A Weekend at the Farm 02/19 - 20/2010

These are my Excelsior Spanish Bluebells. Chicken wire is guarding them against armadillos.

200 bluebells along the boardwalk down to the Orchard.

It was hot on Saturday! Windy and warm on Sunday.

• Turned over the beds in the Vegetable Garden. Getting ready for spring.
  
• My husband built an arbor for the peas to climb on.
  
• I shredded leaves and mulched various areas.
  
• I cut away dead vegetation in the Long Border, the Star Garden, and the Shade Garden.
  
• Pulled the dead Morning Glory vines away from the arbor at the entrance to the Long Border, but first I collected lots of the seed to replant in various places.
  
• I bought a Candy Corn vine at Buchanan's on Friday, so I planted that. I planted it by the arbor in the Star Garden.
  
• Sprayed herbicide in the Vegetable Garden, the Star Garden, and the Rose Garden.
  
• I pruned some roses that I missed last weekend - the two Ballerina roses and the three Mme Antoine Mari roses in the Long Border.
  
• Fertilized with nitro-phos my Anacachoe Orchid tree, the Christmas tree, all the azaleas, the Possumhaw, the Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum, Walter's Viburnum, the daffodils, and the Charity Mahonias. Also fertilized my "found" bearded irises - the ones I dug up from the ditch.
  
• Watered various areas.
  
• Cleaned out leaf debris from the Infinity Garden. That has to done almost exclusively by hand around each herb. Painstaking.
  
• Moved 3 wheelbarrows of crushed granite into the path I'm making next to the Long Border. I'll be finished soon, but I'm not in so much of a hurry that I'm going to break my back doing it. A few loads each visit is enough. That stuff is incredibly heavy!
  
• My Rolf Fiedler Star Flowers are just beginning to bloom. The Erlicheer daffodils have buds on them. And finally, the Lycoris Squamigera have come up, only 3 of them, though. I guess the other died from lack of water.
  
• Pruned the apple trees. The Gala apple is a mess. I never should have bought it. It was already several years old and had not been pruned properly. It does not have a dominant terminal leader. Bought from a big box store. Mistake.
  
• Sprayed the roses for blackspot.
  
• Planted some nasturtium seeds in the Star Garden.
  
• Planted 5 parsley plants in the Long Border to attract butterflies. It is a larval food for caterpillars.
  
• Planted 6 bronze fennel in The Orchard, also a larval food for caterpillars.
  
• Dug up some daisies in the lawn that are growing wild and planted them in the Bulb Garden.
  
• Finished painting the fence around The Orchard. It looks good.
  
• Started painting the planter boxes in the Rose Garden.
  
• Washed the 5 sets of french doors at the front of the house and the light fixtures.
  
• Came home exhausted with an aching back.