April showers...

Usually would bring May flowers, but the flowers are already here, I'm so very happy to report! I'm just looking out the window in my kitchen to the lovely green-ness in the back of our house. The butterfly bush I can see is filled with green leaves, and the lilacs are just the prettiest lavender color!

I would take pictures right now, but it's rain rain raining. Two days of it so far, and one more to go. Monday looks like our transition day back to the gorgeous spring weather we've been having of late. Frankly, I'm happy to have it cooler (it's a whopping 39 degrees out there right now! Brrr!), because it gives me a good excuse for not working on our boat or the house outside!

It's a funny thing when it gets to be spring here, there is just this overwhelming compulsion to do things outside, and, let me tell you, there are Puh-LENTY of projects to keep me busy right now. Of course, the yard is ALWAYS my first priority. This is actually the earliest I've had it all cleaned out, things planted and everything in its place for the summer. I'll have to do some weeding along the way, of course, but it's a very satisfactory feeling when the yard is basically ready to go!

So, here are some of the other goodies I've got going right now....First, the two little plots by our parking area:

See that on the bottom picture on the right? Where the tag is showing on that pot of pansies? Ugh. Major pet peeve. Doesn't belong to me, though. That's our upstairs neighbor's pot.

Otherwise, that's looking pretty cute back there! I love the perennial grasses and then this special variegated euphorbia perennial that is there in the front! (Click on the photos of you want to enlarge!)

I also have a little pot of romaine lettuces going in the parking area...Strange place for lettuce, but it's very protected and sunny back there, so the veggies do quite well in containers!

Last thing, is that it's finally warm enough that I put out my pretty, mosaic birdbath. Isn't it cute?

Ok. Gotta run. Happy weekend to you!

Boxes of fleurs

Also, just so you might see the before and after, here are the flower boxes as they look now. In a recent post, I mentioned that I was not that happy with them. The tulips stayed all short and sort of stunted looking and there just is not enough height or interesting texture going on. So, I'll take photos after I get them looking a bit better. People have been commenting that they are pretty, but they're not interesting yet. Eh.

Here they be (why am I talking pirate?):




Oy. All those weird angles are making me queasy!

Anyway, I just don't like them THAT much. I mean, the violas are simply adorable. Really. How could you NOT like those? They look cute and smell even better! A delicious sweet fragrance...

And speaking of cute, here is a close-up of that ADORABLE Kenilworth Ivy that I have in there on each end of each flower box.


You can totally see why the violas and Kenilworth ivy would be friends, right?

OK. Enough with the flower boxes for now.

Onward and upward, pip pip, cheerio!

First fleurs of the season & Happy Tax Day

A couple of days ago I took photos of my lilacs in our back yard. MAN, and they were getting ready to burst! Well, it happened TODAY! The first official lilacs with their lovely fragrance. I was sniff sniff sniffing them the whole time I was taking these photos! Looky here:

Also, the bleeding heart bush in the front of my house has officially BLOOMED! Can you even stand it? It's only April15th!
Even my Jacob's Ladder has blooms coming. A couple more days and these little gems will be showing their purply beauty!
And here is the scene at the corner of the house. SO cute!
This is all very early this year. All of our cherry trees are blooming and even the crab apple up the street is blooming! It's gorgeous, but so early!

Want to see when the last freeze date is for your area? This is a nice little resource!

In other news, my rotten dogs have discovered that they can dig up the new plantings I put in under one of the butterfly bushes in my back yard. Apparently digging them up and then laying on them is somewhat fun for the canines. NOT HAPPY about this AT ALL. I replanted them, watered them and tried to revive them, but they're looking pretty bedraggled from the ridiculous animals that have beat them up. Poor little plants.

Not much else to report. It was lovely lovely here again yesterday and today. About 70 yesterday, in the 50s today and sunny. I got in a good walk, worked on the boat a bit and then painted the new flower box that my sweet husband made for me a couple of days ago. We used to make them out of wood, and they would just disintegrate after a few years. They just rot from all the weather...Now when one dies on us, he makes a new one for me out of this synthetic stuff that looks and cuts like wood, but it doesn't rot! Very nice, indeedy.

Tomorrow I will post a thing about my flower boxes. Happy Thursday evening! Off to make some din din!

Answers and updates

Hi! I got a comment from my other faithful reader aside from my Mom (Hi Mom!), Deb, and she had a couple comments and a question for me.

Firstly, yes, I intend to take pictures of my flower boxes once I have them like I like them. My beloved Marblehead Garden Center did not have any grasses or anything with real height to it yet, so I'm not completely satisfied with them. Aside from a kajillion violas, I also have tulips, romaine lettuce, pussy willow branches and the MOST adorable little creeping ivy called Kenilworth Ivy in there. It has the sweetest little purple flowers on it and cute rounded leaves:



Aren't they so cute?

So, the flower boxes look okay right now, but not the flowy, eye-popping look I like to acheive. I'm planning on putting a dwarf giant papyrus in the center (I know, sounds like an oxymoron!) and some pony-tail grasses on the left and right of the papyrus, as well as the mini-licorice plants I adore so much. It's a beautiful combination, one I did a few years back like so...

This is the spring look in 2008:

And this is how it looked by the end of the summer when I took out the spring stuff and added the summer stuff! Spectacular, right?!

And, Deb asked how my speaking engagement went. I'm happy to say it was a smashing success! About 70 people showed up! And I've gotten a couple of jobs out of it ANNND the coolest thing is that there were some ladies from another garden club there and they've hired me to do a similar talk for them next spring! In the days after my talk while I was out gardening, there were 6 people that were walking or driving by the house that stopped to tell me how much they enjoyed the talk and how much they learned! So, all my eye-twitching was for naught! It went really well and I couldn't believe that people were actually
taking notes and so interested in what I had to say!

Whew!

So glad when it was over!

Ok. I'm off. Much to do and so little time!

For my poor, beleaguered Mom

Ok. I know there are very few people who read this but I cannot take the sad emails and phone calls from my Mom pleading with me to PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASE post something on my blog.

See, the weather here has been divine, PLUS I'm doing lots of projects on our boat to get it ready to sell, AND I've been working on our yard A LOT, AND I have, you know, these people I call CLIENTS that PAY me big bucks to make stuff pretty for them, and LASTLY, I'm doing a big project to help out my husband with his work.

Other than that, I haven't a thing to do. Except, you know, all the house work, grocery shopping, laundry, walking the dogs, exercising and volunteering my time for two charitable organizations.

So, naturally, I have had just TONS and TONS of free time.

NOT!

Anyway, I'm in the midst of cooking dinner and finally took some photos today of my pretty back yard. I spent hours and hours out there yesterday moving some things that needed moving and I planted about 30 more perennials! Yaay ME! I planted pulmonaria, bleeding heart bushes, lamium and this very pretty plant called European Ginger that I discovered last year when I was a host for the garden tour!

Here is what it looks like now. This first one is the European Ginger with its cute, round, shiny leaves.



I also discovered that my lilacs are getting ready to bloom any day now! EXCITING!
And the bleeding heart bush I've had in my yard for probably 5 years now looks like this already!


My phlox is really getting tall already, too!


And here is a peony!


Is there anything better than springtime? I think not.

Are you happier now, Mom?

: )