Plant Holder Wall Art from JunkMarketstyle.com

I got this in my weekly JunkMarketStyle newsletter and just had to share it.  I think it's so neat.  This is a victorian plant stand hanging on a wall.  What a great way to display an antique so you can appreciate the structure of it.

To see the full article on this item and to see more photos, check out this link.

Nice Surprise

I planted these Grecian Wildflowers (Anemone) the first year we moved in and I haven't seen them bloom since that first spring.  I'm not sure if any more of these will pop up, but I am sure glad I saw this one.

More Early Spring Blooms

I can't get over how early things are blooming this year, and so far, we haven't had a hard frost since everything began to bud out.  The maples are almost fully leafed out now.  This is all due to a week of 80 degree weather we got last month and much warmer than normal temperatures since.  It has been seasonably warm this week (in the upper 50s, lower 60s) and it's felt cool in comparison.  I'm loving the weather and so are my flower babies.

My free yellow tulips

Free Red Tulips

The Frittilarias are blooming really early this year.  About three weeks earlier than normal.

Happy Earth Day!

I guess you'd have to be living under a rock if you don't know that today is Earth Day.  In my opinion, every day should be earth day.  We should be doing everything we can to preserve Mother Earth.  But I wonder if the whole concept of Earth Day is getting watered down with the same commercialism that every other "holiday" gets these days.

The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 and was started by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin to make us aware of the environmental crisis we were in.

Today, when people think of Earth Day, they may think of Going Green.  When they think of Going Green, they may think of buying environmentally friendly products, the latest green gadget, etc.

But in reality, what we should be doing is conserving energy and not buying things unless we absolutely have to and when we do buy products, making sure we buy the least toxic product for the job we need.  For example, you can pretty much perform all your cleaning tasks with baking soda, borax, vinegar, rubbing alcohol and water.

We've created a disposable society that values material things, not the things that really matter, like:

• clean drinking water (that doesn't come out of a bottle)
• unpolluted soil to grow fruits and vegetables that feed us
• meats that are not contaminated with bacteria that can kill us
• processed foods that don't turn our arteries to stone

Think about it.

What does Earth Day mean to you?

How can you make your world better?

Better yet, how can you make your life better?

If you liked this blog post, you may also like this article I wrote called Five Ways to Go Green in Your Yard.

Feeding the Ducks

Our resident ducks are back and I've been able to hand feed this pair for the past few years.  They are pretty tame as far as wild ducks go.  They are cautious of strangers, but don't mind Gary or I much.

I haven't seen the pair that has the female with the white stripe around her neck yet though.  They usually arrive a few weeks later than this pair, so I hope to see them soon. 

I'm pretty sure that most of the ducks that feed in our yard stay on the river over the winter.  I hear them quacking often through out the year, but they only come in our yard in the summer time.  I don't know if the previous owners fed the ducks, but I bought cracked corn for them the first summer we were here.  Each year we get more and more ducks feeding in the yard at one time.  I think I counted 23 on one occasion.

I love my duckies!

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Instructables for the Garden

Anyone who has been around this blog for a while knows how much I like the Instructables.com website.  If you've never seen it before, it's a great little site with tutorials on how to make and do thousands of things that were contributed by the viewers of the site. 

Here is this week's offerings that caught my eye.


VERTICAL VEGETABLES:



The Ultimate Koi Pond - More DIY How To Projects


Turn a wine barrel into an outdoor sink - More DIY How To Projects

A Few More Pretties

These yellow daffodils are so bright and cheerful.  Here's a picture with my hose guides made from pvc conduit and a glass insulator on top.

I really love these daffodils also.  These are probably my next best favorite compared to the ones I posted the other day.

These tulips were left overs from a school fund raiser that I got for free.  I never really expected them to bloom, but it looks like they all will be blooming very shortly.

Garden Junk Made From Soda Cans

Drink Can Craft - More DIY How To Projects

What a great idea.  I bet you could create some really cute garden junk with these.  If you had a fence you could decorate the fence with them.  Or the side of a shed or greenhouse. 

And you could even paint them with Rust-Oleum if you don't want them to rust.  Personally, I think they would look even better once they got a little rusty.  Although, since they are aluminum, I guess they won't really rust, but they will develop an aged appearance.

