Get Your Hands Dirty!
Apr 30, 2007

That's what I'm doing *grin.* We had enough money that Delos said (since he makes the money he handles the finances) I could go get gardening supplies and plants. I was so happy. I badly wanted to by a weeping cherry or yoshino cherry tree. I don't like pink, but I find cherry trees so elegant, the yoshino is preferred to the regular cherry tree because it is lighter pink, with some white, it seems even more elegant. However, the weeping cherry combines my favourite tree look (the weeping willow) with elegant pink blossoms. They were only $18.88 and $26.57, respectively (normally when I see them at nurseries they can be as much as $100-something dollars). However, I'm not sure how much longer we'd be living here, we want to try to get a two bedroom with our current landlord as soon as we can afford the change over and he has one available.

Anyhow, tree or not, I'm very happy to be gardening again this year! Mostly I'll be doing potted plant gardening outside because there wasn't many places to garden in our yard. I'm stirring up and weeding a section at the side of the house, I plan on planting 9 stalks of corn there and a small cantaloupe patch in the other half, in the back corner I'm going to plant three of Michael's sunflowers (I let Michael pick some plants). I was going to plant the sunflower seeds along the front wall of the house but then I discovered that underneathe the small rock bed filling in what would be perfect gardening area (save for all the evergreen bushes (about 8 total), is some sort of mesh material blocking access to the dirt, holes cut into it for the bushes themselves.

I may still be able to plant some sunflowers back there though, in a bare spot I discovered that I could force the shovel through the mesh material and create a whole, in that bare corner I scraped back tons of rock and planted Michael's Azalea. I hope it survives well there, perfect soil for it, but it has to contend with all the roots from the other bushes and the Azalea is significantly smaller right now. I bought some recycle-based, earth friendly, organic spray fertilizer for the Azalea, apparently you can spray it on the leaves of a plant to feed it, not just the roots, so hopefully doing that will give the plant the strength it needs to make its own way among the root system on that side of the house. Then I have three huge pots, two long window coconut basket pots, three of those medium (10" 12" ?) pots that have a bottom section and poor spout where it stores water from overwatering, I have Ivy and Nasturtium in two of those, hanging from plant hooks on either side of the little wooden structure we have covering our doorway (just big enough for two adults to stand in out of the rain, tin roof), over the side of that little rain-cover, on the banister I have one of the coconut baskets rigged up, with "clean" dirt and strawberries in it (I bought dirt for just that plant to cut down on the amount of garden pests with the strawberries, especially grubs). I have a good-sized pot (bigger than the ivy but much smaller than they "Huge" pots) with Astilbe in it from last year.

To continue, I have a long version of those pots that keep you from overwatering, we will be planting Michael's Sweet Peas in that today (would have done it tomorrow but didn't read the packet soon enough to discover you have to let the seeds soak for 24 hours first). The last medium, no over-watering pot (same size as the ivy holders) will have my new gardenia bush in it.

Then there's an old cat box we no longer use, cleaned it out, poked holes in the bottom and I'm going to use it to transplant the two tulips and hyacinth that were on the side of the house (I think if I don't the corn and cantaloupe will choke them out), as well as four smaller tulips I bought this year, we also have little purple and white flowers growing here and there, I'm going to try to transplant them into the pot with the hyacinth and the tulips too. If you can picture the rectangular cat box it will be from top left to bottom right: Striped tulip, two purple and white smaller wildflowers, striped tulip (next row), red, smooth tulip, hyacinth, red, smooth tulip (next row), striped tulip, two purple and white smaller wildflowers, striped tulip (end of box).

In the other window basket (which can't be mounted to our windows unfortunately), is hanging off the wooden divider behind our house and just in front of the living room window behind my husband's computer chair. I had him in mind for the plant I bought for that, Bright red and green Caladium bulbs (Delos isn't very fond of flowers, but he does like the colorful leafy plants), I'm going to plant three of them in that basket.

Then there are the three huge pots. The first will go in the front of the house, between two bushes on the left side, just in front of the other living room window. I will be planting a flowering Weigelia bush in that one. The second will go in front of our bedroom window, on the right side of the front of the house, in it will be...I haven't really decided actually...right now I'm thinking it will have chamomile in the back two thirds of the surface, and just in front planting the two extra Caladium bulbs, I'm not sure how that will look together though...I might plant the chamomile in the extra small pot that the gardenia use to be in. The last pot will be at the side of the house in front of the kitchen window. I will be planting lavender in the back, then half of what's left will be thyme, and the other half will be sage. Or, I might do lavender thyme and chamomile (sage is significantly shorter than the other two so that might be a better plan), and put sage somewhere separate... I'm not really sure yet. I think I might end up getting one other plant for the other huge pot in front of our window. Anyhow, I have a bit of time to come up with better pot arrangement.

I'm getting all the dirt for the three huge pots, the old cat box, the 1 coconut window basket, plus a bit of extra for fill-ins from a friend who is getting rid of too much dirt near his lake (he's been transporting dirt for over a year to our other friend's yard (the yard use to be really steep, now it's more of a gentle slope). It rained a lot recently so the dirt is mud right now. Just waiting on the dirt to dry to something a bit lighter and I'll be ready to finish up my planning and planting ^_^.

It's already coming together though and I'm so happy. I miss taking care of plants a LOT. Inside the house, the only window a hanging plant likes is the kitchen window, I can't put plants anywhere else in the house because they either don't like it there, or the cats will eat them. AH! It just occurred to me, I could plant the one extra caladium bulb in the no over-watering pot I was going to put the gardenia in, get one more plant hanger and put that in the house, the Caladium will like the plant hanger near our computers, it's the appropriate temperature and gets shaded sun, it's been too much shade for everything else but should be perfect for the Caladium. Then I can have two plants in the house! Well, I actually need to figure out what I'm going to hang in the old sunny spot that every plant so far has liked. Will likely have to get another over-watering prevention pot and another plant hanger at some point to have some plants inside ^_^. Anyhow, I think maybe then, in the huge pot in front of the bedroom window I can put the gardenia bush in back and the sage in front of it. That will be better for the gardenia anyhow. Then again, I haven't thoroughly read everything yet, so the planning may change.

Anyhow, there you have it, lots of plants to take care of, and today is phase two of weeding and tilling the soil at the side of the house for the corn, sunflowers, and cantaloupe. I can't wait until everything begins sprouting and the already growing plants get bigger and stronger! I so missed caring for and singing to plants in a garden ^_^