Like everyone I know, I have been waiting for Spring. I am in Ohio, but I have garden blog friends in upstate NY who are also waiting. One person is planting and storing in a greenhouse. Another blogger, with a beauty of a house and garden, Kevin Jacobs, cleaned out his pool and is waiting for polar bears. See his Facebook post
I usually have fully weeded the beds and start my planting on Mother’s day weekend.
On Saturday I went to my granddaughter’s first dance recital. A real awww moment for me. I had two boys and this was my first dance recital. I really did enjoy it. There were some older girls in their late teens who were quite wonderful to watch.
Unfortunately, Saturday was the only nice day of the weekend. Sunday was cold and raining, now today, Monday cold & raining. I give up.!
I did get a gorgeous flower basket for Mother’s day from my boys….of course, it made my day.
But back to the garden. Last year we pretty much finished the front and side gardens. After I came back from Ireland this year, I notice in March that I likely lost two lavender plants in the front bed. The hydrangea and grasses looked good; as did the trees, the dwarf ornamental red maple and the dwarf lilac.
I was disappointed in the bloom numbers in the lilac but think I need to Miracle Grow the entire front bed now. I won’t bother the hydrangeas, they do better without much fertilization.
However, the back Garden is in dire need of an update. Two years ago we had a drainage problem in the back of the condo and the association tore up most of my back garden to place large draining pipes, While it did a great job to fix the drainage problems, it did leave me with a weed pit to reclaim.
I planted some astilbe, flox, cornflowers, and a hydrangea last year. Bulbs are pretty much out as they just become fodder for my herd of chipmunks that invade every year.
My plan was to weed, buy a bunch of new plantings to fill in empty spaces, put down cardboard to hold back the weeds and wait for the mulch to arrive. However, Nothing cooperated. First, I messed everything up by getting pneumonia. Then the condo association messed everything up by changing the date for the mulch and now mother nature is not helping by allowing rain and 50-degree temps!!!
So I guess I wait.
I was able to get the red maple tree trimmed. I got some of the branches from the bedroom window LOL. John got on a ladder and trimmed the rest. Not too sure if you can see if but there is a denuded Stubb on the center of the tree, The squirrels have been climbing up the post to get to the bird seed but jumping to the tree to get down!
Quite a show but the poor maple tree.
Project number 2 is a massive idea. You can see a hint of the slate patio we had created for under the deck in the back garden. A stonemason made a colourful patio of willy nilly slate placemats with a center ring design. He filled in the stone with a sand mixture.
I never thought about the rain dripping down from the wood deck above and now we have huge gaps in the sand around the stones. Rather than continue to try and refill these every year. John had decided to put a wood and plastic roof under the wood deck, sloping it for drainage to the outside of the garden area.
I will tell you more about this in a follow-up post.
But for now, I am going to try and get some plants in the hope of planting my May garden. I’ll store them in the basement until I get the weeding done and nice weather returns to Ohio. More pics after I get started on Phase one of the garden project for May
I need delphinium, boxwood, and hostas to begin.
I would love to see some of your gardens. Send pics to my Facebook page or better yet post them on Instagram with caption May Garden and I’ll look for you.
Well guys talk soon
Take good care
Dee
