Green stuff in my yard

So Spring came on as a bit of an ambush this year... it went from below freezing and grey to above 80 and humid in a matter of just a few weeks. I am waaaaaaaaaaaaay behind in my garden routine, but it doesn't look that bad. That's the nice thing about green growing things-- you can forget about them and they will forgive you for it (except the most spiteful fussy plants, but I tend to avoid those anyway).

It was the Harry Lauder Walking Stick plant's first winter here, and I was worried about him, since he looks so fragile. He had grown in Mum's backyard, and where Mum lives is much more mild than here. Here, he'd be buried under drifts of snow and frozen solid. I bundled him under burlap, but I was still afraid he wouldn't make it.... but I was wrong. I know it's a terrible photo, but check out all those green shoots!



In the big garden, there are daffodils in the middle, and behind them you can see pinks, creeping phlox and lots of hollyhocks-- all babies, but they are growing quickly. In the front there, I planted some rosebud impatiens today (I've never grown those before so who knows what will happen).


Here's the right side of the big garden-- the daffodils are in the middle, and the big mound of hollyhocks (which will be pink) in the back, and an entire bush of chives in the front. There's a tiny bit of thyme over there on the right border, but that's slowly being choked out by aggressively invasive weeds. I need to fix up the edges of this garden or else the grass and the creeping weeds will strangle everything in sight.


I haven't decided what to put in the middle there-- maybe more herbs or something.

Last week I bought some tulips for Ellen and Kate and I kept some for myself. I plunked them in this container by the end of the driveway. Plants that grow by bulb seem so foreign to me-- I know that's so silly, but they do. To me, plants are either bought from the nursery already growing or you can start them from seed. "Weird" methods of growing plants-- like bulbs and cuttings-- scare me somehow. However, since I love daffodils, I was able to get over my bulb paranoia a little bit. Tulips, though... well, they're an experiment. I have no idea if they will come up next year at all. They're pretty, though.





In the little raised bed the irises are taking over (which is great!!) and the daffodils are just bursting. In the middle there, you can see a little mound of what will be dahlias (freshly planted). On the left, you can see some sad little tulips that I planted last year.


Sad (but still triumphant) little tulip close-up:

In the front garden, we have (going clockwise, starting with that poky prickly plant in the corner): The incredibly cold-tolerant yucca, then four hollyhock plants (which will bloom this year, but they are a mystery color), six pink plants, then a row of tulips in the front.

Nestled in between some of the tulips are some pansies and johnny-jump-ups...




The circle garden in the front is the garden I give the least attention to. It really is a mess. There is a mass confusion of jacob's ladders, hostas and sweet williams that I planted that sort of just clump together. The people who lived here before I did planted mint here, and by the end of the summer the entire garden is completely taken over by the stupid mint plants. Once the garden decides that it only wants to be a mint garden it looks relatively pretty, but until then it looks like a weedy sprawly disaster.



The one thing that grows there, and does well, is the clematis. I've read that clematis is a really fussy plant, with all the pruning and special care that it needs, but I haven't done a thing to it except encourage it to grow along the poles. It's really happy where it is, and soon it will burst into its pretty powder blue flowers... and I am always happy when that happens. The tendrils wll eventually run out of room on the poles, and I'm hoping to train them to grow on the tree branch (you can just barely see it on the left there) and have the vines and tendrils and flowers spill over to the other side of the tree, which faces the street.


So even though it's still early, and there's lots to do, the garden is already looking great! :)

April Vacation

I know people are waiting for updates... like, didn't you go to Boston over vacation? Then where are your pictures??? Well, like that line from Big Fish, time slowed down over vacation and afterwards extra-fast to catch up. So here I am, two weekends later, finally able to sit down and post!

The first thing I did, the day before I left, was visit some imps. I wish I still lived near them because I miss them so much! Even though they were bigger than I remember them being (how did that happen?), they are still the same mischievous little lovebugs.

(I can't wait to see you guys this summer!!!)


And then the next day I made it to Boston. There is a simple concept here, but one that evades me sometimes: the closer you get to the equator, the warmer it is. Thus, while everything is brown and mucky and lifeless here in Maine, then in Boston they are actually having this thing called Spring. Whoa.

This is a rose garden not too far from the hostel that I used as a refuge when the city was too loud or populated. As there are no roses (yet), people rarely went in there.



