Memorial Weekend Busy

Happy Memorial Day to all of you!

This past weekend we've been very busy in the yard. Let me show you.

New Plants

 Here are some new plants that I bought last weekend at the Cypress Gardens plant sale. Foreground, left - there are 4 small clusters of Coreopsis. It is different from the other stuff I have. Foreground, middle - relocated yarrow from another part of my yard. There are 5 clusters of those in a row. Back row, left and right of the tall plant - two purple daylilies. Back row, middle - the tall plant is rose mallow. The neighbor lady gave one to me and this is one of the babies. She calls it a cottonbush because of the seed pods looking like the cotton plant pods. This one sports red and pink flowers.

Cottonbush - Last Year

50' French Drain

 We did this, and...

30' French Drain

 this, and...

New Dead Flower Garden

 this. We did this all on Memorial Day. Maybe I should call it Labor Day.

Willow Tree Garden

We've cleared out the willow tree garden. We took down the chain link fencing we had behind it. When/if grass grows under there, we'll be able to mow it. Joe Pye weed to the left. Bird bath to the right. There is a little piece of pottery in the foreground. That is where a really cool salamander lives.  I don't know what it is called, but it's pink and black and really cute. I'll be marking the area so we don't run over it with the lawn mower.

Take care. I hope you had a great weekend!

Yard Ornaments and Dead Flowers

I scored a few cute yard ornaments from a few different places.

Dollar Tree Stuff

 I got these cute flowers and garden posts at Dollar Tree. I got 2 sets. One set for my walkway and the other set for my chicken coop. I got a little outdoor decor for just $4! Yay!

Bird Tower

 I call this my bird tower. It was a throwaway at the swap shop. I got this and...

Plant Stand with Dead Flowers

this plant stand there. I love finding things I can use in my garden. This is my year to add cute stuff to my flower beds. The lady next door always has cute stuff. It's my turn. Oh! The dead flowers aren't really dead. They came off the discount rack at Lowe's. I jammed some Angelonia, Dianthus and Calibrachoa, that small trailing stuff in front. My baskets never look this good. I'm blessed this year.

More Dead Flowers

Not really...Lowe's again. I have Agastache, Arizona Sunset in back and more Calibrachoa in the front. The stringy-leaved plants in the back row are Red Hot Poker. They've been there for about 4 years, now. The Agastache has a peppermint smell to it. The wording in Spanish kind of tells me why "Anis hisepo Arizona Sunset". An anisette hyssop. This is a perennial, so I'm looking forward to this for many years to come.

I also planted some dead flowers in the flower bed in our driveway. Vinca and Verbena. They are starting to take off after a plague of snails hit them. Sevin dusted them. Yep. Snails gone.

A friend of mine 'rescues' plants from the dead plant carts in Lowe's. That's a good way to put it. You give a home and some TLC to these little guys, then you get a payoff of lovely flowers. It's rewarding and very easy on the pocketbook. I like how she thinks.

Take care. Happy planting!

Babies!!!

No, I wasn't pregnant. No, my dog didn't have pups.

We had baby chicks!

Days Old Baby Chicks

Week Old Baby Chicks

Feathering Out at 3 Weeks

What did we do to deserve this?!

Peek!

Aren't they adorable? One of our hens, Betty, wouldn't give up setting no matter how many times we picked the eggs out and shooed her away from the nest. Ok. We let her set after the weather became more agreeable. We got 10 eggs under her and marked them all with a pencil. We did that for a very good reason. Last time we had a setter, the other hens used to lay eggs on top of the setter and she'd gather them under her. We marked in pencil so the eggs would remain viable. If we would have used a marker, the ink may have poisoned the chicks. Of all 10 eggs, we had 7 hatch. 2 were rotten and we composted them. One got eaten by a snake. I got the snake.

After about 4 or 5 weeks, we had to set them outside with a light and lots of straw to keep them warm. Why, you ask? They escaped. They were trying out their wings, got to the top of the feeder and waterer, then jumped out. Roadrunner and Gabby did. Pooped everywhere. Hubby chased Gabby and she kept on pooping. I came home and cleaned and did soiled bed clothes. Hubby was wore out.

This was our baby pen when we got some chicks from Tractor Supply. These little guys and gals (don't know which are which yet) just love being out there. They are hilarious to watch. It's hilarious to watch the big birds watching the little birds in the cage next door. If you look behind the baby cage, you'll see the red coop and run.

They are Americauna barnyard chicks.

Take care. I wish you all the best!

Some Things Growing

Here are some of the things growing in my garden.

Japanese Snowball Bush

 Isn't this spectacular? I've had it for about 4 years and it just gets more beautiful every year.This blooms in early spring. The show is over now.

Weeping Holly

 I've had this about 10 years, now. It has really grown a lot. In the spring, I trim out as much dead branches and stalks as I can. This gets little white flowers on them which the bees really love. Then those flowers turn to berries which feed the birds in the winter. You can see some of the berries still on there.

