I am tired and sore. My back doesn't like me today and resented me going to the store earlier. I bought some more of those nice little perennials for $2 apiece. The hardware store where I bought these is the only place in town that has them in this small size. Every other place in town wants to sell them in gallon-size pots for $10-15--if they sell perennials at all. I notice that most places only seem to want to sell annuals or tender perennials (which aren't perennials here).

I gotta keep moving. I figure that if I keep moving (it's more like staggering) through the next few days, I'll get back to where I was (physically-speaking) last fall.

More good news: My daylily proliferations I put out in the curved flowerbed have all come up, each and every one of them. I look forward to seeing what they look like, but it will probably be next summer before they bloom for the first time. A daylily "proliferation" is a tuft of leaves that sometimes grows on an old flowerstalk. If you break them off and put them in water, they will take root and become a daylily plant that is identical to the daylily you broke it off of.

I have several clumps of Stella daylilies that I need to dig up and transplant, but I doubt I'll get around to doing that before next fall. I'd like to buy some of the near-white daylilies too but will have to wait and see.

I guess I better go see what I can accomplish this afternoon.

Current Mood: optimistic

I've been out in the yard trimming grass away from the back edge of my flowerbed with hand shears and spreading mulch. I've only been outside working for a few hours and I already look like I haven't cleaned myself up in a week. All I can say in my defense is that it's muddy and all the cardboard in the world won't keep you from occasionally slipping off the edge of it into the mud.

I decided to take a break for a while and come in and drink some tea. I am through laying a thick layer of grass-clippings under the landscaper cloth around my ten little spirea bushes (they are either Anthony Waterer or Neon Flash). All ten are alive and growing nicely along the back edge of my curved flowerbed. Their new leaves are a pretty reddish-color. Several of them look like they are thinking of flowering this year. Best of all, a branch on one of the little bushes "layered" itself and is now growing roots as well as new leaves! I had no idea it was that easy to root them.

I also put a lot of grass-clippings around Cheerful Giant, a yellow-blooming native American azalea hybrid. I was very surprised to see it make it through the winter as it was looking mighty poorly back when I put it out last fall. When I go back outside later this evening, I plan on giving it a whole bag of oak leaves for mulch. Azalea's and rhododendrons are all understory plants and in their native habitat they naturally grow in thick layers of dead leaves.

Speaking of rhodies, I have one Yaku Princess rhodie blooming right now. Her buds are a bright rich pink, but they are almost pure white when they open up. It's a very pretty effect! I also have an Impeditum rhodie blooming. Its flowers are lavender. My Nova Zembla rhodies are getting ready to put on a load of RED flowers so big it will be indecent. One bush by the back corner is loaded down with big fat buds and there are lots of leaf buds in place for lots of growth after the bush is done with its blooming this spring. All the rain this spring has finally proved good for something. What surprises me is that the three little Nova Zembla's I planted last fall all look like they want to bloom this spring too.

I guess I better go eat a sandwich and then get back outside. I'd like to get a top coat of bark mulch on my spirea's and finish trimming around the front of the curved flowerbed.

Current Mood: calm

The big pink Naked Ladies Romani gave me have arrived--there are six of them--firm, well-rounded, and sure to be the stars of my yard when they appear without their leaves come July this summer!

Had a late lunch with my friend again--chicken parmasean and iced tea. She's a nice person and I much enjoy getting to spend some time talking to her. She's wondering whether to start work on another short story or not. I think she should; sooner or later someone's bound to publish something of hers. All she needs is a bit of good luck. She teaches English composition so she knows all the technical tricks of the trade. Poppy Z. Brite is doing book doctoring these days, I wonder if I should talk my friend into sending some of her work to Poppy? I don't think it would hurt anything and, who knows, it might help help her get published for real.

At the end of lunch, I followed my friend to her house where her husband sweetly loaded several trashbags full of grass clippings into the back of my truck. This is going to become a weekly thing for me. They don't use weed-killer since they have a dog, so I am sure of being able to safely handle their grass clippings.

