up to work on another garden with my general helper. This was the mess I wanted to tackle. It had occurred to me that I was going to have to move this garden for the shed construction. So I needed to clean it out.
I’ve decided to move the bulbs, with markers, to the edges of the West and South Herb gardens and the iris and daylilies will go to the unused part of the Small garden until the construction is over. Many of the bulbs aren’t up yet, so if I can do it in the next couple days, they may transplant ok.
The iris are up and need trimmed up but I can do that as I dig them. The daylilies aren’t up yet so they will be ok. It’s ready to move, so we didn’t add amendments.
So we got this garden cleaned out and got picked up in time for her to leave. I rested until 1PM and couldn’t stand being inside when it was in the 70’s and beautiful outside. So I went back out.
I don’t have a before photo of this garden but it was covered with dead alyssum bushes. Once I got them off, I was delighted with all the bulbs that were up. Most of the plants did well over the winter and the hens and chicks in the center right of the photo are covered with “chicks”.
This little beauty was under the bushes. I thought I’d lost all my reticulata iris.
I also got this tiny garden cleaned out. The chrysanthemum has sprouted, I found daffodil sprouts, and this was where the bud in the first picture is. Actually, there are 2, one on each dianthus.
Once they were cleaned out, I put down the Bulb-Tone and Flower-Tone organic food and cleaned up my mess. Then I sat and made notes about how the garden was doing. I also did notes on the West Shed garden as I’d not done that. After getting my photos, it was nearly 4PM and I was exhausted.
On Saturday a friend is taking me pansy shopping. My husband and I always did this in early spring. He loved the faces on pansies so we’d go hunting the best ones. I actually found a tiny pansy that had survived the winter in the West of Steps garden. It looked pretty sad but was alive. So I will have new pansies to plant after the rain on Saturday. I can also get the grass seed while I am at the nursery.
I also plan to cook my corned beef and cabbage. I can’t do potatoes, so my helper friend got me parsnips in place of them, along with my cabbage.
The contractor is coming in the afternoon to work on the sink wall. So it’s another busy day.