With lots of rain, the garden is blooming like mad. The most ridiculous plant is Michael’s Stargazer Lily. I don’t particularly like Asiatic lilies–I don’t like they way they’re so top heavy and require support–but Michael really likes them, so I have several.

Michael is 5′ 10″ if that gives you some perspective of how tall this plant has grown.

Here you can see the whole plant, and you might also notice that Michael didn’t get the supports up fast enough, so there is an “S” curve in the lower part of the stem. So theoretically this should be even taller.

Which is nuts.

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For some reason, I haven’t been able to get many good pictures of the flowers currently in bloom.

Part of that is because it’s been raining so much, but another part is that masses of flowers seem harder for me to photograph than a single flower.

Ah well.

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At some point, I’m going to put together some before and after pictures of the yard/gardens. Just so you can see how sad and barren and pathetic the place was when we moved in.

For now, however, here is how my garden has progressed since early spring.

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I’ll be gone most of the weekend. Here’s some clematis flower pr0n to entertain you momentarily.

Otherwise, make yourself at home.

No chocolate cookies, sorry. It’s been too hot to bake. But Michael has Linenkugel’s, Killian’s, and Blue Moon in the fridge.

I take lots of pictures, but I tend to ignore my favorite plant on our property.

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Nothing like a lazy Saturday.

First, we sen Grandmom off for a week. There’s a wedding in Baltimore, and then she’ll spend some time with my cousin Liz before she graduates. (Our plan is to go up for Liz’s graduation, which is a Thursday afternoon, stupidly, then back for her graduation/birthday party on Saturday.)

Then I took a four hour nap on the sofa. So no, I’m not over the flu yet. Humph. But I am feeling better.

Especially after that four hour nap.

The I woke up, got the mail, and had a postcard from Anne! YIPPEE! I LOVE GETTING MAIL! WHEEEEEE! Very pretty postcard too! Once I get off the sofa I’ll put it on the refrigerator with all the other postcards. YAY ANNE!

But I did get some new flower pr0n. I completely missed the blooming of the peonies while I was sick. Now the scarlet petals litter the ground after the storms earlier this week beat everything to the ground. And my chives! My chives are a mess!

But other things are blooming, and when I sat out on the deck this morning, the wind was blowing, and I could smell flowers.

It almost made up for the constant traffic.

So here’s some more flower pr0n under the cut.
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Spent a good deal of time gardening this long weekend.

Biggest bloomers right now are the broom and the irises.

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What could it be?!

Oh, well, it seems to be going away, so I guess we’re safe for now.

Meanwhile, I took advantage of the break in the rain to get some flower pr0n.

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New flower pr0n!

The broom, which I adore, had about three flowers on it today. I figure by the weekend it should be gorgeous; I can’t wait!

If you’ve never seen a broom in bloom before, it is a thing to behold. It has lots of long stems, and up and down the plant the stems are covered in scarlet flowers with a yellow heart. When it’s in full bloom it’s one of the most beautify plants I have.

So what have I been doing for the past day?

Well, yesterday it poured rain in the morning, so I washed the curtains. As I’ve made (almost) all the curtains in the house, I know they’re safe to be washed, so other than the ironing (the price I pay for using 100% cotton) it was relatively painless.

The, the weather cleared and Michael and I mulched some of the flower beds. We went through four bags of mulch and barely touched the beds at the bottom of the hill.

Then I rushed inside to make pizza, because at around 8:30, my grandmother had a surprise visit from my aunt and uncle.

That was the best part of the day. Since it was a surprise, we didn’t hold dinner, but the pizza was still warm when they got here, and I made oreos for dessert, and then we talked and played dominoes until midnight.

Pretty awesome day.

And no flower pr0n, because it’s raining again. Which is why I ended up falling asleep on the sofa instead of doing anything today.

I’ve got a big project at work, and need to thoroughly clean the house when I get home.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Meanwhile, this is the wallpaper on one of my monitors at work. (It displaced Batman’s Tumbler.)

Here’s the first flower pr0n for May.

Shocking as it seems, I already have a day lily blooming.

Got some gardening in this morning, including giving the front and side areas a good watering.

Which is why it’s pouring down rain right now.

Regardless, I got some more flower pr0n. I can’t seem to get a good picture of the white bleeding heart, and several other pictures turned out spectacularly crappy, but I got a couple of nice pictures. I particularly like the purple gem rhododendron, which actually looks rather crappy as a whole plant right now, but the flowers are beautiful–a really gorgeous shade of purple that would be overwhelming anywhere but on a plant.