On my way home from their house, I noticed one of their neighbors had left a forsythia "stump" at the curb. It was still quite green and fresh looking and had a fair amount of root mass left on it, so I knocked on the door. I don't like taking things without permission even if it's left on the curb beside the trash. The lady who answered the door was a bit startled, but she told me "yes". I thanked her and then all I had to do was load the rascal! I had a time doing it. I freely admit that had it weighed five more pounds, I doubt I'd have been able to lift it by myself.

I would like to divide this stump into two or three pieces before I put them out. It's huge! I think that was probably the problem: Somebody bought a little bitty forsythia bush maybe ten years ago and then didn't think to give it room to grow up when they put it out. Forsythia can get upwards of ten feet tall and wide when somebody isn't out there hacking them down twice a year. A big unpruned forsythia is quite pretty in the spring--provided it has plenty of space to spread out in. There's a dwarf variety of forsythia available, but the giant variety is the one most people see for sale.

Hopefully it won't be too rainy outside tomorrow. I'd like to get some work done outside.

Current Mood: Happy!

I had a real jones on for something sweet tonight but didn't want to make cookies or go to the store for candy, so I finally decided to bake a cake.

I got my A-Z Bread recipe out and then fetched the leftover pumpkin puree from the refrigerator. I measured it and found that I only had one cupful of it. So what should I use to make up the other cupful? Finally I remembered that I had some mincemeat pie filling in the freezer. I got it out and added it to the pumpkin and had two cupfuls exactly.

Mmmmm! Pumpkin-mincemeat with pecans. I came up with this after Christmas last year. It has a good flavor and nobody can figure out what's in it. He,he,he!

There's nothing quite like a good recipe with lots of variations, is there?

Current Mood: creative

I just posted this as a comment in the Gardening Community and thought it sounded so good, I'd also use it as a journal entry.

Someone was wanting to know what they could do to improve drainage in clay soil.

Here's my answer:
I also have clay soil and heavy claysoil (fill dirt trucked in from who knows where) to deal with. The two clays have very different characteristics, my natural clay is quite workable and drains better than you'd think, but the trucked-in stuff doesn't in spite of being situated higher than my natural clay.
I received almost three inches of rain this weekend and almost another inch of rain last night on top of an already very wet spring. NOW I'm faced with having to wait till the middle of JUNE before I can till in my curved flowerbed OR I can try modifying a trick I read about recently from an English gardening website.

It seems that someone had claysoil that was 2-3 feet deep with a chalk subsoil and they were concerned with the usual problem of making the clay drain better. The recommendation for them was to installing "drains" every few feet that extended all the way through the clay layer and into the chalk subsoil. After that, they were supposed to ammend the clay with organic material. Drains apparently have been used in England for centuries.

Drains...thinking about that reminded me of TV documentry about a problem a Japanese engineer had with a waterlogged underwater clay seabed he was supposed to build an airport on top of. He dealt with it by putting in column-shaped pits of sand so the water-logged clay could release its water into the sand.
I think that "sand drain" concept may help my situation and maybe it would help yours too.

Here's what I plan on doing:
Since my flowerbed is only 4-6 feet wide, I plan on digging several one foot wide holes 3-4 feet deep (at least)and then filling the holes with coarse sand and "chicken grit" (crushed oystershell). I want to space them 3-4 feet apart in a line down the center of the flowerbed. Then, the next time we have overly wet seasons that excess water will have somewhere to go.

You might try one or two in the lowest points of your garden to see if the sand drain concept will work for you before you put them in all over.

As far as adding organic material goes, I have been making off with everyone's free stuff: Fall leaves, "barnyard", and grass clippings for several years now. The clay is responding with lots of earthworms and greater workability.

