The night before Mother's Day (May 8th), it frosted. Mike's poor tomatoes and peppers did all survive, but they took a little hit. Peppers and tomatoes just don't like the cold. We're thinking next year they might take off better if we wait until it is really warm to plant.

Last weekend I finished my beautiful new shade garden.


Mike did an excellent job with the stone planter, and I made him cut some of the underbranches off the maple so you can actually see the house without getting a sense of claustrophobia. I love the way the coral bell blossoms look next to this hosta. I also planted some astilbes. The hostas and solomon's seal I already had. There are lily of the valley, Christmas fern, and toad lily bulbs in there, too.

My front flower bed is my next project. The tulips are gone (I pulled some of the foliage already-- it was still green but pulled out of the bulb easily-- not sure if I committed some serious tulip sin by getting rid of it early), and now there's not much cohesion to it. I already ripped out one daylily and mum. I think I need to divide a hosta and some irises so the long-established perennials don't take over. Reinstate some balance.

I really have no idea what I'm doing. :) But at least it's fun, and it's not life and death. I get plenty of life and death at work.

Other happy sights

my first blooming dahlia!

last bleeding hearts of the season

my new container planting

me and a rose

First Perfect Planting Day

Flowers

each stalk had to be staked

my new azalea

ranunculus roots: a good idea
cheaper than plants and not hard to do

finished garage garden
there's a lot going on here
we'll see what works

Dahlias and coleus

Last weekend was perfect for getting Spring plants in the ground. I spent all of Saturday outside, went to work 31 hours straight, then came home and mowed the yard and planted a few more seeds. I may have some giganto mosquito bites and tendonitis that seriously limits my mouse usage at work, but my garden oasis is totally worth it.

I went crazy in the garage garden with some new perennials (barberry, cherry, azalea, rose), some annuals I bought and some I grew, and seeds sprinkled in here and there. It should be interesting. Even if it's too busy, the perennials should look great next year.

So now that most of my homegrown seedlings are planted, what did I learn?

• Do not use jiffy mix to start seeds. They did horrible. Do use peat pellets. They worked awesome.
• Dahlias, violas, coleus, geraniums produced vigorous healthy plants from peat pellets. Totally better than buying them in the store.
• Delphiniums didn't have 100% germination rate, but so far they're doing well.
• Plant only 1 seed per peat pellet. You can do a second sowing if something doesn't sprout.
  
• Plan out container-planting schemes before buying seeds. Mine are kind of bland, and I have a hard time paying $2 for one trailing vine or one spike to add container interest now that it's Spring.
  

Now I'm just loving spending my evenings listening to my waterfall and chilling on my deck. Can't wait until I have containers of big green plants to decorate it!

Vegetables

Mike built a bamboo forest to stake up tomatoes, peppers, and dry beans.

Some tomatoes


Some peppers


Almost ripe strawberry
(the plants had baby berries when we got them)


Painstakingly tying up precious Goji berries

Sunflower seeds are hiding under that dark patch outside the fence

Clearly I have a man who understands my weakness for buying more flowers than I could ever reasonably plant. In the end, he planted only one plant from each packet of tomato seeds (he gave the rest of the plants away), and filled in with special varieties he found at nurseries that he just HAD to have. That makes 10 tomato plants in the ground. He also planted two of every kind of pepper. Now he can save the seeds and not buy ANY next year.... or just buy even more new plant varieties and save those seeds as well... Here's what we've got:

Tomatoes
Black krim
Pineapple
Green zebra
Mr. Stripey
Speckled Roman
Brandywine
Black brandywine
Early girl (because I wanted it. he planted it in the shadiest corner of the garden)
Golden currant
Cherokee purple

Peppers
Bell pepper
Jalapeno
Hot lemon
Bulgarian carrot
Chervena chushka
Fatalii
Zavory

Other food we've planted so far: leeks, broccoli, cabbage, onions, blueberries, asparagus, peas, potted basil, and lettuce seeds in a pot of pansies.

This mother's day weekend should be excellent for getting more stuff planted. All those in our climate, dig in! The earlier you plant, the earlier you reap the benefits!