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April 19, 2006
Sorry for the little break in blogging. The photo gallery section was not working and I don't think it's any fun to blog without photos.
So, what have we been up to here: enjoying spring. Last week was beautiful. Easter weekend and this week have been windier and a little rainy. The rest of the week is supposed to be beautiful again.
My major project last week was making a flower bed next to our house. A small bed existed and I removed the wood border, dug up the grass next to it, composted and mulched the soil and added a brick border. Unfortunately nothing is planted in the new bed right now. That will have to wait till May when I get my flowers from Hedgehog Hill. This fall I plan to dig up all the bulbs and plant them throughout the whole bed.
These are the before (last year when we bought the house) and after (this spring) photos.
This Saturday we plan to get a truckbed load of composted manure (from a friend's horse stables) and put that into our front flower beds and then mulch that too. It looks pretty bad right now. I haven't cleaned it up yet this spring.
Let's see other than gardening we've been busy going to Art in the Afternoons on Tuesday, going to open gym on Monday mornings & Celine's dance class on Monday afternnoons. The kids and I made kites last week and we took them out yesterday and promptly got them all tangled together! This week was also spring clean up in our city, where the city picks up any trash you leave at the curb (whatever's left after your neighbors pick through it - I'm totally serious) Speaking of picking through trash I felt like a true Mainer today when the kids and I picked bricks from a demolition site. I'm looking for more bricks for garden borders. Mainers are thrifty and do this kind of thing all the time - leave things at and pick up things from the curb, root through demolition sites for usable building materials etc... Anyway, back to spring cleaning... this weekend we cleaned out & organized our garage -that feels good.
That's about it for now. Tomorrow Celine has a playdate with her best friend who is in public school and on school break right now. Damien and I are going out for lunch on Thursday and we're having a potluck at our house Friday night.
Wishing you all a lovely spring week!
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barbara on April 24, 2006, 7:35 a.m.
Wow! I'd better get busy! I have done a lot of raking in the yard but I haven't touched any of the flower beds yet. This week I have been cleaning windows. So many to clean! Whew! Pretty soon I will get to those flowers. The primroses are starting to grow and the elephant ears are putting up new 'ears'. It's been so lovely this past week. Plus twenty on most days. A few mosquitos have been buzzing around. Big Ones. And we have a resident frog croaking at our pond. This is the first year we have heard a frog croaking outside our kitchen window. I hope it finds a mate and has babies in the pond... I should go and look for polliwogs in the ditches by the log house. We used to do that when we were kids. I remember having a fish tank in my bedroom with polliwogs, when I was a little girl. I watched them grow and one day, when I came home from school, there were little frogs jumping all over my room (they jumped out of the fish tank!) I love the sound of frogs croaking. When we lived in the log house near the muskeg, it was a beautiful sound we heard every spring. I really miss that sound.
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renee on April 26, 2006, 2:04 a.m.
My windows are so filthy. Our windows are old and hard to clean. I'm very slowly tackling them as I hang up curtains etc. Way to go mom for doing this less than fun job.
Oh, how much fun is that having frogs all over your bedroom! I will have to tell the kids this story they'll love it.
Hum, elephant ears... In all my gardening research lately I haven't come across that. I'll have to look that one up.
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barbara on May 2, 2006, 6:02 a.m.
You probably won't come across that name in your gardening books. 'Elephant ears' are really called 'bergenia' (I think that's how it's spelled). They are large elephant ear shaped leaves and a very early blooming bright pink flower cluster on a tall spike. Very pretty. Spreads easily, very hardy and parts of the leaves seem to stay green all winter. Makes a very nice border in any flowerbed. Janet Morten gave me a couple of pieces from her garden and now I have many plants all over the garden (I transplanted them as they multiplied). I even gave pieces to friends.
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melanie on April 22, 2006, 12:59 a.m.
Wow, I can't believe how ahead you guys are down there in Maine. Sounds like you have been having fun creating and organzing Renee. Your flowerbed looks so much better. What is planted in that one? I cleaned out my flowerbeds in the front of the house on Wednesday after work. They look so much better now. I plan to get some mulch as well for around the plants. Helps them stay moist in the hot summer.
renee on April 26, 2006, 2:14 a.m.
In this flowerbed I have bulbs, peonies and a climbing rose bush - not much presently. This summer I'll plant annuals and a couple perennials and slowly build it into a mainly perennial border. My plan with our front yard is to turn the whole yard (it's small) into a perennial border with some flowering shrubs - rhodendrons, hydrangeas, forsynthia, dogwood etc.. and fill in the spaces with annuals until the perennials fill most of the space. I am researching shrubs, perennials, bulbs and annuals to plan for the garden to always have something blooming and then to remain interesting looking in the winter - with grasses, atrractive shrub branches etc... I want to have a year round garden so to speak.
In the backyard I plan to plant a vegetable garden next summer and start a butterfly & herb garden. I am busy scouring friend's gardens for transplants and recently learned of a plant exchange at Bates college in May.
barbara on May 2, 2006, 6:24 a.m.
Gold flame spirea (I think that's how it's spelled), one of my favorites. It has lime green leaves in the spring and lovely pink flowers in the summer. This variety of shrub is low growing and looks good in front of the taller shrubs (a border shrub). Everblooming rose bushes (my favorite), will give lovely flowers all summer. I have these planted by the pond. Potentilla will also give flowers all summer. Double flowering plum are impressive in the spring and so are rhododendrons and forysythia. Hydrangea (pink pewee) are lovely in the fall. Shasta daisies are so hardy once you get them started, they practically take care of themselves and they will grow in very poor soil (even gravel). You are lucky, I think your growing season is better than ours. You should be able to grow stuff that we can't. This year, Dad and I are going to grow a couple of tomato plants in large pots on the deck. Our neighbor did that and he had tomatoes all summer from one large plant in a pot.
renee on May 2, 2006, 2:22 p.m.
Thanks so much for the advice Mom. I have a couple gardening books handy so I'm going to look those up. I like the sounds of what you've suggested. I want interest and beauty all year round in the garden/yard. The plants you've mentioned seemed to fit the bill.