Also should you ever have a drought, you can add water directly to your "sand drains". The surrounding clay will absorb it from the sand quite easily which will encourage your plants to grow deep roots rather than shallow ones. Clay, once it dries out, absorbs water slowly so using the sand drain to deep water your plants makes sense.

Perhaps this will give you some ideas to work with. I just wish it didn't sound like so much work. Maybe someone else can come up with some better ideas.
Good luck!

Current Mood: content

Here it is the middle of the Merry Month of MAY and the ground is still cold to the touch outside. Our water comes into our house from underground pipes and it is also still icy cold. I really do hope it warms up soon around here but the jet stream really seems to have a grudge against us right now.

I tried to mow yesterday and the ground still had standing water on it that I had to dodge. I think today's gardening time will be spent trimming around the summer snowflake viburnums which are already trying to put out a few frothy white blooms. I have some big heavy pieces of cardboard I can sit on while I do this so that I don't have to sit in the mud.

I have only one crepe myrtle that has budded out and it is the runt of the bunch. Had you asked me back in December which one of them would make it through to spring this year, I wouldn't have said that one. I think the neighbor's busted waterpipe is what finished off the other crepe myrtles. The runt that lived is on higher ground above the busted water pipe and it is budded out way above the ground! I reckon I'll be mulching round it today and giving it some fertilizer.

One bit of good news is that the blueberry bush I thought was dead last fall has leafed out. It's looking better every day.

All three of my grape vines have budded out. I bought a fourth grape vine--a cheap cutting--for five bucks the other day that I need to put out sometime this week. I think it's name is "Reliance". I am going to put some fencing up for a grape arbor this year. Goodness knows I don't want the poor deer to get any more cricks in their necks by having to hunker down to eat up the vines.

I am seriously considering starting up a twelve-step group for curmudgeons....!
I think a good night's sleep would help my attitude as much as anything would (short of a good worming) and taking the phone off the hook before bedtime would also help the quality of sleep along.
[My mother thinks that because she's up, so is the rest of the world or should be. Once she's done with awakening the rest of the wants-to-be-civilized world, she then lays down for a well-earned late morning nap.]
Once I'm awake in the morning, I'm awake and that's that.
(grumble!)
}|^0

Current Mood: sleepy

I got out today and had lunch with a friend. The place wasn't that fancy--just homestyle food--but it was good. I tried something new: a "cod cake" and I loved it. Cod isn't a type of fish I've eaten that much. Usually salmon, tuna, flounder, and catfish are what's on my menu, but I enjoyed the cod. I'd love to add other fish dishes to the menu but I seldom seem to get around to it.
Back when we lived in Louisiana, I never could get my Hubby to go out fishing with me. I always wanted to rent one of the day fishing boats and try for some redfish etc. out on the Gulf. It finally turned out that Hubby was even less enthused about leaving the shore behind to go fishing than he was about going on fast carnival rides. Bless the boy's heart, I never realized what a wild woman I was in comparison with him and his upbringing. I'm a lot more open to trying new adventures than he is.

My neighbor told me we got slightly over three inches of rain this weekend. Sounds about right. It also accounts for why both my front yard and my curved flowerbed are underwater in places. Even if I have nothing but warm dry days for the rest of the week, it will be next Monday before the ground will be dry enough to work and here it is mid-May. ICK!

I have a rhubarb plant trying to bloom. I've never seen a rhubarb plant in bloom before--it's going to be huge! I suppose I really should cut it off, but I'd dying to see it.

Current Mood: curious

According to the TV news this evening, MOST of the soy and corn products that you see mentioned on ingredient labels here in the US these days come from genetically modified strains of soybeans and corn.

If you've ever wondered how powerful political lobbyists are in the US, be aware that it is through their constant efforts that soy and corn products DO NOT have to be labeled according to whether they come from genetically engineered strains of soybeans and corn. According to tonight's TV news, it has never even come up for debate once in the US congress. The effect being that elsewhere in the world, ingredient labels automatically identify corn or soy as coming from gentically modified plants or not.

