At the Farm March 27, 2015

 This beautiful bearded iris was given to me by Janine Snapp.  So pretty!

I love the inside of beardeds.

• I went up for the day to water the plants I put in the ground last week.
• I also had to replace the sprinkler timer in the Rose Garden, it was broken.  Not a good time for everything to get dry.
• Planted three stonecrop plants in a ceramic pot - 2 Vera Jameson Stonecrop, and 1 Bronze Carpet Stonecrop.  I planted 1 Vera in the ground and 1 Bronze in the ground.  I planted 3 John Creech Stonecrop (that I split into two pieces each) into 2 pairs of shoes that I was going to throw away.  I love sedums, perennial and some of them are evergreen.
• The seeds I planted in the Vegetable Garden - squash, green beans, and cucumbers - have still not sprouted.  I am surprised and confused.  Why haven't they sprouted?
• Everything is looking good.  The penstemon and Ox Eyes have sprouted their flower stalks, I am seeing tiny little buds on the Peggy Martin rose, the oxalis are blooming, the bearded irises are blooming their wonderfully ethereal blossoms - spring!     

Old Fashioned Bearded Irises March 22, 2015

I found the Cemetery Whites in a ditch.  They were growing along a fence line, and some of them had cascaded down into the ditch just beyond the fence.  The purple beardeds were growing in the yard of the empty house on Nixon Lake Rd.  I didn't know what color they were going to be for a year, waiting for them to bloom.

 

Weekend at the Farm March 20 - 22, 2015

 This is one of my Dwarf Flowering Almond shrubs.  It will get much bigger, unfortunately they are very slow growers.

Took Friday as vacation and went to the Festival Hill herb sale in Round Top on Friday morning.  I was going to go to the Mercer plant sale also, but they changed the start time to noon.  This will be the first time in years that I have not gone to the Mercer plant sale with Lisa and Nancy.  I wanted to buy some gingers, and that is the only place I know of to buy them other than ordering on line.  I will have to wait until next year to indulge my new ginger interest.