My Enemy - The Vole

I suppose this photo makes him look sweet and cuddly even.  But he is not sweet and cuddly....he is the ENEMY.  That my friends is a vole.  One of the dozens that are probably living on our one acre property. I was surprised to see him come out of his hole in broad daylight, but it was very cloudy and they seem to be more active during the day when it's darker.

I don't think he could see me.  Not sure if they are blind, but he sure acted like he was.  The only time he went back in his hole was when I moved a little. His tiny little nose was just a wiggling trying to smell me.  It's a shame that he must DIE!

I was happy when the snow melted because I did not see very many vole runs on top of the soil like I had last year.  They did hundreds of dollars worth of damage last year and ate over 60% of the plants I had been over wintering in pots.  I haven't checked my pots yet this year, but from the surface, I only see one Weigela that has been eaten.  If that is all that is damaged, I'll consider myself lucky.

I do think he ate some of the newly planted crocus that were planted in the lawn last fall.  I soaked them in Ropel, but it's possible some were not completely dry when planted and therefor the Ropel is not as effective.  It's important for the Ropel to soak into the bulbs and completely dry for it to work properly and I was in a hurry and planted the bulbs before they were all 100% dry.

Instead of the usual runs we see in the lawn, there were just lots of holes in the ground, and quite a few holes going under the house, which is quite unusual.  I put a few poisonous pellets down each hole to try and get the population under control.  I made sure the d-con was all the way in the holes, so no other critters can get to it.  I normally don't like to use poisons in the yard, but it's evident that the neighborhood cats and hawks have been falling down on the job.

After a couple of days, I'll check the holes again and see if they are eating the poison, then I'll fill all the holes and watch for new activity.  I could have also put down mouse traps in front of the holes, but that would have made our yard like a mind field and I worried about other critters getting their paws or noses snapped.

Lovely Daffodils

I think these are one of my favorites.  I wish I knew what they were called.  The soft peach of the cups and the soft yellow of the petals remind me of Virginia for some reason.  Maybe we had some like it when I lived there?  Not sure, as I really don't remember much about living there except the cool writing spiders we'd find in the hedges.  Their webs were so neat.

Color Decided for Greenhouse

I always have a hard time deciding on color.  But I want to hurry up and get the window trim and the door painted on the new greenhouse before the hot weather gets here.  Gary brought home some paint swatches Tuesday night and with his help, we had it decided in less than an hour.

The trim on the storage shed could use a touch-up, so I decided to make it match the greenhouse trim.  My mother had suggested a brown, but all the browns I picked from the swatches that would match, faded in the sun, so were not suitable for outdoors.  So I decided to go with my favorite color, green.

I found a great color called Village Inn.  I don't know if this computer generated version will look the same on everyone's monitor, but here is a sample of what it will look like on both the shed and the greenhouse.

Greenhouse Now

 

Greenhouse with new paint color

Shed Now

Shed with new paint color

Spring Has Sprung

After four days of 80 degree temperatures, the bulbs have really popped.  It seems like overnight, everything just burst into bloom.  In fact, I think it was overnight.

This tulip is called Show Winner.  It's not supposed to bloom this early.

Tete-e-Tete Daffodils, the first daffodils to bloom for me.

One of the newest bulbs in my garden this year, a species tulip called Humilis. 

It's a beautiful shade of hot pink.

Poison Ivy Encounter

Last week I tackled the poison ivy vine that is growing up a tree in my shade garden, threatening to take over the whole bed.  For years, I didn't know what it was.  I thought it was Virginia Creeper, and in fact, there may have been some at one time, but the Poison Ivy had clearly taken over.

I knew for sure it was Poison Ivy when three years ago I came down with a rash on my face and arm.  The doctor said it was a poison ivy rash.  I didn't believe it until I looked more closely at the vine when I got home.  I was so disappointed as I hadn't encountered that pest in our yard, and was hoping I'd luck out.  But, alas, I was doomed to tackle this beast, once and for all.

After my first encounter, I was reluctant to do too much.  I didn't want to have to go through that kind of rash again, but after accidentally pulling up a poison ivy vine while performing routine weeding one too many times, I had to bite the bullet and do something.

Covering myself from head to toe, wearing a long sleeved shirt, long pants, tall socks, and shoes that could be washed, I set out to battle this demon.  I wore two pair of nitrile gloves under my rubber coated gardening gloves and began to pull vines.  There were at least four vines going into the garden, that I found. 

