Gardeners! Share your garden photos and garden chatter here.

[cgw]

Our mail strike recently ended so those sexy bulb and seed catalogs are showing up--finally!
The cold months are great for planning--and bickering--over next spring/summer here and at the family ruin. Game-changer there is the steady advance of shade thrown by huge trees. My much-missed MIL's original plan of 50yrs ago gave way to totally different lowlight shrubs and new sunnier beds with perennials, bulbs and old roses. Still pretty after all these years.

 

[terri]

Oh, yeah, I was born a Yooper

You're a Yooper?! I didn't know that.

No wonder Texas heat doesn't bother you...

 

[Digger...]

Yum 4 varietys here, the birds are getting there fair share too.

 

[SquarePeg]

It’s snowing here again. I’m daydreaming of gardens and butterflies. In an act of weather avoidance, I’m planning out my early spring garden chores. I have 2 shrubs that need to be moved/removed, roses need an aggressive pruning as does one of the cherry blossom trees, climbing rose needs a trellis added to the brick front around my front windows, turning an old bakers rack into a trellis for some clematis vines and need to finally finish painting the second rain barrel. That should cover March - April.

Went to the store yesterday to get some pet safe ice melt and instead came home with 3 new plants. Scored a beautiful string of pearls and a variegated string of hearts and this big jade plant! I’ve been waiting for warmer weather to order the two “string of” plants online as they’re never in local stores, so this was a total score!

 

[cgw]

Old roses in the snow at the family ruin after last night's storm.

 

[jeffashman]

The garden is beginning to take shape… maybe a little too unruly though at the moment… the lawn is planted with crimson clover, white clover, and red and lavender creeping thyme. The idea is to minimize mowing and provide a feasting ground for the pollinators. The crimson clover is mounding a little larger than I had anticipated...

1 Arbor with two Major Wheeler Honeysuckle
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

2 Sweet Basil
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

3 Tuscan Blue Rosemary
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

4 Thai Basil
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

5 An Unruly Lawn
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

 

[Digger...]

The garden is beginning to take shape… maybe a little too unruly though at the moment… the lawn is planted with crimson clover, white clover, and red and lavender creeping thyme. The idea is to minimize mowing and provide a feasting ground for the pollinators. The crimson clover is mounding a little larger than I had anticipated...

1 Arbor with two Major Wheeler Honeysuckle
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

2 Sweet Basil
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

3 Tuscan Blue Rosemary
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

4 Thai Basil
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

5 An Unruly Lawn
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

Can i landscape your yard please Mr?

To make it dog digging proof put a layer of chook wire on top of the soil in the beds and peg it all down and then put your chip wood mulch on top of that.

Where you want some key plants snip out a circle of the wire & Digger a hole, then plant.

Do the dogs leave the fabric pots/pots alone?

 

[jeffashman]

Can i landscape your yard please Mr?

To make it dog digging proof put a layer of chook wire on top of the soil in the beds and peg it all down and then put your chip wood mulch on top of that.

Where you want some key plants snip out a circle of the wire & Digger a hole, then plant.

Do the dogs leave the fabric pots/pots alone?

They don't really dig, fortunately. Yes, they leave the fabric posts alone. I threatened them with transport to Oz if they messed with them... I'll try the chicken wire thing next year, since they are already planted with zinnias, marigolds, and sunflowers. I have plans to do a lot more, but have limited funds right now. I've thought about putting a 24" to 36" crushed rock border all the way around along the fence, with pots in the rock. The clay soil is too difficult for most plants around here, so planter boxes and pots are the most efficient approach.

 

[Rickbb]

Spring is finally busting out all over in central NC. Cell phone pics as I'm too lazy to get out the big camera.

Apple tree, Williams Favorite.

American Redbud.

Crabapple

Azalea

Trout Lilly.

Even my winter broccoli, lol. I leave it after we are finished with harvest to bloom. Bees seem to like the pollen from it.

