planting continues

I was out of town for most of the week, so mom took care of the watering while I was gone. My big surprise was that I came back to find that both Miss Biloxis had a bloom. Unfortunately one of them fell off today, but the other one is still attached to its plant. I think this will basically be the end of my camellia season.

I went to the farmers market and picked up some more herbs yesterday and made several more herb pots, which I then ended up repotting today in slightly larger pots. I have now added a tricolor sage and a bronze fennel to the pot with the silver thyme (this pot is SO pretty). I also made an Italian culinary pot with purple basil, oregano and Italian parsley. Finally I made a medicinal pot which originally had tansy, lemon balm and pennyroyal in it. The pennyroyal was actually pretty big and the man selling the herbs said if I put the pennyroyal in its own smaller pot it would grow all over the top and down all the sides and basically make a green ball. So, I transferred it to an 8" pot and will get a rue to add to the medicinal pot. I also got a larger pot to put a couple of sweet basils in and maybe add another common culinary herb as well. I also planted a jalepeno pepper and a cayenne pepper today that I had bought yesterday. I did go to Twin Bridge yesterday to see if they had in their Thai pepper plants, but they don't have them yet, I will check back.

Yesterday I also went to the Lily Lady (Daylily andHostas Gardens) on her first day open. I bought 2 Mattie Mae Maxwell daylilys (the hostas I liked were all more than I wanted to spend). When I moved the Matties at home, they turned into 4 Matties. I still had two clumps that looked like they could be split further, so I divided one again and ended up with 5 Matties. I planted those along the inner edge of the ditch over near the driveway. I am supposed to be getting some orange daylilys from a co-worker and will plant those along the outer edge of the ditch and hopefully kind of hide the ditch.

I also got a scotch moss, which I planted in the hole in the cement cover in the backyard. It definitely beats weeds! Maybe it will spread.

I went to the native plant sale yesterday morning and it was actually pretty expensive and not too exciting. I will wait until Carolina Wild comes back to the Farmers Market to get anything else. Did end up buying a fringed bleeding heart. It will go in the shade border on the front yard side of the fence due to being poisonous.

I planted the balloon flowers in the shade garden near the side fence and they look good and I figured they would look ever better with some sort of edging. There is a decent amount of sun in that area, so first I thought impatiens, but there might be too much sun, then I thought petunias, but all the white ones I saw looked yucky. So, the area is just pine needles so far.

Today I started out my morning watering and weeding. They were calling for rain today, but the last time they said rain, we didn't really get much, just a few sprinkles and I knew my plants needed water. So, I watered and weeded. I got a lot of weeding done over by the creeping phlox, which is larger every time I look at it. I also worked on weeding out the area in front of my mulch bed, where I plan to put the lirope I will get from Bobbie.

After all that, it was time for lunch and then as it was looking like rain, I decided to run to Underwoods (as I had gotten an email saying they had all their spring plants in). I got a regular bleeding heart (mom sort of poo-pooed the one from the native plant sale) and three sedums to plant along the side of the house in the sunnier part. Just as I was leaving, the rain started. I went off to Old Time Pottery and got some more pots for the herbs (which I repotted into later in the day). Then it was raining WAY too much to go dig lirope at Bobbie's, work in the yard or much of anything else. So, after looking at plants at K-Mart (they look 3/4 dead) but they did have whiskey barrels stamped Jack Daniels. I need to get one and then figure out how to get some holes drilled in it so I can plant the Burpee herb garden.

Finally this afternoon I was able to get out and repot the herbs once the rain had stopped. Then, while dinner was cooling, I transplanted most of the Chinese Lantern seedlings into their own containers. They sat outside for about 1/2 hour and are now in for the night. I still have 3 seedlings with only 2 leaves so they stay in the starting tray for a bit longer to get a little bigger. The others will begin the hardening off process and will probably live on my front porch, where they will be protected from the dogs.

The biggest news of the day though is that the big beatyberry lives! After the little beautyberry began leafing out last week and the big guy was still totally dormant both mom and I thought he was done for. Then while I was gone, mom pruned him some more and didn't find any live wood. Today while I was watering, I did a bit more pruning and was getting dead looking wood. Then, I was looking at one branch closely and actually saw little leaf buds and saw a speck of green! I did a bit more pruning, pruning out a few smaller branches that were crossing each other and actually cut a green branch (oh well, maybe it will grow 2 branches from that spot). I am so excited!! I do still think I will have some dead wood to prune out, but that will be a task for May or something.