Spring Cleaning

Saturday May 10th

I decided to have a tidy up around the front of the house and clean out the flower beds a little. Next weekend I plan to blow some of my "stimulus tax money", pick up a few bedding plants and make a start. Weather permitting!


Curly Parsley and Oregano.

The 2 surviving herbs are growing well but I'll have to pick up a couple more at the weekend. I'll not need any Basil though, having grown quite a lot from seed. I have Basil seedlings occupying almost every windowsill in the house


Strawberries.

I've had to move both hanging baskets containing the strawberry plants due to the huge amounts of rain we've had. They were looking very soggy and some of the lower leaves were turning brown at the edges. I thought a few days shelter may cheer them up a bit so they are now on the patio until things brighten up.


Forsythia

This has been in a pot on my office windowsill for a couple of weeks while I got a window of opportunity to plant it.(In other words, some fine weather).
It's out now and almost got blown away last night with the high winds. This plant seems to need a lot of water, a couple of days without and it looks stressed. Well, it's certainly come to the right place.


Bed 1

Last fall I added compost and mulched all the flower beds with grass clippings. It seems to have certainly helped to keep the weeds down and the soil was loose and easy to turn.
Bed 1 got a good clearing out of any old roots etc then turned. I then planted 2 of the Geraniums which had wintered in the guest bedroom. This bed gets pretty dry in the summer due to being sheltered from any rain and abutting against the outer kitchen wall.


Bed 2 "Starboard Side"

I put this bed in a couple of years ago and it seems a successful location for some plants. It gets the sun until just after lunch and benefits from any rainfall coming off the house roof, especially the right hand end. The Beacon Silver Lamium shown above wintered out here and has come back in force this spring. I love these flowers.


The bees seem to like them too..............


...and it hides Mr Toad's summer residence "Toad Hall" at the back.


Bed 1 "Port Side"

The left hand end is always a little drier but the plants still flourish. In the centre, the 2 White Flowering Dogwood saplings are covered with new leaves, as are the Eastern Redbuds at the right. I plan to leave them here until next spring then plant them out in the garden somewhere.


Bed 3 is ready for a couple more plants.

The Pink Creeping Phlox has almost lost it's blossoms but has settled in and grown these last couple of weeks. I expect the flowers to return in the fall.
The Chrysanthamum is on the up and up. If it grows as well as it did last year I'll be delighted.


Bed 4

This bed never does as well as Bed 3 but the White Creeping Phlox, which is in it's third season, seems ready to repel any boarders.