• On Thursday I went to Buchanan's and bought three Black Beauty eggplants, three bell pepper plants, two Mexican salvias, and flat of Homestead Purple Verbena and Pink Skullcap.  I have always wanted some skullcap, but I wanted the little 6 inch potted.  They had it and I bought it! 
• On the way back from the plant sale I went the back roads so I could check out this farmhouse where, last spring,  I had seen the most gorgeous bearded irises I've ever seen- tall and a combination of violet and blue.  They were growing behind the barn (out of sight of the house, and I wanted to sneak over the fence and save some).  They weren't blooming yet, which is not a surprise because most of my new hybrids are not blooming yet either. 
• Friday when I arrived I planted some of the herbs I bought at the herb sale in the Medicine Garden:  6 horehound, 2 Stevia, 2 Vick's plant, 3 Angelica, 2 Pineapple Sage, 4 Lamb's Ear, 2 Patchouli.
• In the Kitchen Herb Garden I planted: 1 Peach Sage (a wonderful smell and an herb I've never had before), 3 basils - various varieties (also threw down a package of seeds), and 1 lemon verbena.  I also spent some time cleaning up in there.  I mulched a few months ago, and that really has helped keep it looking pretty good.
• It rained throughout the day and poured around 5:30. 
• I planted the 3 Black Beauty eggplants in the Vegetable Garden.  I pulled up all my broccoli - got tired of waiting for it.  That's always the conflict - the winter garden doesn't produce until just after the spring garden should be planted.  When you have limited space you have to choose.
• My husband put some super-duper cages around my tomato plants - we are determined to defeat the animals this year.
• As spring always does, it creates a step change in the growth rate of all the vegetation.  The roses are mostly leafed out after the severe pruning I gave them this year.  The borage seeds I sowed are popping up as well as the Valerian.  The catmint seedlings are doing great.  And the first real leaf pairs on my Rose Campion have appeared.  The old fashioned purple beardeds are all blooming and the Cemetery Whites are halfway done.  There has been an explosion of growth.  Of course, the weeds are doing nicely too...
• Sowed some Cockscomb seeds in the Vegetable Garden that Brenda Cornett gave me.  I'm excited to have these, they are expensive!  And she gave me a lot of them.  She's a sweetie.
• Friday evening Bert and I wandered around in the rain with rubber boots and umbrellas looking at everything while the Allman Brothers, Dan Reeder, and Hootie and the Blowfish blasted in the background.  We were astounded and left in a state of wonder when we saw and heard a flock of sandhill cranes fly right over our heads.  There must have been 150 of them, honking loudly just under the cloud cover.  Amazing and beautiful.  We knew we were lucky to have seen it.
• All night long, and I mean it never ceased for a single moment, as Bert and I tried to sleep there was a honking, honking, honking.  It sounded like it was right outside the house.  Bert turned on the light looking for it.  Nothing.  I finally got up around 6, couldn't stand it anymore.  I turned on the light, the noise stopped.  Later we were walking around investigating the noise and discovered about 60 bullfrogs in the pool making bullfrog love.  It took Bert an hour to fish them all out of the pool.  Mystery solved.
• It rained all day on Saturday without pausing.
• Put a wheelbarrow full  of leaf mulch in the Kitchen Herb Garden.
• Harvested the last of the mustard greens and pulled up the plants.
• Planted half a dozen pink skullcap in the Star Garden.
• Sowed Moonflower seeds that I soaked over night.  Planted them around the front arbor.
• Sowed blue morning glory seeds along the goat wire arbor at the entrance to the Long Border.  Surrounded them with chicken wire so the wascally wabbits won't eat them.  Also sowed them around my half-dead butterfly magnolia so they will climb into the tree.  Also surrounded them with chicken wire.
• Did a lot of weeding.  
• Mulched the back flowerbed around the Easy Ned Daylilies that I transplanted from the pool area.
• Planted 10 Homestead Purple Verbena in the Rose Garden and one Pink Skullcap.  I love the homestead purple, and I grew it for many years.  But eventually it died away, who knows why. 
• Transplanted some Verbena Bonariensis and Ox Eye Daisy from paths in the Rose Garden to various flowerbeds in the Rose Garden.  I'm trying to move as much of it as I can - I will have to spray herbicide throughout the Rose Garden pretty soon to get rid of everything growing in the paths.
• Planted three little violet plants in one of the new beds in the shady part of the Star Garden.  They are different than the ones I have growing right now, the leaves are bigger and the little flowers are solid purple.  They are sweet and they spread via runners.
• Tied up my Erhlicheer daffodils in the Star Garden, you cannot cut daffodils back after they bloom because the dying greenery gives the bulbs strength for next year.  It doesn't look very pretty while it's dying, so I tie it in bundles with twine.
• I cut some pieces of my pink Firespike at my home in Houston and carried it up here.  I dipped them in rooting hormone and stuck them in the ground in one of my new, empty beds.  Firespike is pretty easy to root, and it is so wet right now that I'm hoping it will take off as easy as that.
• Sunday morning I couldn't sleep, got up at 5.  Sat outside on the front porch and listened to the turkeys, birds, and roosters.
• Turned the soil in the Mayhaw bed and planted Yukon Gold potatoes and squash.  Also spread cockscomb over the top of it (because I can't leave well enough alone).
• Turned over more soil in the same bed and spread more cockscomb seed.  I got all this seed from Brenda Cornett.
• Used one of my last two green landscaping strips and made a small outline along the fence at the back of the Star Garden near where I broke up the big flowerbed in Max's Garden.  I planted blue morning glory seeds and set up a chicken wire trellis in the center of it.  I didn't amend the soil.  Morning Glories like bad soil.  Too many nutrients make a lot of greenery and no flowers. 
• Sprayed fungicide on all my roses - can't have blackspot in the spring!  That makes the roses look terrible.  You have to be pro-active with rose spraying.  Once you see black spot it's too late.  Roses are high maintenance, but I love them.  There is a quote in the Little Prince:  It is the care you put into roses that makes them special.  That is how I feel about roses, they are worth the effort.
• Decided the weeds in the Rose Garden were getting away from me so I sprayed herbicide. Tried to avoid the Ox Eye Dasies as much as possible, but I sprayed quite a few nevertheless.
• Sowed Hyacinth Bean seeds that I collected last year on the Orchard trellis.
• Sowed Hyacinth Bean seeds in the planter box next to the arbor in the Rose Garden.  First I cleaned out the weeds growing in the planter box.  Surrounded the seeds I planted in the Rose Garden with a cage - the rabbits love it in there.  Also planted some seeds on the arbor at the entrance to the Rose Garden and along the bed spring trellis.
• Planted some Cypress Vine seeds on the the trellis in the Long Border.
• Staked the Peters Purple Bee Balm in the back flowerbed.  Better to stake plants before they need it.  After they are leaning over, the skinny bamboo stakes aren't strong enough.
• Staked the Verbena Bonariensis in the Pink Cloud Kolkwitzia amabalis bed and the ones along the path by the Peggy Martin Rose.  Tied some loose branches of Peggy Martin to its support.  That rose has realy matured quickly.  I'm expecting a great show from her this spring.  Peggy Martin is said to bloom sporadically after the spring flush, but from my experience it is a once-blooming rose. 
• Planted the last few Pink Skullcaps and Homestead Purple Verbenas in the Star Garden.
• Bert and I walked around for a long time in the evening.  The moon and Venus were spectacular.  Lovely evening, the weather turned absolutely beautiful Sunday afternoon and evening.

