Putting things in the ground...and pulling out others

Okay, so here's what has happened in the last couple of weeks:

• April 20: Planted Cherry Profusion Zinnias and annual salvia that I got in my Easter basket. (Plus a few more that I bought at Home Depot in Birmingham). I also planted the Shooting Star Hydrangea that I got for Christmas. It's a little startled by the sun, but the several inches of rain have been good for it.
• A few days later: planted monkey faces (purple, white and pink) in the planters on the front porch.
• April 29, 30, & May 2: Spent at least 6 hours total weeding the mondo. There are still a few violets that I missed, but it looks SO much better.
• May 4: started weeding on the south side of the yard in the mulch. I didn't get very far because my legs were SO SORE from the previous weeding days.

Apparently one of the really big irises that I separated last year was the small, ugly, purple with a little bit of yellow. They're everywhere now! I've also seen the purpley-blue ones, but that's it. There are plenty that didn't bloom, so I hope they will next year and they'll be more representative of what they used to be. I *really* hope I didn't give away the blue-on-top-purple-on-bottom. That was my favorite after the royal purple and white. I'm going to tag the ugly ones and give them away this summer.

The lithodora is almost done blooming.

The Stella 'd Oros have scapes taller than they are, so it shouldn't be too long before they start blooming.

The clematis started blooming today.

I planted the candy lily that Chip got from Judi Overbee yesterday, in the shade, between the irises and the shooting star hydrangea.

What happened since the fall

Sometime in late summer, I dug up the eunonymous on the south side of the yard. I had had it with the constant pruning and the shrub/vine behavior.

In September, I divided the irises in the original patch on the north side of the yard and put most of them on the now-empty south side of the yard as sort of a barrier between the yard and the wall to Garland's yard. You'll at least trample some irises before you fall off the wall now. :) Both sets of irises are looking good now, but I don't think they're going to bloom this year.

At some point in the fall, I planted some new red tulips, since

the ones at the phone pole do so well. I planted them in the daylily bed and out around the water meter on the south side of the yard. The only one to bloom so far is one in the south daylily bed, and it's still lasting after 2 weeks and countless inches of rain.

Everything is SO pretty right now. It's so green. The pansies have finally started blooming after an exceptionally cold winter, and now they look out of place, since they're gold and burgundy. But the daylilies are in perfect mounds of green, and the ones I first planted on the south side of the yard are quite full now.

The pinks have buds and a few are

blooming so far, and surprise! The lithodora that I thought didn't have a chance never died and is now blooming!

The daffodils were NOT impressive this year. Only a few bloomed. I think I need to mark where they are and replant them, whenever you're supposed to do that.

Todaylilies

Prairie Blue Eyes
Moonfire
Orange Twirly (unofficial name)
started blooming today! And I labeled them. :)

Labels!

The Stella d'Oro daylilies have been blooming for several weeks, and the common orange ones started last week. When we got back from Vermont last night, I saw that Ladybug's Louise started sometime over thee weekend. That prompted me to make labels!

Since I don't know exactly where I planted the daylilies when I moved them from the back, I need to label them. So I got out some of the miniblinds in the basement (metal ones), and cut diagonally next to the cords. As a result, I have about 20 6-7 inch strips of metal that I wrote the names on with a black Sharpie. So far, I only have Ladybug's Louise and the 5 that I planted last week that I got from webwalkway.com for letting her use the picture of Prairie Blue Eyes. Those were Pardon Me, Double Cutie, Country Melody, Iron Gate Melody, and Ruffled Apricot. I planted them on Garland's side of the yard, next to the other kidney-shaped section of daylilies over there.

Also, two weekends ago, I got some hostas from home to match the other varigated ones.

The pansies are looking pretty rough. I'll probably dig them up when it's not so damn hot.

more maintenance

I did still more weeding today. Also trimmed the hedges, cleaned the gutters, and dug up the monkey grass on the southwest side of the house. I'm going to freecycle the monkey grass, but it seems that I've been put on hold on freecycle or something.

Also, I noticed that one of the coreopsis is blooming for the first time this year. Also, one of the Stella d'Oro's started blooming earlier this week. It has 10 scapes with at least 7 buds each! Lots of the other daylilies have buds already as well.

Maintenance, and what has happened

I did some maintenance yesterday, mainly weeding.

The clematis on the porch rail started blooming yesterday.

The irises are almost done blooming. The pink and blue ones that I moved from the bank at the back of the house to the front last September didn't bloom. Actually, the blue ones might have. There are some that aren't as lavender as some of the others. They're more blue, and they're more ruffled, which Mommy remembers them being on the package. So they might have bloomed, but the pink ones definitely didn't.

I planted zinnia seeds yesterday, and also noticed that a couple came up from seed from last year. I planted California Giant in the center of the section, some dwarfs that I got for $1 at Walgreen's around those, and the miniatures from Maw's along the driveway.

The amaryllis next to the driveway in the back is almost blooming, and the Stella d'Oro's have buds. They're at least a week away from blooming, though.

The red marigold and candytuft seeds that I planted along the sidewalk haven't come up that well, so I planted more. It's probably an exercise in futility, but they're out there now. There are maybe 5 marigolds and 3 candytufts that have come up. I'm going to try to water them better than I did last time. Since we were in Vermont, and I was having the exacerbation, I didn't water them like I should have.

Pinks!

The pinks started blooming today! And I noticed yesterday that the hostas are coming up on the right side of the yard!

Also, the first tulip turned red today. :)