no yard work today

I wanted to spend all weekend in the garden. Mother Nature had other plans. It’s snowing! There must be some indoor project I’ve been avoiding. Now it’s not the pretty kind of snow everyone likes in December. It’s the wet kind of snow that sucks the joy out of a gardener. I know the old saying about April showers and May flowers. I don’t think it says anything about snow. The garden work can wait for another day.

These are some pics from the last couple of days. The yard is coming back to life. Oh! I do have an indoor project, new shelves in the pantry.

All is well with the world. Big Blue came back.

Gloria Bonde at a healthy gardener gave me this great deer deterrent, orange peels. I now eat 2-3 oranges a day just for the peels.

Mr. Bunny says Hi.

This hosta patch came from one plant 2 feet in diameter. Pat and I divided it up about 5 years ago. By June, you can't see the ground.

The white tubes you see around the yard are PVC pipes used to prevent the water hose from rolling over the plants.

Wordless Wednesday - Duck on roof

what's new

Spring is such a cool time of the year. A winter of anticipation is at an end. All the worry of whether something is going to come back is answered. Spring also brings pleasant surprises such as finding a brunnera in a railroad tie. Hope springs eternal for more than just baseball fans. Seeing our hard work poke through the ground brings a smile. The aches and pains of yard work disappear.

We got this guy is from the Wilmot Nature Center. They have a native plant sale every year combined with some great seminars. Lots of hiking trails, so bring a camera if you ever visit.

Our lungworts are a year old. They shriveled up after we planted them last year, but have come back rather well.

This brunnera seeded itself. I always wonder what to do with plants like this, leave 'em or move 'em. it looks really cool in the middle of the myrtle.

About half our hosta has broken through. Even though I know they will all come up, I still walk the yard every day looking. As if by my force of will, I can make all our plants come back. Pat just chuckles and reminds me that I do this every year and every year the plants come back.

We inherited the quince. It's planted near the house facing north. So it gets no direct sun. How it got so big is a wonder to Pat and me. It is about 5 foot high and 2 foot across at the base. We have no experience with quinces. When should we cut it back and how do we promote more blooms?

OK. I need help. Once again I saw something at a nursery that was calling my name. Problem is that I forgot the plant label, so I am clueless about what it is. I know that there are those amongst you that think I've lived most of my life in blissful cluelessness, but I really want to know what this guy is.

Just so you don't get the idea that my forgetfulness is an isolated event, I have another plant that I can't identify. This guy is supposedly related to the astilbe plant. We bought this plant at a garden club plant sale. One of the major dommos said that it was a ground cover. We planted one last year. This year four popped up.

tulips

It's perfect work in the yard weather.It's in the 50's and the sun is out. We are in the yard clean-up and let's move plants around mode. I still have time to take pics to share. Katie and Sean picked these SilverStream tulips up from the Amsterdam Tulip Museum. They have leaves that echo the leaves of some of our hosta. Their blooms are very cool looking , but alas, they last only a couple weeks. Bummer. They are up against the house. With the new beds in the front yard, they are moving in the fall. Well, back out into the yard.

Jim and Pat's Sustainable Gardening

Jan of ThanksFor2Day asked garden bloggers to join in the Garden Bloggers Sustainable Living Project in celebration of Earth Day April 22. The theme of the blog project is sustainable living. Gardening and sustainable living would seem to go hand in hand. Upon reflection, I found that I couldn’t define sustainable living – the answer wasn’t as easy as I thought. A flashback of the 70’s raced through my head. I started singing the words of a John Prine song. “Blow up your TV, throw away your papers, move to the country…” I live in the suburbs and am addicted to the internet, so I’m not throwing anything away. But as a resident of NE Ohio, home of the famous (or infamous) Cuyahoga River fire of 1969, I thought that I needed to wade in.

Pat and I take part in all the normal environmental duties in which well meaning suburbanites partake. We recycle and have replaced our incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent ones, yippee. One thing we do that seems strange to our neighbors is that we never use our air conditioner, period.

How we work in our yard and garden is where we do our part for Mother Earth. We never water our turf grass. It is not worth the expense or trouble. No fertilizer is used on the turf grass. I let the grass grow to 3.5 inches or so, which deters most weeds; besides, I could never figure out when to spread what. We mow our leaves into the grass every fall, as added mulch. What we discovered when removing some sod for a new flower bed was that our benign neglect was actually beneficial. The roots reached down a good three inches, and the grass does well all season.

We installed rain barrels for watering our containers. In our garden we use only sweet peet (zoo poop and leaf humus) on the soil. I can’t speak highly enough about this local product. Luckily, Pat and I can populate new flower beds from existing plants and flowers. Recently we have concentrated on acquiring native plants. We are even trying our hand at suburban agriculture this year by starting a vegetable garden in what’s left of the backyard (thus reducing even more the amount of turf grass to maintain).


The 70s flashback blazes in my head again with an image of the Mother Nature poster and then I think I know what sustainable living is. Plant what grows in your area; that way you don’t have to waste water with unneeded watering. Opt for plants that propagate themselves. Don’t waste money on chemicals. If your pets can’t walk on it, why should you. And be nice to Mother Nature.

Wordless Wednesday

Where the sweet peet went.

Imagine the only grass in the front yard is 6 foot wide paths winding around flower beds. This year Pat and I took a giant step towards that goal. Most of this load of sweet peet was used to create the new beds. It looked as if we could populate the beds with plants from the back yard. Some of the back yard beds are too full and needed thinning. While our son Jimmy and I were moving sweet peet, Pat was digging in the back yard. Next thing you knew the front yard beds were pretty much full. What's weird and cool at the same time is that you can't hardly tell where anything came from. Think of it, Pat and Jim are self sufficient in plant production, very cool. The next load of sweet peet is a couple weeks away because spring break ends Tuesday and I need to rest up.

What was left of the sweet peet went on the back yard berm. The grassy area at the bottom of the picture is the future home of our vegetable garden. Work on it will start after the back yard beds are worked on.

Sweet Peets Here!

I can't wait for this time of year. Sweet peet day heralds the "can't turn back" start of spring. Pat and I get 5 yards at a time because 5 yards fits in the driveway and I can move it in 2 days. I don't trust weather reports out more than 2 days. If it rains, all the goodness inside of the sweet peet runs down the driveway. The front yard beds are all ready. All I have to do is shovel. I just repeat the words of the great actor and philosopher, Sessue Hayakawa. "Be happy in your work."