garden update #10

Not a ton going on garden-wise since my last garden update... some of the seedlings have died, and more are dying... not having very good luck.  But then I had grand ideas of having too many plants to know what to do with because I was convinced that every single one of the seeds I planted was going to sprout! Ha! Not exactly...

Not much going on, but I sure have a lot of pictures here! Enjoy! :)

May 15th:
In one corner of my backyard, there's a bunch of Lillies of the Valley growing under a big ugly blue spruce.  They don't like it under there.  The sap gets all over the leaves and you can never see the flowers, (it's like the leaves are protecting them from the sap) so I picked a bunch of them.  Most of them actually.  There's also wild raspberries growing in the middle of the flowers, so I was on my hands and knees and sometimes my belly, getting attacked by the raspberry vines, and this is what I got:

You wouldn't believe how STINKY a small bouquet of these stinkers are!  Didn't realize it until after I brought them in the house... they spent the next afternoon outside...

This image available on fineartamerica.com

May 16th:
I took on my "Strawberry patch" today.... I weeded and expanded it, hopefully it helps them out a bit... There are already a few that are starting to look like strawberries!

May 17th:
This was the one busy day... and on no sleep!

First, a trip to Lowe's with my sister.  I wanted to get some protective netting for the strawberries.  I ended up with pink dahlias for my mom, and some more perennials.  I've decided that since I've kinda been having bad luck with some of the seeds, that I need to plant perennials, because it's cheaper in the long run!

These are pretty cool.  I had never seen or heard of them before.  They're both ground covers...
I liked the bright blue flowers on this one, and the kinda fuzzy leaves.  This is a pretty close up shot of the flowers, but they're really small- about the size of a dime, if that.
It's called Grace Ward Lithodora:

THIS one, is crazy.  The flowers are okay.  But the coolest part of this one is the "leaves".  They're squishy and rubbery, and according to my sister, feels like a lizard tongue... haha.
It's called Starburst Ice Plant.  If you see one, you gotta feel it! haha

We left Lowe's and stopped at the cemetery to plant the dahlias, and took home the pansies that were still doing okay... I planted those by the shed after digging up at least 100 of those crazy rogue morning glories.  (I'm going to give some to my neighbor, and I still have tons more if anyone's interested!)

Then, I started digging up the front yard. Got one side of the steps done:

Even though some of the seedlings aren't doing so hot, the rest are doing pretty well!
The Columbine finally sprouted the other day:

And the Chinese Lanterns sprouted a few days before that:

The Black-eyed Susan vines are doing pretty well:

And here's the pink Cypress vine sprout from a couple weeks ago.  I'm glad they're finally doing something because I really want to see what they turn out like.

A couple weeks ago I planted the California Poppies since they were getting kinda straggly looking- I didn't know what else to do for them to give them more space.  However, a couple of them were casualties of the cat attack, and I'm sure just plain old not surviving.  Some are okay:

I planted a few pots with some morning glories- one with some marigolds, one with some dianthus, one with some fuzzy blueish/purple puffball flowers that I don't know the name of... all complete with trellis-type contraptions:

The wild roses have some buds!  I can't take credit for these though- I had nothing to do with planting them, and they do what they want!  But, I'm glad that the yard is starting to get some more color, especially since it was so gray and yucky today!

And finally, I leave you with a cheesy daisy photo!  Complete with water drops! :)

This image available on fineartamerica.com

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