Peonies for me

        I love easy flowers and the Peony is certainly one of them.  Easy to care for, beautiful in bloom and low maintenance.  Despite all the variety of flowers that I have growing in the garden,   I do not have any high maintenance plants.
Who wants that?
Who has the time?
      I have developed basic rules for  my yard and gardening and the first one is to limit weeds at all costs.  That is easier done with mulch than with chemicals.  There can never be enough mulch, well,... almost never .
      The next "rule" would be that edging is so overrated!  I avoid that at all costs.  Again, mulch comes in handy.  I just make the flower beds end in mulch and allow several inches of buffer for the lawn mower  and leave the rest alone.
      My non negotiable rule is that I am unwilling to put up with persnickety plants.  If they need special attention, then I do not need them.  The only plants in my garden that fall into this category are roses, which for some reason like me.  I am just lucky I guess.  I have never had any trouble with them, so they get to stay.  There are so many easy plants but here are a few of my favorites:

• Azalea
• Butterfly Bush
• Iris
• Gladioles
• Hosta
• Lirope
• Lilly- white Easter and Daylilly
• Native Virginia Honeysuckle
• Peony
• Roses

These make up the core group of plants which I have in my yard.  I hope that you enjoy the sunshine and fresh air as much as I do.  Until then,  Happy Gardening!

So what did you do today?

"So, What did you do today?"

"I built a wall"

           Not to outdo Honey, I built another wall in our yard while he was off watching the lacrosse games.  I am a little tired of the backyard looking a little junky.  I have been spending a lot of Honey's time making it look a lot better.  We've moved several Forsythia and hostas and some impatiens against the back fence to make it look better (Our neighbors behind us need to be a lot more inspired with their yard). The never ending pile of mulch (See this post for a picture) is being used to make them look like more formal flower beds.   I am trying to make the backyard be a play area for the kids, but not look only like a play area for the kids.  Along those lines we have gotten outdoor storage for their toys and are trying to make everything else look a little nicer.
      So I thought that since the last wall was fairly easy, I'd try one more little wall to help finish off the other end of the "trash patio."

    
      This one is next to our side neighbors with whom we are very good friends.  I planted two blueberry bushes behind the new wall and hopefully next year we can share some blueberry pie with them.  Of course, now I have plans to extend to walkway (from the trash patio) around to the back of the house and connect to the back patio.  Poor Honey, just when he thinks he is done....

Yard work

           Well, I've put Honey to work in the yard.  It is only fair, he didn't "get" to do anything last year.   As I said in a previous post, he built me a little trash patio for storing our recycling container, trash containers, hoses and such. I am very pleased with the outcome.  It is nice to not have a huge muddy mess to deal with.

This is an updated picture of the Astilbe and Hostas that are beside the side door.  Much better!  

           Since he did such a great job, I decided that my vegetable patch needed to have a little more structure  to it.  I am trying to use the vegetable patch as a small continuous homeschooling science and gardening lesson.  We planted the seeds in little starter trays but the plants were quickly outgrowing their temporary home.  After talking about the terrain and my needs, we decided that a small wall would be ideal.  I went to Home Depot and got the stackable wall "bricks".  Thankfully there were people there to load the cart and the car.  That stuff is HEAVY!
            I am very grateful that Honey is so meticulous about things being level.  It made the wall look great and I am very proud of him.  The bottom row took about an hour to do but it was worth it when the next rows went up so fast.   With the bottom row level the next two rows quickly (10 minutes) were added for a very nice wall for a mere $80.

Elizabeth and I quickly got the plants in and voila' our vegetable garden.  Now we just need to watch it grow!!!

Trash Patio

Completed Patio

For the past two weekends I have put Honey to work.  The area on the side of the house which leads into the laundry room was becoming a huge problem.  With all the snow and rain, the side of the house became a mud pit.  I think it was a bigger cause of my muddy floors than any other area of the yard!
So I put Honey to work building a trash patio, for lack of better words.  We store our trash, recycling and Composter  out there as well as our hose and sprinklers.  Since there is a slight slope, we needed to build stairs as well.  Luckily all the materials in the project were FREE!  That's what happens when you buy a house from someone who was a handyman with 1000 unfinished projects.  I have found probably 20 of the LARGE plumbing pipes buried in the yard (stored in the yard is more like it), another 20 small pipes and multiple shapes and sizes of pavers and bricks.  I have since gotten rid of all of the pipes since I have no use for them, but the pavers keep getting rearranged.
      Honey is very good at making sure that everything is level.  Me? not so much!  So he did a fantastic Job of creating the patio and a new planting bed.  I put in  a few Astilbe and some free Hostas (I divided them up from other parts of the yard)  Hostas must be one of the gardener's favorite friends!  I think it will look even better in the summer when everything is in bloom, but for now, here is the new flower-bed:

You can just see the Hostas poking through the soil.

This is the Forsythia that I used in vases in the house while it was in bloom, but am trying to see if any will root.  Then I can expand my "wall of Forsythia" in the backyard.

Here is a picture of the pile of mulch that I had delivered, I think there is such a thing as too much mulch!

Playday in the park

Today was a GORGEOUS spring day.  I just love the spring weather.   I took the kids to Clemyjontry Park to play on the fully handicapped accessible playground.  I went with my friend Mary (@ Passionate Perseverance) and her daughter Courtney. Courtney was a little sleepy today, but the vitamin D was good for her anyway.  (She has a Vitamin D Deficiency).  Mary and I traded seeds for our gardens.  We are going to be doing square foot gardens this year.  I'll let you know how that works.  I have been very busy planning the garden and getting things ready to plant.  This is my first year using the square foot gardening method.  My sister has used it with a lot of success.  I am looking forward to learning a little more about gardening.  Hopefully I will have LOTS of pictures to share.  I have a lot of experience with flowers and bushes, but not so much with edible plants.  Unless you count the pumpkins I get for free every year by throwing all the pumpkin guts into the garden in the fall after carving them for Halloween.  I would say that pumpkins are SUPER easy to grow, as long as you don't care how many you get!
                   At the park my kids ran, and climbed on EVERYTHING.  You would think that they would be tired, but they came home and played on the new trampoline for hours.  We did manage to sneak in  a little homeschooling via religion class.  The only important class of the week!   I use a Catholic teacher planner from Creative Communications.  It lists the Saints of the day and Holy Days as well as contains the readings for next Sunday.   It also has a word of the week that is contained within the gospel reading. We spend the week pre-reading the scriptures that will be read on Sunday.  It has helped the children to listen and gain a better understanding of what is going on in Mass.  It also has helped them listen with more interest to the homily. I have been very pleased with the information contained in this planner.   It has helped me to stay on track this year.  Something I always need help with!
 

A haircut for the Bushes

Today  I decided to do my January task of trimming the butterfly bushes.  Rolo decided to help me and he was quite a big help for an almost five year old.  He was a little upset at first that I was hurting the plants, but when I told him that I was just giving the bushes a haircut he was happy to join me.  We trimmed the butterfly bushes and the "christmas tree" bushes and some of the roses.  The knock out roses still need to be done but not today!! The Spring chores are just beginning and it looks like I still have a lot to do!  But then again, what gardener ever considers their garden as finished?