Friday, May 09, 2008

Garden Stuff - Feel Free To Skip This One



The peony has shot up to almost a foot tall in the last week. And it has buds! I just put this peony in last year, and everybody was like, "oh, peonies are hard, if you plant them too deep they'll never bloom, and if you plant them too shallow they'll croak." Hah! I have peony buds!

The bleeding heart that I separated is huge, as usual. I swear, I divided out at least half of that thing, and it's still almost as big as it was last year. I gave some to my sister Ditzy, and the rest I planted along the sides of the yard - now I've got three bleeding hearts instead of one. And I've got lilies of the valley all over the place - they keep spreading, and spreading, and spreading.

The tiger lilies that I dug up from the side yard at my sister Alabama's summer place are coming up. It's a good thing I got 'em last summer, seeing as how she sold the place this spring. She also gave me a "bubblegum lily" that she had at her place, and that's coming up as well.

The white lilac is starting to bloom, but it seems to be a couple of weeks behind everybody else's lilacs. I can't remember if it was late last year as well. That, my friends, is why I'm writing all this stuff down.

The rose-of-sharons are starting to green up, as are the hydrangeas. I sulfated the hydrangeas a few weeks ago; last year they were starting to go from blue to pink, and I'd like to keep them blue if possible. The cinnamon fern is starting to uncurl its way up; it's about 8" tall now. The eastern fern, which I thought was dead, was actually just struggling to send up new growth through all of last year's fronds. When I cut all the old stuff back, there was quite a bit coming up underneath. Note to self: Cut that thing way back next fall. The honeysuckle is back with a vengeance; one of these days I'm afraid it's going to topple the garden arch right over. The turks-cap lilies are coming up (yay! they were an experiment), and the asiatic lily I divided a couple of weeks ago is huge again. The phlox that I dug up down by the creek (shhh!) is doing good, as is my store-bought phlox. The poppy and daylilies are doing good. The azaleas don't look so hot, but they do have buds. Maybe I'll move them this fall. The catnip's back. The hosta and sedum are looking good. You know, actually, I DO NOT LIKE either hosta or sedum, but my Mom gave them to me, and so I let them live. Big of me. The teeny rose bush that she gave me is leafing out as well. Every year I think that poor thing is gonna croak, and every year it surprises me by going nuts at the tail end of the summer. The jacob's ladder has mysteriously disappeared.

On a sucky note, someone stole my copper flamingo out of the garden! I had a three-foot-tall flamingo that was made out of copper tubing (tacky much?), and someone stole it this past week! I'm sure it was probably the neighborhood kids (darn whippersnappers!).

First viewing of a hummingbird at the feeder was Wednesday night. First goldfinches were last night. The goldfinches are late this year.

If you see a copper-tube flamingo laying around anywhere, it's mine.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You've got loads of lillies coming, sounds great and lucky you. Mine are refusing! Apart from that, it's all coming up fairly slowly here (except the hostas - they're like triffids - you can almost see them getting bigger).

Happy gardening!

rockygrace said...

Hostas scare me.