tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84885992008-05-13T10:11:00.172-04:00Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comBlogger840125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-20627305404895108172008-05-12T23:05:00.004-04:002008-05-12T23:26:12.536-04:00

This double columbine is a lovely flower growing in the wrong place. It's a lost seedling, far away from its parent plants which are clear across the yard in another flower bed. It is just one of my blooms that I'll be showing on my blog for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day on the 15th of this month. Remember bloom day? The day to post on your blog about what is blooming in your garden, so that we

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-6036706705983215102008-05-12T08:54:00.000-04:002008-05-12T08:56:03.593-04:00

I haven't seen any rabbits hanging around my garden for several weeks now. Where are they? I uncovered the peas, lettuce and spinach, and so far, the rabbits haven't eaten them. Perhaps I have successfully banished rabbits from my garden? I am hopeful, but doubtful. I know those rabbits are out there, somewhere. I must remain vigilant. But I have banished Heliopsis helianthoides, False

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-84796338601683448842008-05-11T18:15:00.000-04:002008-05-11T18:23:59.824-04:00

Just give me five minutes and a good hoe, and I can clear out one of the raised beds in my vegetable garden and have it ready for planting. Yesterday morning, this bed was full of little weeds. But in just five minutes, I was able to clear it of weeds with my new Circlehoe. The green you see on top of the bed are the weeds I chopped down with the Circlehoe. I got the Circlehoe right before the

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-38800466026953329212008-05-10T11:01:00.000-04:002008-05-10T23:02:33.918-04:00

Today marked 30 days since I filled up the compost tumbler with henbit and other garden refuse. Faithfully I turned the compost tumbler a few turns every day every few days when I was in the garden and thought about doing it. A couple of times I peaked inside to see what was going on. Composting was going on. I could feel the heat in there. I could see the henbit leaves and stems becoming

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-14963429714481161092008-05-10T05:00:00.000-04:002008-05-10T05:00:01.478-04:00

This giant shrub can barely hold up its branches under the weight of the ginormous flowers that are its lot to bear. Just look at it, this Snowball Bush, Viburnum opulus ‘Sterile’. Look at those lower branches especially, how they bend down under the weight of the heavy, wet flowers. And these flowers have no purpose other than to be pretty for a few weeks in the spring. They have no scent and

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-20515288230670951932008-05-09T17:46:00.011-04:002008-05-09T19:02:07.153-04:00

If you are always waiting for a sunny day so you can get out and work in your garden, then you probably aren't going to have much of a garden. The best days to work in a garden are cloudy days, after a good soaking rain, when it is cool out and looks like it could start raining again any minute. Today was one of those "best days" to work in the garden and I made good headway on weeding. Just

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-71893458602954517252008-05-08T12:40:00.006-04:002008-05-09T06:56:03.316-04:00

On a rainy day like today, I'm thinking about watering. I won't have to water anything in my garden for quite awhile after this rain. It is one of those slow, steady, soaking-in kind of rains that brings out the greenest green colors in every plant in the garden. Of course, I would prefer that this kind of rain not occur during a day when I am on vacation to garden, but I don't always get my

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-177143581769612282008-05-07T17:53:00.007-04:002008-05-07T18:07:00.842-04:00

Have you ever experienced a spring freeze at a garden center? Everything is set. It’s spring and the garden centers are stocked with hanging baskets, flats of annuals, and rows of trees and shrubs and perennials. You are eager, you are ready. It’s time to plant. Through all the winter months, you’ve been reading, planning, plotting, and making lists, so that when spring finally came, you’d be

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-33663005215315485932008-05-06T21:00:00.001-04:002008-05-06T21:03:57.624-04:00

Perhaps in a few years we will look back on this spring of 2008 and declare that it was one of the best we've ever seen. Though it is early, all indications are that every blooming tree, shrub and flower has been outstanding, blooming as profusely as ever imagined. Sitting here on my patio, I can breathe deeply and smell the Lily of the Valley blooming just a few feet away. The scent always

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-38166092000210522832008-05-05T22:00:00.000-04:002008-05-05T22:00:01.516-04:00

Do you know what creeps me out in a garden? Faces. Faces molded into the sides of containers. Faces in stepping stones. Faces attached to heads that just sit in the garden, sans bodies. Faces attached to trees. Faces that get mounted on walls. I feel like I’m being watched by those faces. And there are enough neighbors and rabbits watching me that I don’t need to add to that feeling with a

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-69346973726852124042008-05-04T22:30:00.000-04:002008-05-04T22:33:29.975-04:00

We are outnumbered, you know that don't you? There are far more insects than people. Far more, way more, lots more than we can really fathom. I read once that for every pound of people on this earth, there are 70 pounds of insects*. And insects don't weigh that much individually. So there must be a lot of them out there. Out there, where we all garden. Bugs, insects, and for sake of

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-29019101367192014912008-05-04T10:00:00.001-04:002008-05-04T10:02:41.692-04:00

New spring blooms are showing up in my garden as fast as rabbits appear when I uncover the lettuce bed in the vegetable patch. This unnamed Allium greets visitors right before they step up onto the front porch. It's in an odd location, like a lot of my fall planted bulbs. I have a habit of scurrying around in the fall, generally when it is cold outside, with a handful of minor bulbs, looking

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-58525429310512879702008-05-03T00:30:00.006-04:002008-05-03T00:30:01.091-04:00

