Sloppy Sunday

After such a busy couple of weeks I must say I was delighted by having another day of rain. It has rained most of the day today.  I had to stay inside except for walking Luna of course.  I had time to think about all the work we have done these first spring days.  As you enter our garden from the back I put an arbor with a gate on it to welcome the neighbors and anyone else that enters.  At some time in the future there will be a sitting area right inside here.  It is just to the left of the Casa. 

When you look out from the sitting area you will see lots of things growing and blooming here. I will show it again when things are filled in more.

The bushes on either side of it were taken from the Holly bed.  This will give the holly and all the flowers around it more room to spread. 

As you can see most places have their blanket of mulch.  The mulching is almost finished. It feels so good to be this far along already. According to my garden journal we are ahead of schedule. Yay... Considering that we didn't mulch last year this feels like quite an accomplishment.

I am still waiting for the  Saucer Magnolia to pop. I can't wait to see it. We are to have beautiful weather the rest  of the week. It should be a good show. All of this rain has played havoc with the daffodils. I had to cut a bouquet of them to bring in because the poor dears were lying face down in the mud.  I had forgotten how fragrant they are.

I have some seeds I will have to get into the ground this week.  These are the seeds that Cyndy at Riverrim shared with me. They are a purple-flowering Dutch pea called "Norli". I can't wait to see them bloom.  Look Cyndy they are going to grow for me. I have never started seeds in paper towels this way. It is very easy I must say. Thank you so much for the opportunity Cyndy.

Dee at Red Dirt Ramblings was asking what everyone was doing for Easter.  Well, here we will have a big eat-a-thon. I am busy preparing for the hungry hordes.  Actually we don't have that many coming but it will be fun. I hope you all have a great week leading up to and including Easter. I am curious too. What are you doing for Easter?

Spring Clean Up

The past couple of days have been typically beautiful spring days. My Dearly Beloved and I have been out in the garden raking the leaves and debris off of the flower beds. We have pulled lots of weeds. I had my first casualty of the gardening year. This tool broke way too soon. I hadn't even worn the tag off of it yet. I really hate breaking this tool. I didn't even know I liked this tool until I received it as a gift christmas before last. I used it all last year but it didn't make it through this season. If you like certain tools and use them often you know how I feel. I know that Carol would know how I felt if she broke one of her hoes.

Of course our Overseer was in the garden. It was her job to alert us to the meter reader and to keep all squirrels and cats at bay while we were out.

We had to take a little break in the action to watch as this Robin was busy building a nest in one of the shrubby trees out front. There is another Robin building a nest in the apple tree in the back garden.

The Saucer Magnolia is all abloom like I can't remember it ever blooming.

Dearly Beloved took the above two photos.

I tried to get an overall shot of the Magnolia. Somehow it just doesn't show up in photos as it does in person.

Behind the Magnolia you can see the forsythia blooming. I call this arrangement my "Folly". When I stuck these two forsythia into the ground I was just going to leave them there until I found somplace for them to take up a permanent residence. I had bought them as a table decoration for easter one year. Then I forgot about them. They sent out these L O N G branches so I decided to tie them up over the garage window. They made an interesting (to me) arch. I like pulling into the garage and seeing either the brilliant yellow blooming or the dark green of the leaves. Some years this arrangement is stuffed full of blooms. This year it has a bare spot or two. Most were caused by those galls I wrote about this winter. I will cut them out and hope that it improves the bush. Now if I could also get the House Sparrows not to build nests here it would fare better.