How is your garden looking today?

One of these days, I'm gonna get a sprinkler system installed. Maybe in the fall of this year.

The downside to gardening, c.i. --- gotta water those plants daily in dry weather.


The view from the dining room
window. This time last year the
flowering crab was in full bloom.
A lingering cool spell is delaying
it this year. Still a nice show, though.

(click to enlarge)

Lovely, neko...

My yard is shaping up really nicely!! I'm finally feeling comfortable with it, thanks in no small part to you guys. I worked it over really thoroughly this weekend (probably about 8 hours total) and am now ready to plant a bunch of stuff, mostly annuals. The back lawn is finally a lawn!! I took a picture of it, will post the series somewhere when I get this one developed. (Before, during, during, after.)

The tulips were vibrant, but now are fading.
I planted salvia a week ago and they're coming along nicely.
The azaleas are almost ready to bloom.

Cherries are getting red...(and good).

... and the French strawberries are this year on sale as early as the Spanish :wink:

have been eating REALLY GOOD (!) california strawberries for the last several weeks .
they used to be rather tasteless in former years but are really very good this year - and really quite reasonably priced : usually $1.99 per lb , but often on special at 2 lbs for $2.99 .
KEEP THOSE STRAWBERRIES COMING !
hbg

chives and last year's parsley is all we can get from our garden right now , but dill is beginning to come up now , and raspberry and currant bushes look promising .

Planting two of these in my back sandpile (aka garden) this evening -

Forestiera neomexicana - a native shrub or small tree, usually multitrunk. Yes, that means it suckers. I can deal with it, gives me a new hobby.


photo - plantsofthesouthwest.com




Planting two of these Vitex in front garden, not this evening. Still have to figure out where - and move some sand around/amend. Not sure if I'll treat them as shrub or trees - also still thinking about some other possibilities for small trees in my small yard. But, hey, they were available in one gallon cans, a simple savings of a lot of money.

Vitex agnus-castus - a mediterranean native that grows along the south and west of the US.

photo - aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu

I've a good photo - better than I've seen online - of a series of these trees in front of a horticulture building at our local botanic garden. Superb... photo is on a disc, which I'd put on this computer before, but then lost the hard drive. Will re-find the photo sometime soon.

That's a nice-looking shrub, Osso!

I did all of the major landscaping that I needed to do on my townhouse project. The other day, though, I was driving down Harris Street and there, on my right, was the Southern States Co-op store. And they have a garden center stocked with annual flowers. A good selection of healthy plants at prices only slightly higher than the xxx-marts, where I never shop.
$70 dollars later I left with flats of annuals. Ageratum, Begonia, Dianthus, Impatiens, Marigolds and some others.

My yardboy right now is Jordan. I have talked on other threads about how I am the largest employer of Goths in Charlottesville. I don't quite know how that ended up happening. Perhaps, like hobos back in the depression, they leave marks pointing the way to a place that might be kind.
Anyway, when Jordan was over today, I asked him to plant the flowers.
"Where'" he asked. I replied "Anywhere you want."
He got a bit terrified at that. "But there are blue flowers and yellow flowers and red flowers, and"
"Plant them wherever you think is right, Jordan."

I got back home right before dark and half of each flat was gone. Planted, perhaps tentatively at first, by a heavily tatooed guy with a strange hair cut, dressed in black.

You have a yardboy, Johnny?

The things one learns on A2K.

Yo, Gus. Where have you been?
Yes, I do have a groundskeeper. Truth is that I, like you, am filthy rich. We pretend otherwise in order to mix with the unwashed masses.

I have decided that this thread is disciminatory. What about all us people that don't have gardens? What about us? Where is the inclusive spirit that is the hallmark of A2K?

I boycott this thread in the name of...well, me! And I urge all others who are also gardenless to do the same!

Viva la revolucion!!!!

I am not going to squander any of my fortune on a yardboy. I might consider hiring Green Witch, just so I can watch her dig weeds as I sip on my beer, but a yardboy is out of the question.

Hush kicky!!
You could be gustav's yardboy, if you want to pot around.

You're the only one without a garden, kicky. Plant some weed or something so you can mingle.

Speaking of weed --- friend of mine lived in a small apartment, took some terra cotta pots, filled them with soil, put in a little grass seed, called the result the Western Lawns... as they sat by the western window. Er, it was probably zoysia.

Western lawns, I like it. I applied some weed 'n' feed to my side patch of grass, which was mainly composed of plants which weren't grass btw, and it didn't rain for three weeks, so no quick result. Now it has rained a lot, and the grass has grown like Jack's beanstalk and hooray the moss seems to be dead. I hate that moss. But it's quite nice to walk on.

When it stops raining (sorry dadpad and dys) I'll rake out the dead moss and mow some stripes into the lawn.

I generally hate my yard but this is one spectacular rhody

No kidding, Swimpy!

My rhody irritates me 11.75 months of the year, and then it looks gorgeous for a week or so and garners enough goodwill to last until its next bloom... barely. Doesn't look nearly that spectacular though.

I'll probably do away with it sooner or later. I don't think it really likes its current spot, it's quite moody.