Garden Tour

Mom went out of town this week.  I know (gasp) she never left when she lived with me.  Anyhow the previous tenants had dug out this little bed by a small retaining wall in front of the house and it was just bare dirt.  The house has a REALLY bad case of ugly so I thought I would use the opportunity to plant some hardy stuff over there because I'll be looking it for the next 20 years or so.  I split a couple of hostas and put a couple of nice chunks on each side of the walk and planted little yellow moss rose flowers in the bed.  I also sprung for a couple of el cheapo solar lights in hopes of keeping Mom from breaking her neck on the two steps that are there.  I had a little mulch left in a pile on my driveway from the 5 cubic yards I'd had delivered a few weeks ago so I put that down.  It's going to be up to Mom to keep it watered but I don't believe it will be too high maintenance.  I'd like to put some sort of low growing perennial there since who the heck knows who will live there next and it would be nice to have something there besides overgrown grass.  I'm not sure what to put since perennials have such a short bloom season and I don't really want to spend money.  Then again I'm the one who looks at it the most.

A year or so ago Sonny Boy built this little birdhouse for a scout project.  Last year we had a House Wren move and hatch a brood.  This year he came back and lured himself another baby momma.  Open the lid....

 and there are two tiny little eggs each about as big as the nail on my little finger.

 

It seems the first peony bloomed today.  Looks like I have a lot of old fashioned varieties as they don't have all those pretty ruffled petals.  It could be I just have some stunted plants.  I don't know.

 

 

This doesn't look like much (ignore the pile of tulip debris please) but someday I hope to have this bed filled with a large assortment of hostas and ferns.  It's a REALLY big bed so to plant it all at once would likely send Hubby into sticker shock.  In order to keep him from having a financial crisis I buy one or two hostas a year, divide some from my larger chunks around the yard and add to it.  This year a put some coleus in - honestly they are really there, just too little to see - to try and fill some space.  The bed starts looking better as all the tulip foliage goes away.

I found this cute little hummingbird feeder at the garden center.  I put it up and had birds already the next day.  I couldn't believe they found it so fast.   I'm sitting on the porch writing this and watching one at it right now!  I really have a crush on hummingbirds.

On each side of my front porch steps I have these big wall things.  I don't really like them overly much, but they beg for plants.  This is this year's trial.  I'm not sure how that sweet potato vine is going to do and the grass in this pot sure seems floppy, the other pot actually looks a little better.

The wooded area behind the house is in full bloom with this wild phlox.  It's pretty invasive and I usually let some it go in my big bed and pull it up once it's done.  Seems to be the only thing with big color this time of year.

...and then there is this.  Hubby dragged it home a couple of weeks ago.  Isn't it lovely with that blue steering console?  We will add to the red-neck-ification this weekend when we go get the camper out of storage and the following week bring down FIL's old truck.  I'm thinking at least one vehicle is going to get parked over at Mom's place just so we don't look so junky.

 

 

 

Well that's spring tour 2013.  Things will grow, things will die, and I'll mow, weed, and drag the hose around a lot in the meantime. 

 

Happy Growing