Early Spring Flowers March 15, 2015

 These Ox Eye daisies are blooming unseasonably early.

 Above, Rolf Fiedler Ipheion, tiny little bulbs.

 Above, an old fashioned bearded iris.  Bearded irises are the most elegant of all the heirloom perennials.

 Above, moss verbena.  I grew it from seed last spring.  It bloomed throughout the entire winter.

 Above, a branch of forsythia.

 Above, Blue Bottles.  They desperately need to be thinned out.  These tiny little bubs multiply insanely.

Ice Follies Daffodils March 15, 2015

These pretty white and yellow daffodils were planted last fall in my wild garden.  I don't weed this area, hence the term "wild garden".  Whatever grows is allowed to grow (much to my husband's consternation).  That doesn't mean I don't plant things, but rather it means I don't pull weeds.  If I want to suppress weeds I can compost or plant something that will crowd out the weeds, but I am not weeding the area.

I planted these Ice Follies amongst my double and single narcissus odorous.  I wanted to plant them in clumps, but it seemed wherever I dug I ran smack into roots.  I finally got them all in the ground, more in a line than in clumsps.  But over time they will look like more a naturalized grouping. They are really showy flowers.

Weekend at the Farm March 12 - 14, 2015

Arrived Friday morning.  Drove into town on Saturday morning to attend my daughter in law's baby shower for little Wes Jameson and my future daughter in law's bridal shower   Back home Saturday evening.

• Brought bags of potting soil up with me on Friday to fill the big plastic feed buckets that my husband got from his friend Albert Myers. I planted tomatoes in three buckets before I ran out of soil Beefmaster, Superfantastic, Brandywine, Better Boy).  Planted one tomato plant in one of the raised beds (Yellow Pineapple).
• Sowed Scarlet Runner Beans along the narrow goat wire arbors in the Vegetable Garden.  Planted two rows of cucumber seeds along the long goat wire arbor in the Vegetable Garden.  Sowed a long line of parsley seed in front of the cucumbers.  Tucked squash seeds in here and there where ever I thought there was a little room. 
• Not much room left for anything else in the raised beds.  I can fit two or three eggplants where my brussels sprouts are growing now.  I will probably buy plants next week and plant them next weekend.
• I have three more large feed buckets left.  I plan to plant one more tomato in one of them, and I will plant peanuts in the other two.  
• My husband got a yard and a half of crushed granite at Papescapes which was a relief because I am not finished with what I want to do, and I'm all out of rock.  
• I spread rock in the area between the big arbor and the path I just built. 
• Sunday morning I weeded in the Orchard for a couple of hours, raked away some leaves, and cut back my near-dead Pomegranate.  I need to spend more time in there, probably next weekend.
• Fertilized my Victoria Falls bearded irises next to the Orchard.
• Sprayed herbicide in the Orchard, along the Boardwalk, and a few places in the Star Garden. 
• Spread gravel in the few remaining places in the Star Garden that I wanted to get to.  I'm probably done with that, no more before the wedding.
• Filled the last three buckets in the Vegetable Garden with potting soil I bought when I was in town for the showers.  Planted the last tomato plant in one and planted Virginia peanuts in the other two.  Today I planted a Brandywine, a yellow plum, Beefmaster, BetterBoy, and SuperFantastic.
• Josh gave Bert a CD for Chirstmas, and I think after 15 years of marriage we finally found our song, by Dan Reeder:  I've Got All The Fuckin' Work I Need.
• The Nema-Gone Marigold seeds that I sowed last week have sprouted!  So cute.
• Bert and I walked round and round looking at everything Sunday evening, and I wandered around after the sun set for a long time.  We took a ride around the property (as we do every evening).  Lovely.
• Sowed Valentine Mix Cypress Vine under the goat wire arbor in the Star Garden, and under one of the conveyor belts in the Star Garden, and under the trellis in the Star Garden.

