Memorial Weekend - Sunday and Monday

Sunday morning we were at it again bright and early. Went to our local garden store for veggies and perennials - in a downpour. It rained all morning. 

We went up to my folks house with the intention of planting their garden, but the rain meant that wasn't possible. We had planned to stay the night, so the next morning - out in the garden by 8am. There were still some pockets of standing water so it was a good thing I brought my wellies.

They're growing 11 tomato plants, 6 pepper, 6 squash, a variety of beans, radishes, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, broccoli, cucumber, and probably more that I'm forgetting.

Then we went home to cover and plant our own garden. We ended up scaling back a little bit this year and did mostly transplants. We have 4 tomato plants, 3 eggplant, 4 pepper, 2 jalapeno, 2 poblano, 1 zucchini, 1 yellow squash, 2 cukes, 2 beans, 2 peas, onions, dill. Then some oregano, basil and lettuce that I'm going to put in pots on our deck. I still have to plant seeds for carrots, radishes, sweet corn, and pumpkin.

The first rose of the season bloomed either late Sunday or early Monday. 

Finally, some new additions to our patio - umbrella and chairs - to compliment our existing set. I'm loving the combination of blue and red.

The new blue chairs also nicely match our bench.  

Memorial Weekend - Saturday

Lots accomplished today. First thing in the morning C and I went to a local nursery and purchased two new trees - a musclewood and a native redbud. When we got back, I pruned the viburnum by hand and am very happy with the results.

While H mowed the lawn, I weeded all the planting beds except the bean bed and the island bed. I also pruned the climbing rose in the fireplace bed. She looks a little stunted right now, so here are some of my unsung heros. I love my hostas and native columbine.

Close up of the columbine. So very pretty.

I discovered our coneflower in the west fence bed seeded itself in new locations. Very happy about this!.

The spirea have really finally filled in. Love the foliage color and I can't wait for it to bloom.

After weeding, I re-edged the entire fireplace bed. This makes my German soul very happy.

Close up of the red-twig dogwood.

In addition to mowing, H was in charge of rototilling the garden beds and the northwest bed (I need a better name) in preparation for our new trees. He also re-set the landscape edging out front so that it was level with the ground again.

Here's the garden beds all ready to be covered and planted.

And the two front beds ready for their new trees (with C riding his tricycle in the background).

After all this was done, we grilled some salmon and asparagus for dinner. The troops were hungry - no leftovers!

New perennials

Put in nearly $200 of new perennials today. All natives or hybrids.

Monarda and Coreopsis in the sunny part of the bean bed to provide some different color and bloom times. Then large pots of wild ginger under the linden to start to provide ground cover.

Then Tradescantia and Hyssop in the west fence bed.