planting with Jordan

Today I spent the morning running around still trying to figure out what I am doing. I did finally get a whiskey barrel at K-Mart, but they were out of the string trimmer I wanted. I did get some grass shears and ended up using them quite a bit this evening (I probably have a raking job in my future). The little Chinese lantern seedings spent the day outside. A bunch of them are still really weak and floppy. I am hoping that moving outside pretty much will give them more light and they will survive.

This morning I did a little cutting on the small beautyberry, trying to get rid of a few of the small branches that cross each other, and I did hit green wood. So, the plant is still alive, which is great news. I just hope it starts to leaf out again soon. The rose of Sharon is already leafing out again. I cut the frost damage off the camellias and the small pieris. I also removed all the dead flowers from the azaleas. They were really stuck to the leaves, especially pink ruffles, and I accidentally pulled off some leaves while trying to get the dead flowers off.

I found my pot of zinna seeds dumped over this afternoon, but as I was scooping soil back in, I found some sprouted seeds and basically replanted them. This evening while we were eating dinner in the gazebo (finally!) I saw that the pot had been dumped again. I am going to move it to a different location and get another pack of seeds and start over. The basil, marjoram, chamomile and tarragon seeds I planted have all sprouted now, a few days ago in fact. I think I might make up a few more pots of basil and just keep them outside and only move them in if it rains.

I did get my big terra cotta herb pot potted up today. I had seen golden oregano at the farmer's market earlier this week and thought it would be perfect with lemon thyme and lemon sage, plus the curly parsley. I was pretty shocked that when I went to the farmer's market today they actually had all three herbs I was looking for (my luck is that there is always ONE item I am looking for that the store is out of). We also went to Garden Treasury today where I got 2 coleus and a perilla. I got a third coleus, that we have liked in the past, at the farmers market as well and the three coleus went into a plastic pot from K-Mart today. I also got a smaller matching pot that I moved the begonia into . This let me add the creeping Jenny in where the begonia had been living, and that pot looks a lot better now. The saleslady at Garden Treasury said to pinch back the big coleus, and we even examined where, so I did that when I got home and stuck pieces into potting soil hoping they will root. I also got another 6 pack of colues and when I was taking that out of the car, I broke the top clean off one. So, the actually little plant went in water to try to re-root and the roots went into a slightly bigger pot to see if they will grow a new plant. I still have 5 more anyway.

Jordan kept wanting to help me pot stuff up, but he also wanted to smash the potting soil down. I told him he could have 3 impatiens and the two old coleus left in a 6 pack that weathered the freeze inside, plus all the left over daylilies. His mom didn't believe him that I was giving them to him, so I had to tell her myself, but she never came out to see us. We got the daylilies planted up by the road and the impatiens and coleus on the side of their house near a hosta. There were actually lots of little daylily pieces left and they seemed to be in good shape. I hope both our daylilies make it, as that will be quite pretty along the road.

I finished out the day hand cutting the tall fescue patches. The yard looks much better, but I think I will need to rake it tomorrow. We still haven't gotten the brackets for the hanging baskets installed, maybe tomorrow or Sunday. I am also going to try out the drill on the whiskey barrel. My plan is to try to get it planted on Sunday.

I also decided to finally take a chance on planting the million bells I have been trying to root. I'm not sure they are rooting, but they were making new leaves and blooming in the water, so I planted both of them today. I really don't know if they had roots, so I am not too hopeful that they will survive. Meanwhile, the parent plant was looking dried out it its rootball area today in its pot, so I tried to give it some intensive water and may have managed to break off a piece of it by accident. ARGHHH... pretty but apparently very fragile. At least it seems to really like being cut back and repsonds with a bunch of little branches. When I was getting the one million bell piece out, I saw the chocolate mint leaves my mom had stuck in there (I had actually left them for her coffee, she thought I wanted them rooted). The big leaf had turned a bit black on the edge, so I decided to chuck it. Well, when I pulled it out of the water, it had MAJOR roots. So, into a pot it went and hopefully I will have some new growth soon and then I will have a plant to give away to someone. I was so emboldend by this that I went out and took cuttings of Mint Julip and Spearmint and stuck them in water. If they root I will give them to Bobbie.