Getting Ready for Spring!!!

 

I finally managed to upload some photos from my iPhone. I tried saving pics to my computer from the phone and load but that didn't work. Anyway what worked was to load straight from the phone via 'blogger app' on my iPhone. It isn't comfortable typing a blog post from there but it loaded. I am not going to be able to load many though for a single post since it takes forever to load from the phone. I have deleted the blogger app when it seemed to be hungup on loading and I reloaded the app and tried with few pics.

 

I love these new phones too. The iPhone is neat and does so many things.

 

 

On to the gardens. John and I have been busy getting ready for spring. Actually we've been working for the past 4 months on getting ready.

 

This past weekend was no exception. I worked on getting this bed re-edged with the rubber liner. Couldn't afford the stones yet so I had to put the rubber edging back up but thats Ok. When this bed along the driveway was first put down 4 years ago it was the size of the daffodils. A small round garden. 

 

I brought it out another 15-20" along one side of it. We added new garden soil amended with cow manure and bone meal. It is ready for plants and seeds now. I have a few returning plants here. Dahlia Figaro is showing signs of life on a couple of last years stubs still sticking up. I tend to leave small pieces of plants when they die back so that I can spot when I have a returning plant. I call this garden the 'Lantern Garden' since I have an antique lantern here. I will be adding more garden bling in the way of lanterns to make it a real 'lantern garden'. 

This big garden in the back yard is coming along. This was taken in December. When I put this bed in last year it looked like a cemetary plot and I couldn't have that so it grew and grew. 

Here it is coming along nicely. The rose shown on the left in the photo above is a yellow knock out and it has been relocated. Here in bloom is Cyclamen, lots of pansy's, hyancinth, salvia, gerbera daisy's, lisianthus is coming back, wax leaf begonia's, red knock out rose. Astilbe is up and dahlias have been planted. There is still room for more plants. I will be adding a few seeds this coming weekend. I especially love how these stones came together for this garden. We have been in the woods scouring for more stones. Hope I can come up with more stones. I love these. We even have one of those stones with some carving on it. I will get a pic of it and share it. Very interesting since these stones were used somewhere here many years ago.

 

 

This huge bed is about ready for some new plants. I have some returning plants and always happy to see them. A couple of begonia are coming back here, salvia, shasta daisies, dianthus and lots more. We will get down some additional soil mixed with cow manure and bone meal this weekend and put down some seeds and probably plants too. They are yet to be bought though. Every weekend John wants to buy more flowers and hey I'm all for it. Let's go to Lowe's....

This bed is yet to be raked - ahh - but it is on the list. Hopefully I'll get to it this weekend. This is the only shade garden. Actually I have shade over every garden at some point in the day but this one is shadier. It receives a hour or two of late evening sun before the trees shade it again. Here I have a couple of hydrangea's and begonia's and mandevilla. The hydrangea's are pure naked here so you can't even see them and they are small too.

 



We have added four more roses to the two we had last year. This is hybrid tea 'Chalupa' prob not spelled right. Anyway I call it 'fire' since it is beautiful yellow, orange and red. Beautiful. 

 





This is new hybrid tea 'Golden Glow' and is a solid creamy yellow with about 65 petals.

 



 

 

This is yellow knock out that was relocated from the larger back yard garden. We planted in an old smoker we re-purposed. I'll share the container in another post.

 



This is Mr Lincoln (I think)

 



 

We bought this one this past weekend at Ace Hardware and it is hybrid tea 'Chicago Peace'. That is coffee grounds I failed to blend.

 



 

 

We are looking forward to a busy weekend. We have been enjoying some nice spring like weather lately. Cooler today but at 6:30 last evening it was 80 degrees. Way too hot for a March evening.

 

I've got to run - work is calling. Hope you have a nice rest of the day.