The Spring Vegetable Garden March 15, 2015

What I have planted going from left to right:  asparagus, tomato and squash with marigolds sprinkled throughout, garlic and scarlet runner beans, and calendulas, beets and swiss chard, onions, asparagus, in the buckets (peas, peas, carrots, tomato, tomato, peanuts, peanuts, tomato) green beans and marigolds, in the center: tomato, celery, potatoes, more marigolds, and finally cucumber and  parsley and marigolds.

All I'm missing is my Yukon gold potatoes and my sweet potatoes which arrive in the mail very soon.  And my eggplants, okra,  and peppers which I have a couple of weeks left before they really need to go into the ground ( because they are real heat lovers).

March 10, 2015

Bert and I drove up to the farm for the day.  Drove to work the next morning.  Didn't know when I would be able to get to Arbor Gate to buy some sedums for my pots around the pool, so I decided to take the day off.

• Stopped on the way at Lowe's and bought potting soil and more pots.  I only lack one pot now.  I need a big one, I want to plant a lemon tree in it.
• At Arbor Gate I bought sedums (colorful, perennial succulent ground covers that flower in the spring - Golden Japanese Sedum, Summer Glory Sedum Spurium, Gold Flakes Sedum, and Althoum Sedum), two Tuscan Blue rosemary plants, one rosemary (lost the tag, don't know the name), two Passionate Blush gaura, 2 Mexican Mint Marigold, two creeping thyme, one Buzz Midnight butterfly bush (a dwarf variety), and one Jeruselem Sage - all for my pots, and three tomato plants (Roma, San Marzano, and Beefy Boy).
• Turned the soil in three beds in the Vegetable Garden, added chitin (an organic fertilizer and supposed to deter nematodes), added Arbor Gate blend, and planted the tomatoes.  
• Prepared the soil as above in the long bed in the Vegetable Garden and planted two long rows of Blue Lake 47 bush green beans.
• Spread Nema-Gone marigold seeds in all four beds and spread some in the potato bed.
• Fertilized and turned the soil in the bed where I plant to plant my Scarlet Runner beans and cucumbers next week.
• I'm betting on the fact that it won't freeze again this year.  If it freezes I will lose everything I planted in the Vegetable Garden and have to start over.
• I potted up everything I bought.  I split the sedums and the thyme into two pieces so they would stretch further.  I have two pots left to fill.  I thought about planting some squash seeds into my two leftover pots but decided against it.
• Raked and turned over the soil in an area in the Medicine Garden and sowed some Borage and Valerian seeds. 
• Sowed Borage in the Kitchen Herb Garden.
• Pulled lots of weeds.  
• Bert and I walked round and round when evening came.  
• I counted 21 buds on my little old fashioned purple bearded irises that I dug up from Nixon Lake Rd two years ago.  I fertilized them twice this winter.  I think that made a real difference.

Weekend at the Farm March 6 - 6, 2015

 These are Hoop Petticoats, tiny little daffodils (bulbocodium conspicuous) that I look forward to seeing every spring.

Arrived Friday afternoon.  Left on Saturday afternoon back to town for Nancy's birthday.  Returned on Sunday morning.  Cold and sunny on Saturday.  Cold and rainy on Sunday.

• Laid down one truckload of crushed granite in Max's Garden in the new paths I made in the fall.  Almost finished.  The paths are really narrow because I already had so much planted there.
• The freeze has knocked back all my daffodils, they are all laying down.  The Ice Follies daffodils are really pretty despite leaning over.  This is their first year for blooming.
• I was worried about my flower seedlings - Catmint and Rose Campion - because of the freezing weather, but they are fine.
• I bought 2 big clay pots yesterday and 3 green glazed pots last weekend to put around the pool.  Still need 4 more to make three groups of three on the deck around the pool, but they are so big and heavy I'm hauling them up here a few at a time.  I'm also bringing bags of potting soil up here a few bags at a time. 
• Cut back my Indigo Spires salvia.
• Cut back an Autumn Sage I overlooked when I was cutting back the others.
• Spread 4 bags of Arbor Gate organic fertilizer.  I fertilized all my roses, every bed in the Star Garden, everything in the Shade Garden, everything in the Greenhouse Gardens, all the beds in the Circle Drive, and everything along the Boardwalk.  I will use the fifth bag of fertilizer on my fruit trees. 
• The plum trees are just past their bloom.  It will take several weeks before I know if the freeze killed all the flowers or if I will get plums this year. 
• I did some weeding in the Star Garden.
• Spread some leaf mulch around some of the ferns I planted a few weeks ago in one of my new beds.  And spread some around my Lion's Mane.  Hauled some granite into the Star Garden with the wheelbarrow and covered a few more small paths.  
• Piddled around a while longer - the weather turned so beautiful in the afternoon.  Drove home about 3:00.
• Sunday morning I planted red potatoes.  Decided to read up on them before planting, something I have never done which is kind of unusual for me.  I have grown them many times, but I have never cured them prior to planting which is what my book says you should do.  Cutting them up into pieces and letting them sit for a couple of days and dry out is called curing them.  I didn't cure them this time either, I just stuck them in the ground. Now that I know you're supposed to cure them, this will probably be the year they rot in the ground.
• I spread fertilizer around my fruit trees.  I threw so much fertilizer down that I will probably kill all the wild flower seedlings growing around them.  But my fruit trees need fertilizer.  It is a rainy day, so my timing has been great.  I got everything fertilized yesterday and today.  It's supposed to rain today and tomorrow.
• Decided to prune back my Bermuda's Kathleen rose.  I already removed dead and crossing canes, but today I changed my mind and decided to really cut it back.  It's gotten so big that the canes are sagging all over the place.
• Took a long nap.  Spent the late afternoon and early evening walking around with Bert looking at everything.   

