Garden show

So we are sitting in a giant tent at the garden show staying out of the rain, waiting for the presentation to start, when a guy from DIY asks if we ever get any sun. Everyone kinda laughed knowing that we don't see the sun for four months in winter. Besides, I thought it rained everywhere on Memorial day weekend. I mean, it always seemed to rain when we went camping.

Pat and I are waiting for words of wisdom from Ahmed Hassan from DIY on how to garden better. I'm thinking that my children must think this is not the father they grew up with. It's pretty funny. Here I am reading a hosta catalogue from a greenhouse two hours from us. They have 350 varieties on hand for our purchasing pleasure. The magic word turns out to be compost! Well I guess we do know what we're doing.

The garden show had a dozen show gardens. They were all very cool in size and presentation. It was neat seeing professionals using the same stuff Pat and I use. The vendor area was a lot of fun. Neat places to plan road trips to.

The green stuff in the foreground is buttercup. It has a yellow flower in mid summer. We pulled a bunch of ragweed that was choking the buttercup and the blue iris. Last year we had only a couple iris and the buttercup tripled in size.

The tall plant in the center below is a type of ligularia. In august it shoots up stems with an orangish yellow flower. We are slowly getting rid of the pachysandra by dumping a clay base with a sweet peat cover and planting with any other shade loving plant.

These are some of our blue flowers. You got your dark blue (below) and you got your light blue (above). The top picture is of some kind of lily. The bottom is a bearded iris.

If it's Spring, it's raining in Cleveland

And who cares? Weeding is easier in the rain because the roots pull right out. Besides it's Memorial Day weekend. Gardening in the rain reminds me of long ago Memorial Day campouts at camp.

The spring flowers are starting to bloom. I can point out the peony from the pictures and that's about it. I help plant them. It isn't important if I know what they are called. You got your thin purple flower and you got your small pink flower. You got your yellow flower also. I think it's an iris. Whatever it is, it's pretty.

The hodge podge of hosta, ferns, brunera and lilies of the valley is in an area recently cleared of pachysandra.

We are off to the Cleveland Botanical Garden's outdoor garden show tomorrow. It is the largest outdoor show in the US. It should be pretty cool.

The Big Picture of Pat and Jim's back yard.

We are going for one last perennial planting tommorrow and that's it except for the 50 some pots that get annuals. Annual planting starts next week. Man, if we could only squeeze a small greenhouse in here someplace.

The yard is a poppin!

This vinca vine is a annual that keeps coming back. Somehow it survives the winter. This year it flowered.

All hail Mr. Rabbit

I didn't realize that mr rabbit was in the picture. This must be what field mice see in our back yard. if only i had a mouse cam. Because there are some place like a bazillion concrete and clay rabbits around the yard, I wonder if we started some kind of religious cult among the mice and moles? well anyway, All hail Mr. Rabbit.

Garden Cam

Pat and Jim's garden adventure continues. The pile of sweetpeat in the driveway is almost gone.