Much of the first afternoon I spent avoiding goose poop while taking pictures of flowers and trees. I was too tired from traveling to do anything exciting!



More later-- I promise!

Is this really happening??

Remember all that snow we had? Well, it's almost all gone, and now my yard is this rather horrid golden/grey/brown color, all soggified from the meltiness. However, if I look closely, here and there, there are signs of life.

Daffodils!


More daffodils!


Even more daffodils!


Daylilies!


Jacob's Ladder!


Julian, of course, doesn't care. He's still in hibernation mode.

Mixed Tape Friday night!

So for the last couple of weeks I've been listening to Dinosaurs and Robots for their Mixed Tape Friday nights. This is from their website:

"Every Friday night, Dinosaurs and Robots will upload a dusty cassette mixed tape! Found at garage sales and junkyard glove boxes, mixed tapes provide all the voyeuristic thrills of reading somebody’s diary without the related ethical quandaries. Tune in each week for a new exploration into heavy metal thunder road trips, teenage bedroom melancholy meltdowns, college radio clunkers, headbanger barf bag parties, glam rock glitter fests, industrial punch-your-lights-out rockers and the ill-advised tapes created by lovers soon to be spurned. Before collaborative filtering, music was hand selected for us by those who know us best."

I wouldn't say that I like all of the music, but I like how eclectic it is. It's definitely got me wondering what I would find if I scoured garage sales for old mix tapes. I have all of my old mix tapes in a box, and they really are like little diaries and representations of our personalities that we would either make for friends or they would make for us. They also can be quite creepy, like peering into windows at night.

Meanwhile, the snowpack around here is shrinking dramatically. We have little rivers everywhere, and every time I walk in my neighborhood I see little kids splashing in them and sailing little paper boats and things (which makes me think about the idyllic Eden that childhood should be until I realize how absolutely filthy this water is and what microbial beasties are living in that lovely spring runoff) . This gurgly stream was particularly pretty:

And in our classroom we have a very impressive little garden. This is a baby zinnia:


...and this is a baby dill:


It's so funny-- the kids come to my room and immediately go to the windowsill and say encouraging things to their plants, and gently pet them, and water them with capfuls of water. Along with zinnias and dill, we have violets, johnny-jump-ups and basil sprouting. The only one that hasn't germinated is mine (!!!!!!!) but I'll just bring in some that I've started here at home.

My obnoxiously blinding sock is coming along nicely:


The purple is just an illusion-- the yarn is only blue and red and yellow. These socks are little like 3D glasses for your feet.

April Craziness

What a crazy week I've had. I had to videotape myself teaching a student and had to critique myself (gaaaahhhhhh), and my room was used after school several days so I couldn't get my work done (blaaaaahhh) and I had meetings several nights that went until 8:00 (plaaaaahhh) and I had a doctor's appointment on Friday and I was late to that because of this icky yucky slushy stuff that was falling from the sky (waaaaaahhhhh). However, I had these photos on my camera from a walk I took last week that cheered me up-- mmmmm melty Springtime.



In the evenings, my one time to actually sit down for a few minutes, I knit. I had bought this yarn about a year ago and I knew it was time to use it. My sister likes to tease me because I'm drawn to obnoxiously bright primary colors (remember those salt and pepper shakers?) and this time of the year I did not want to knit anything bland or neutral-- thus, here is a purposely-overexposed picture of my new sock:

I've apparently come to the conclusion that if socks don't blind you, then they're not worth knitting.

Snowed- in Saturday

It's white out there. Crazy white. The different weather sites say anything from 4 to 16 inches, which is quite a wide range, in my opinion. It's a doozy, whatever it is. This morning I could see my neighbor's truck across the yard, but it's gotten progressively whiter and whiter as the day has gone on.


The branches are bending down, heavy and tired.


I love watching the kitties watch the snow. They're both strictly indoor cats, so they have never stepped on snow or had it fall on them. I don't know if they know what it would be like out there, but they certainly like to watch it.


While winter seems interminable around here, there is a small miracle happening in my kitchen:


The first tiniest little green sprout is poking up through the dirt.


It's a johnny-jump-up, which is weird, because the packet says they germinate slowly, in 14-21 days, while the basil should take 5-7 days. Maybe this is one little violet seed that was extremely anxious to grow!