Welcome to the Garden Bloggers' Hoe Down! I am happy and pleased to be your hoestess for this one time event. This is indeed the place where you leave your comment after you've posted about your hoes (or rakes or shovels) on your blog, so we can find you and come visit to see what kinds of hoes you have. My hoe down started with a bit of grumbling from the hoes having to all be piled in the

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-75088392788377531382008-05-02T05:30:00.002-04:002008-05-02T19:08:04.318-04:00

Hoes. They seem like such simple, basic tools, some with designs not changed for eons, others newly fashioned, but yet still simple. But even simple hoes can teach us lessons about gardening, and about life. Here are six gardening lessons we can learn from our garden hoes… 1. Sharp hoes work better than dull hoes. As a gardener, you’ll work better, too, to if you are mentally and physically

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-90840904600319671072008-05-01T19:16:00.000-04:002008-05-01T19:16:00.920-04:00

SPRING PSALM Drawn upward by some hidden power, Life is cracking the crust of earth And bursting forth from limb and stem. Your aroma, O Life-giver, Is upon the springtime wind, And I feel its power stirring deep within me. Green is your color, O God, The green of new life That lovingly transfigures earth’s dreariness, Long held prisoner By the icy web of winter’s cold. Green up my heart

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-78142542121314742732008-04-30T21:30:00.002-04:002008-05-01T06:25:41.289-04:00

April ends with the first harvest from the vegetable garden. This evening, I thinned out the lettuce and filled a bowl with the "thinnings", which included several kinds of lettuce plus some spinach. I also pulled a few tiny radishes and some onions to make my salad a little more complete. So far, the bunnies haven't eaten any of my spring greens, but that's because I've been keeping row

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-46400510286623714162008-04-29T20:34:00.006-04:002008-04-29T20:53:35.516-04:00

Hoe week continues here at May Dreams Gardens with a history of sorts of my hoe collection. How does someone end up with a collection of hoes? How does anyone end up with a collection of anything? How does anyone get the nerve to even tell anyone about all the hoes she has, to talk about them in public, to post about them on her blog? And do my 21 hoes really constitute a “collection?

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-43154603190333654622008-04-28T21:30:00.006-04:002008-04-28T23:33:31.180-04:00

Seeing my dwarf iris bloom this weekend kind of caught me by surprise. I went out into the back yard Saturday morning and there it was in all its purple glory. I only have a few other bearded irises, and they won't start blooming for a few more weeks. That's why I was surprised to see this one blooming in April. In fact, those other irises don't even have any buds showing. This dwarf iris is

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-6186312770694280982008-04-27T22:30:00.002-04:002008-04-27T22:45:39.265-04:00

What a difference a year can make in a garden and in a life. Last year, this crabapple, Malus 'Guinevere' got frozen out and bloomed rather pathetically, almost painfully. This year, she is back to her full glory and then some. According to my records, she (it is okay to refer to a tree called Guinevere as a 'she') is blooming about a week later than normal, but that seems to be the case with

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-32410730634649402902008-04-26T21:02:00.001-04:002008-04-26T21:02:33.775-04:00

One of the secrets to being happy as a gardener is to embrace weeding. No matter what kind of garden you have, as soon as you cultivate the earth and plant what you want to grow, the weeds will begin their quest to take over your garden. Embrace weeding. You will never finish weeding. The weeds are always out there sprouting and growing in the areas you think you have finished weeding. You

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-19599635437044119962008-04-25T22:14:00.009-04:002008-04-25T22:54:30.757-04:00

Is there a part of your garden that just has you mesmerized right now? I always like the front of my house best around this time of year when this bed of tulips starts to bloom. This first picture is how the tulips looked three days ago. I think it helps to announce for anyone not paying attention that "Spring Has Arrived". I took another picture of the tulips the day before yesterday. I

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-44697943756478547322008-04-24T21:31:00.004-04:002008-04-25T19:58:48.077-04:00

Is there such a thing as a Gardener’s Life List? I know that birders keep life lists of all the birds they see and those they want to see. They get very excited when they get to add a new bird to their list or cross off a bird they were hoping to see. There are also general life lists which some people write up to set goals for what they want to do before a certain age or just in general.

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-91305647322443207922008-04-23T20:08:00.008-04:002008-04-23T20:44:09.513-04:00

Every gardener soon learns how to do the Waltz in the Garden. It begins innocently enough with a trip to the garden center, perhaps just to get a few bags of top soil or a hose end sprayer. We tell ourselves we won’t look at the plants, there’s no time really. Then we arrive at the garden center, perhaps at the same time as a new shipment of plants or maybe just at the time when all the

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-80983124793541896762008-04-22T21:31:00.000-04:002008-04-22T21:41:38.770-04:00

The only proclamations for Earth Day in my garden were made by more flowers blooming and birds singing in the trees. The first of the viburnums is in full bloom today! If you want to forget that odd, slightly bad smell of the flowering pears (Pyrus calleryana), stick your nose in the bloom of this Korean Spice Viburnum (Viburnum carlesii). These flowers smell like... spring. Fresh, floral, not

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8488599.post-19886177032590658222008-04-21T21:13:00.004-04:002008-04-22T07:59:23.287-04:00

After the long winter, I am eagerly awaiting the lilac blooms this spring. Last spring the lilacs had an off year, due to some unexpected winter weather in April. The cold weather froze out many of the flower buds, and though we did get a few blooms, it was short of spectacular and not worth writing home about. But this year, I am expecting spectacular. Starting with the common lilacs and

Carolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07796344366326535406noreply@blogger.com