 

[cgw]

Best I can do is artichoke sprouts in the basement gro-ops. One of several experiments:

 

[SquarePeg]

The garden is beginning to take shape… maybe a little too unruly though at the moment… the lawn is planted with crimson clover, white clover, and red and lavender creeping thyme. The idea is to minimize mowing and provide a feasting ground for the pollinators. The crimson clover is mounding a little larger than I had anticipated...

1 Arbor with two Major Wheeler Honeysuckle
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

2 Sweet Basil
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

3 Tuscan Blue Rosemary
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

4 Thai Basil
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

5 An Unruly Lawn
Untitled by Jeff Ashman, on Flickr

Looking good! Love the clover idea and will be following how that goes. That arbor is going to be stunning when the honeysuckle grows in. Can’t wait for the hummingbird pics!

 

[SquarePeg]

Spring is finally busting out all over in central NC. Cell phone pics as I'm too lazy to get out the big camera.

Apple tree, Williams Favorite.

View attachment 285239


American Redbud.

View attachment 285240

Crabapple

View attachment 285241

Azalea

View attachment 285242

Trout Lilly.

View attachment 285243

Even my winter broccoli, lol. I leave it after we are finished with harvest to bloom. Bees seem to like the pollen from it.

View attachment 285244

Beautiful! Still stick season here although there’s a few things budding, nothing has leafed out or flowered yet.

 

[terri]

Beautiful! Still stick season here although there’s a few things budding, nothing has leafed out or flowered yet.

Same here. I'm kind of surprised that the hyacinth hasn't even bloomed yet. I can the small round bulbs, but they are staying firmly rolled up. No crocus flowers yet, either.

Our daytime temps have been lovely, upper 50sF to low 60sF, but we are still having some frosty nights. It shouldn't keep our early bloomers closed, but it is this year.

*drums fingers on the table* I'm ready now!!

 

[jeffashman]

Looking good! Love the clover idea and will be following how that goes. That arbor is going to be stunning when the honeysuckle grows in. Can’t wait for the hummingbird pics!

I mowed a little, but left a nice mound in the middle, and it is starting to flower, should be about two to three weeks to really have a nice set of flowers on it. The white clover is going a lot slower, and I haven't seen any sign of the creeping thyme yet. Looking forward to how this will look in about a month.

 

[terri]

Such an amazing thing happened this morning.

I've been over-wintering two Black Swallowtail chrysalises. Late last fall, I brought my parsley plant indoors that still held some hungry, active caterpillars. They seemed on the brink of going into the pupal stage, and the temperatures were starting to get into below freezing territory. I brought the plant inside and put it into my butterfly cage and let the two fat guys eat until they went pupal, and have had two chrysalises all winter long.

One of the chrysalises ended up on the stem of the parsley plant. The plant wasn't doing well in the basement so in January I brought it upstairs and put it in the sun room where it rallied. I wasn't sure if the chrysalis was even viable; it was gray and shriveled looking, and I just watered the plant around it, figuring eventually I'd put it back in the cage around May.

You see where I'm going. It's only April! Came downstairs earlier to find a gorgeous female clinging to the sliding glass door. It's a sunny warm day, and will be even warmer over the next several days, so instead of running to the basement and trying to get her back inside the butterfly cage, I simply cupped her and went outside. She sat in a tree for about 5 minutes then fluttered to the grass, lots of dew and I imagine she wanted a drink.

Here's the baby girl:

She flew off about 20 minutes later. I did bring up the butterfly cage and put the parsley plant in it to give the other butterfly somewhere to land when it finally opens. This one is more sensibly attached to the mesh, not on a plant that needed attention. I'm hoping that sitting in the sun room will encourage it to open, so I can set it free with its sister.

I'm so glad the other one didn't fly up to a corner of the ceiling and become impossible to catch and release - and that a cat didn't find her first.

Fun times. Summer has begun for me, I don't really care what the calendar says anymore.