The main vine was bigger around than my fist, so I knew I had to cut a chunk out of it, to keep the vines going up the tree from sprouting new leaves.

Though I was very careful, some of the roots touched my right wrist.  It happened while I was cleaning up.  While you are working, it's hard for your sleeves to stay down over your wrists, so next time, I will wrap my wrists in tender tape to help protect them.

The rash has been pretty nasty.  Since it wasn't anywhere but on my wrist, I didn't go to the doctor, but I'm sure if I had, it would be healing faster.  I'll spare you nasty photos of the rash.  If you really want to know what one looks like, Google it.  But I will share a picture of the vine and the chunk I cut out of it.

What can I plant now?

With unusually warm weather through many parts of the country, people are asking me what they can plant now, because they've got the gardening bug and spring fever.

If the soil is still really wet, hold off planting.  Digging while the soil is wet can break down the structure of the soil and cause it to become hard and compacted, especially if it's clay soil.

If the soil has had a chance to dry out, then go ahead and plant perennials, trees and shrubs that are still DORMANT.  Yes, you read that right...plant dormant plants only this early in the season.  If you are in the south, you've got a whole new set of rules, but up here in the north, zone 5, we must stick to planting dormant plants at this time of year.

It's actually a great time to plant for us because it's cool and rain is usually plentiful, so the roots have a chance to grow well, which will help support the top growth later on.

You may have trouble finding dormant plants at the garden centers this time of year, so look for local, small nurseries, that grow their own plants outdoors.  We have several in this area...many of which are open all winter, so they may be your best bet.

Your second best bet to get plants this time of year that are still dormant is mail order.  I really like Bluestone Perennials. If you've never gotten plants through mail order before, it's a great way to get plants that are not normally available in your area, or new plants that may not be available to the general public.  Before I order from a new online company, I always check their rating on Garden Watchdog.  People will rate each company listed and write a review on their products or experiences with each company listed.

If you just have to get some color in your yard or on your porch, plant cold hardy annuals like pansies, violas, nemesia, dusty miller, snapdragons, and diacia.

If you are into edible plants and have a cold frame to protect them on extra chilly nights, try planting cabbage, lettuce, spinach, cauliflower and radishes.

If you get any blooming lilies or tulips in pots for Easter or Passover, allow them to bloom and continue to grow them in their pots until fall, and then plant them along with your other bulbs at the appropriate depth.

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Bulbs

We have been having unusually warm weather for our area this month.  In fact, it's supposed to be 80 this weekend. Everything is popping up early, but then we had a cold night a few days ago and all the snow crocus got damaged and would no longer stand up on their own.  The Giant Crocus above are still standing tall though.

I checked back in my files and the Dutch Iris and Crocus are blooming a full week sooner than last year and two weeks sooner than 2008.  You can't tell me that Global Warming isn't real!

I did something different last fall and planted snow crocus in the lawn between two flower beds.  It was so nice two weeks ago and I had a yard sale....not a good idea with the snow crocus blooming....LOL.  I tried to get a good picture of them, but nothing turned out well enough and now they are falling over due to the heavy rain and the 15 degree temps from the other night.

The funny thing was, there were lots of vole holes through this area, but I had soaked the crocus bulbs in Ropel, so I felt comfortable enough that they wouldn't be eaten.  When they first started blooming, only the yellow ones came up, so I got to thinking that the little demons must have eaten the other colors, but then some other colors came up and bloomed and it looks like they all made it.  I am a firm believer in Ropel for all your bulbs.  I even spray it on foliage that the rabbits like to eat.  It's not safe for food crops though, so keep that in mind.  Also, don't get it on your hands.  It stinks and tastes really bad!  Wear rubber gloves for sure.

Gardenscape 2010 | Series 5

My favorite display at the Rochester Flower Show was a giant corn crib that was made up to look like a bird cage.  It was probably the most inventive display I had seen in a while.  Of course, I'm partial to birds, so I guess my opinion is a little biased.

There were bird houses surrounding the entire display (which I will save for another post).

The inside was decorated and had two old metal chairs for seating and a bench swing.  It was very sweet and a great alternative to a gazebo if you have a garden junk type setting. 

The only problem was the doorway.  They did not modify it, so you had to bend over to get inside, but a full size door could be easily modified with a torch and a welder.