Strawberries!

Our strawberry garden did well for the first bearing. We shared a lot with the squirrels, rabbits, birds and slugs. (grumble, grumble) We are looking forward to the next bearing in June. The second bearing always gives really nice berries on stems that do not lay on the ground.

Take care.

It's Been a While...

Once again, it's been a while since I've blogged. Sorry about that. There is an update I'd like to share with you. Remember when I posted about our Hardie board rotting? That was a post in November 10, 2013. Well, here's proof it was Hardie board that rotted.

Hardie Board Tags from Back of Fascia

Yes...we were slow in replacing the front. We did it a couple of months ago when we didn't have rain. Anyhow, all of the fascia that was rotten has been replaced with wolmanized board and vinyl sheeting. It didn't take all that long to do since we figured out the back side of the house with our trials and errors. The front went rather well and quickly.

Like I said before, we have never had problems with Hardie board before. We used items from the Jedburg, SC plant and that stuff is going strong! Too bad they closed the plant in Jedburg. They must not have figured out a good recipe for the stuff at the other plants. I won't be buying any more of the Hardie board in the future. Nope.

A word of wisdom to those of you who have to have the newest item...do your research! Wait until it has been proven that the item will work! Not only will you be sure you have a good item that you spent your hard-earned cash on, but you'll probably pay a lot less for it when it isn't such a hot commodity.

Take care. Best wishes to you all.

Birthday at Work

We have birthday celebrations at work. I love to bake for them. A little while ago, I made this beauty.

Fruit Pizza

I forget who it was for, but it was for a production worker in the plant. He liked cheesecake and fruit. So I decided to do a fruit pizza. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com. It was a recipe with a 4 or 5 star rating. Great choice! Everyone liked it. I have 9 birthdays this month. I just may use this recipe again.

Take care.

Spring Flowers

Here are some of the flowers we had in our garden this spring. Here's another reason we were so busy.


Narcissus. As you can see, we have a lot of them. They just keep multiplying like crazy! I don't mind. When these come up, I know it's spring.

Narcissus

 Violas. Violas are planted in the Winter time, here. I thought people were nuts when I saw these in the Winter season. They take the frost and look dead. By noon, you'd never know they looked so bad. These even survived an ice storm! They are very forgiving of cold weather. As you see by the date tag, they were still going strong in mid-April. They don't usually last that long.

Violas

 Japanese Snowball Bush. This is a plant that I really love. It is beautiful in the Spring. Summer, Fall and Winter...so, so. It just looks like a regular bush. However, the leaves are serrated, deeply creviced and leathery. I can appreciate the leaves without the snowballs.

Japanese Snowball Bush

 Heirloom Rose. I forget the name of this one. I moved all of my roses out of a corner of the front yard that was being overtaken by poison ivy. This year was really a good year for this one. It must've needed a change of venue, more sun and new soil.

Heirloom Rose

 Mimosa. Here is my Mimosa tree in full bloom. Lovely, isn't it?

Mimosa with Daylilies

 Here's a close-up of the Mimosa flowers and leaves. It looks really delicate, but it takes a beating with our weather. The tree is getting a really nice canopy and is casting shade in the yard.

Mimosa Flowers

Here is a peach daylily that I purchased from one of those sales that pop-up in a field from time to time. I think I paid $3 for the pot a bunch of years ago. I've since divided it. I'll need to divide again. The other leaves surrounding it are from miniature yellow daylilies. Those will get divided this coming Spring, too.

Peach Daylily

 My garden by the back deck and parking lot. Foreground is a hybrid yarrow. It did really well this year, as you see. I have more patches around the yard. Lantana is the little pink flowers behind that. The lantana has since overtaken this whole area and the Yarrow died back a bit. Both of these flowers are really good for our climate. They take the heat and not much water. Butterflies, hummingbirds and hummingbird moths are really loving this right now. An Italian cypress is the bush behind. It is about 20 feet tall and 4 foot in diameter. Another climate forgiving plant for us.

Lantana and Yarrow

 Confederate Jasmine. This is a sickeningly sweet smelling vine. If the air is still and humid, you get a really big whiff of the fragrance as you pass by or sit nearby. It has a really pretty star-shaped flower and is very hardy. I have to cut it back every year otherwise it will grow into the willow tree to the left. It is doing just that, right now.

Confederate Jasmine

 One of my Frankenstein plants. This is a Rose Mallow, which is a member of the hibiscus family. It is also known as a Cottonbush because of the seedpods it makes after the flowers die and fall off. This will bloom clear into December, sometimes. The flowers last only one day. This plant started from seed and I put it where another Cottonbush died off. This year I noticed that it has red and pink flowers coming from the same plant, which is why I call it my Frankenstein plant. I love seeing plants sport like this. Two other Cottonbushes I have, which came from seed, have pink flowers only. Those are gorgeous, too.

Rose Mallow Sport

Now you have seen a bit of the flowers that I love to collect and grow.

Take care.