Star Garden Just Before the Spring Flush March 1, 2015

Weekend at the Farm February 28 - March 1, 2015

This is my Pearl Bush (Exochorda racemosa) blooming.  Pearl Bush blooms in the very, very early spring, around the same time as Ornamental Quince.  I've always wanted to buy / grow  Quince.  Pearl Bush and Quince bloom even earlier than Forsythia around here.  It's always nice to have things blooming in the cold, gray winter months.
 
Came up on Friday afternoon by myself and worked in the afternoon.  Spent the night, worked half a day on Saturday.  Drove into town for the wedding of a co-worker, Cassandra.  Bert and I danced up a storm.  I'm sure all the people that work for me will have a hey day over that.  What we lack in style we more than make up for in enthusiasm.  Came back up on Sunday morning with Bert and the dogs.  The weather was really cold and misty all weekend.

• Friday afternoon I pruned the grape vines in the Orchard.  That was a much more pleasant job than I remember it being last year.
• I also cut back the autumn sage along the back of the house and the sage in the Kitchen Herb Garden.  Looks a lot better, neater.
• Hauled lots of wheelbarrows full of granite over to the Greenhouse Garden.  I laid it down thinly because I was covering an old layer in a path I've previously made.  When you spread it on dirt you lose a couple inches of when you walk on it and grind it into the ground.  When I spread it on dirt I try to cover it with about 4 inches.  When I am re-covering paths I spread it as thinly as I can, an inch or two.
• On Sunday I spent the morning spreading crushed granite in the Shade Garden just for a change of scenery.
• I transplanted several Ox Eye Daisies and Verbena Bonariensis that were growing in paths.
• I sowed all the Nicotiana alata seeds in partially shady beds in the Star Garden.  I'm not expecting any frost for the rest of the year.  Maybe some light freezes, but they should be okay.  I also sowed the rest of the Catmint seed in the Star Garden.  The Catmint I sowed a couple of weeks ago seems to be doing fine, so I finished it off.
• Sunday afternoon I finished the area next to the Medicine Garden, it is the area where the wedding guests will walk through on their way to their seats for the ceremony.  Looks good.  
• Planted two packages of Strawberry Candy daylilies, some in the front flowerbed and some in the Rose Garden next to Chrysler Imperial.
• Packed it in about four o'clock - cold and tired.

Completed Project March 1, 2015

All finished.  I still want to lay some granite down on the other side of the Medicine Garden, but unfortunately I'm almost out of rock.  I want to use the rest of it to do the paths around my new beds in the Star Garden.  I have new beds on both sides of the Star Garden, the shady parts.  I worked on one side today and almost finished.  The other side remains undone.  Maybe next weekend.
Here is the finished Medicine Garden.  The wedding guests will walk through this area to get to their seats for the ceremony.

Progress on my Latest Project February 28, 2015

I made some headway on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning covering paths with a fresh layer of crushed granite.

Paperwhites in My Garden March 1, 2015

 Above, Erhlicheers.  I think they are superior in beauty to all other paperwhites.

 Above, Erlicheers, Grand Primos, Naked Ladies, Candida Rain Lilies, and Chinese Sacred Lilies.

Above, Grand Primo Paperwhites.