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. :)

New plantings, a trip to Aldridge Gardens and filled in the trench

Well, I filled in the trench a couple of weeks ago, with 10 bags of topsoil from Lowe's and 6 from Ace. It now looks like a dark grey rainbow across the yard.

Last weekend I went to Birmingham, and on Saturday me and my mom did the Birmingham News' Itty Bitty Scavenger Hunt at Aldridge Gardens in Hoover. We found 19 of 25 of the items, but we didn't even turn it in. It was mainly an excuse to get out and enjoy the spring. We probably walked at least 2 miles trying to find all the stuff. There was a fair amount blooming: mainly camellias hyacinths.

After we left the gardens, we went in search of a nursery, but it was after 5:00, so we ended up at Home Depot. Against our better judgment, we got a lithodora which, after reading online, seems to be more suited for the west coast zone 7 than the deep south zone 7. But it's out in the yard and is quite pretty right now, so we'll see. I also got three cheddar pinks, which I've always loved and seem to do well here.

On Sunday, we dug up some Christmas ferns and some Lenten roses from the backyard, and I planted them on the shady side of the yard when I got home.

I'm also on perpetual weed patrol.