Many people simply shrug their shoulders and say: "Oh well, I'll just not buy anything that has corn or soy in it." I'd love to know how they plan on doing this. When was the last time you bought something sweet (ice cream, cake, candy, sweet pickles, catsup, BQ sauce, chocolate, sodapop...) that didn't have corn syrup in it? Food starch is made from corn and it's in lots of foods. Say goodbye to fastfood burgers because they are being made with soybean meat extenders more and more now. Say goodbye to chocolate too. The most common emulsifier used in chocolate these days comes from soybeans.

One last little problem I'd like to mention while I'm thinking about it. Corn is a wind-pollinated crop but bees also love to gather the pollen because corn produces a lot of it. There's a double whammy in that. Not only does that knock out eating honey (most of which isn't labeled as to the state of origin or the time of year it was harvested) it also knocks out eating home-grown corn EVEN IF YOU GROW IT FROM UNGENETICALLY MODIFIED SEED. Why? Because the wind can carry corn pollen for MILES between commercial corn fields and your little backyard patch. If it does, that makes your homegrown corn potentially HALF GENETICALLY MODIFIED.

This is especially tragic for me what with my living in Indiana, because I am surrounded by miles and miles of CORN FIELDS. Goodbye homegrown sweet corn, I will miss you!

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Hee Haw's Excessive Misery Song!

I got out of the house for a while--it looked like we were going to experience a reenactment of Noah's Ark any minute any way. (Hubby DID mow down some of my plants, the scoundrel!)

The fancy mulch was on sale today, so I bought 20 bags of it. I figure that I now have enough to finish up mulching around all the trees, shrubs and grape vines. I also bought gas and a burger. By that time I'd spent over $100, so I went back home.
I stopped and talked with a cheerful neighbor. Her dog has taught herself a new trick: She brings you a big stick and then pesters you until you throw it for her. She then runs and gets it to bring back to you. Neighbor Lady and her Hubby swear the dog taught herself! Her Hubby makes good beef jerky too.

My Hubby is on his best behavior right now and trying to pretend he didn't annoy me all day long.
The VERY LAST load of laundry is going in the dryer in a minute.
I think I have a jar of apple preserves left. If I can reach it, I'm going to open it up and have some with a slice of my pumpkin bread and some cool whip.
After all, the day could have been a lot worse than it was and there's no telling what tomorrow will be like either...

Current Mood: Calmer!

I am still getting used to having the Hubby at home and underfoot all day/everyday for the summer months. He didn't get any summer classes to teach this summer so all he has to do is work on his NAIT presentation paper. NAIT won't have its annual get-together until sometime this fall and he's waded through a large part of his paper already. When he's done, he'll be under my feet 24/7...!

We had too many rainy days this week. I need to go cut the grass again but I badly needed to work the laundry over too. My knees voted and they decided on the laundry getting done first.

I have folded almost everything but what's in the washer right now. In another minute, I'll go to the dryer and slap all of its load onto hangers....DONE. In a few more minutes I'll have another load in the dryer and another load in the washer. After that I'm going in the tub, cold water here I come, and then on to the mowing! YIPPEEEE!

The fact that I've been working on the laundry all day still hasn't granted me a day off from him fussing about the yard. Hello! Do you realize we've had RAIN four days this week and my knees have bothered me ALL WEEK? I've already stated that I'm going to go mow in a little while, so what's the problem?
He says he wants to use the push mower to trim with, but when I ask him if he knows WHERE stuff is, so he won't mow them down, I get a GROWL...! He's gonna get a major GROWL if I catch him mowing any more of MY plants down!!! And yes, I'm gonna go count them when he's done. I didn't ask him to help me mow or trim, he volunteered. If you volunteer, you aught to be able to pull up your big kid underpants by yourself and do the job the RIGHT WAY.

The last thing my poor old sore knees need are my feet twitching and itching for me to put my boots on...!

Current Mood: Major Cranky!