Weekend at the Farm January 21 - 22, 2017

This is frost-covered Homestead Purple Verbena.

Arrived Saturday evening after attending Oliver's 3rd birthday party.  Sunday was extremely windy but not unpleasant.

• Saturday I only had time to take a walk around the gardens and take note of some things I wanted to accomplish on Sunday.
• Sunday morning I raked in the Infinity Garden and dumped the leaves in the compost pile.
• I fertilized the sage and sorrel plants that I planted in the Kitchen Herb Garden a month or so ago.
• Watered my Baleria cristata plants that I planted a month or so ago, used the cistern water.  I hope they make it after the hard freeze we had last week.
• I spent some time transplanting some Verbena Bonariensis seedlings from paths in the Rose Garden to beds in the Rose Garden and the Long Border.  I love those tall, beautiful spikes of purple in the garden.  Huge butterfly favorites.
• I dug up a clump of Dawn Pink Canna that was growing too close to a mallow in the Long Border.  Replanted it nearby, closer to the rest of my Dawn Pinks.
• For several summers I have been annoyed by a bed of Indigo Spires that leaned out into the path, and I am forced to constantly stake it and cut it away.  So I dug up three clumps growing right at the edge of the bed.  I replanted them in the Long Border. 
• Filled the cub cadet with mulch and mulched the Indigo Spires bed.  Drove down to the Orchard, pulled weeds and mulched over the spots I cleared.   My Lider #9 Satsuma looks pretty bad.  It might not have made it through the hard freeze we had.  There's a little bit of green in the stems.  We'll see.  For that matter, my Joey Avocado isn't looking very good either.  I have it in a pot in the Vegetable Garden until the trunk forms some bark.  I don't know if it made it either.
• Overall, things are coming along.  My bee balm is really spreading in the bed where I have the Venus Sweetsrub planted.  The Butter Pat and Country Girl mums are spreading like crazy in the Rose Garden and the Long Border.  The Homestead Purple Verbena that I transplanted all over the Star Garden and the Rose Garden has really taken off.  And the Philippine Lily seeds that I spread in the fall have all sprouted in the Circle Drive beds.  And the asters that I put in the ground last March have spread - good fall color.  And, I am excited to see that my Peachie's Pick Stokes Aster seems to be coming back.  I bought two of them at the Round Top Herb Festival last year, and they died from lack of water, or so I thought.  But one appears to be coming up. 
• I spent the afternoon transplanting more Homestead Purple Verbena from paths to various beds while I watered in the Rose Garden.  Raked a bit here and there.
• I adjusted all the sprinklers.
• Grey kitty was here on and off.  He spent the night Saturday in the laundry basket, ate breakfast, then disappeared.  He had been in a fight at some point because he had a half-healed spot on his head.
• Overall a pretty productive day in terms of working towards a floriferous spring.