I’m still stunned by how good everything looks right now, and how many plants are budding or getting ready to flower. It looks like I’m going to have day lilies blooming in early May, which is almost unbelievable. But I’ll enjoy them anyway!

Came home today to find the remains of a plant orgy all over the front yard. There’s been pollen all over the car every morning for the past week.

But you know what? These are things I can most definitely live with.

Also, two new flower pr0n pictures. The camera ate the bleeding heart pictures, and it was getting to dark to get a good picture of anything else, but you can see how the front garden is progressing.

And that’s very well. I’ve already got buds on the columbine and one of the daylilies. The lilac is going to start blooming any time now, the bluebell I planted last fall is blooming, and the lily of the valley is budding. (I adore the flowers on the lily of the valley. They’re so white and delicate they look like porcelain to me.)

I just didn’t have anything much to say, other than gratuitously insulting Nathan.

Blue & Gold game is tomorrow (if you click on the link, please notice that all profits benefit the Children’s Hospital), so we did the shopping tonight, because this side of town gets a little messy when there is football–of any sort–over the hill.

The good part, is that I may be able to get a little gardening in before it rains. (Insert long discussion about compost here.)

New flower pr0n, including my spring barren front garden, and a truly frightening mutant daffodil. (I kid you not, these daffodils frighten me.)

Looks like I’ve made it through today without breaking anyt

Things I considered doing with our tax rebate check:

1) Get the house resided
2) Replace the sofa
3) Get Michael a new computer
4) Upgrade our cell phones

Things I was not planning on doing with our tax rebate check:
Repair or replace the wood stove.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I–your gracious host–managed to break the wood stove this morning. It absolutely cannot be used until it is repaired or replaced, and considering the shape it’s in, replace makes a lot more sense than repair.

What did I do? It had four heavy glass panels on the front lining the two doors that open to allow you to put in wood. It was a pretty stupid set-up, actually, but as the wood stove only cost us $50, we weren’t complaining. As you may have guessed, I shattered one of those panels this morning.

Bah humbug.

Is this:

Daisy (not her real name) plopped down and stretched out.

“Really,” she said, “it’s just a job. I got tired of givin’ it away for free, y’know? They’re always buzzing in and out, and it’s always take, take take. Well I’ve had it with all that bullshit. I decided that this time I’d get something back. I’ve already got a bit stashed away as you can see, so I figure I’m gonna spend the entire summer relaxing. Eat, drink and be merry and all that.”

“No, I’m not worried about anything. My mum’s long gone–don’t even know where she is anymore, so who cares? Yeah, I’ll probably end up with kids, but isn’t that what all the girls want? Really? They may protest, but you see ‘em standing there, so proud, with their offspring crowded around them, but you know they’re going to come to no better end than than their mother–and will she be looking on as proudly then?”

“Hey, it’s a short brutal life–we’re living on the edge and have to take what we can get. I have no apologies for my life. You don’t like it, then just turn your eyes when you walk on by.”

Based upon this from S. (Go ahead, it’s safe. I promise.)

S made some crocus pr0n for me!

I just KNEW flowers were all flaunting their naughty bits for something other than the birds and the bees!

So I’ve been vindicated!

Not only are flowers pretty and pleasant smelling, but they may also boost your mood!

So I have been justified in buying flowers all winter long! And in all the time and money I spend for my garden! Yippee!

Now if only my flowers were ready to bloom…

To celebrate spring (since it’s not actually, you know, springlike here in WV) I made a new header image for the blog.

Now since I simply added this new image to the random rotation, it may be awhile before you see it. But when you see the purple crocus header? That’s the one I made for today. It would have a much faster experience, except that I decided to use Photoshop to do the image, so I could learn more about the program, it spent half an hour figuring out how to replicate a filter I use all the time in Corel PhotoPaint (I believe there has to be an easier way. But at least I got what I wanted.)

And I think it’s time I added more new header images here, as well as new splash images for my main page.

Happy Spring Equinox!

Go smell a flower!

ADDENDUM the First:
I should not, apparently, have pre-posted this.

No flowers here. Just 36 degree temperatures and wool coats. And temperatures in the 40s for the foreseeable future!

Oh yeah! How could I forget? It’s spring break in Morgantown! Maybe we’ll get lucky and won’t have a snow emergency this year.

Until the three day weekend.

I can’t wait. I am going to sleep in as much as I can (which I can’t really do that much, since my grandmother refuses to leave her room until we’re up.) and take naps, and relax.

Considering the projected high for the weekend is 51, and that’s on Friday when it’s supposed to be raining (snow projected on Saturday) I don’t think I’ll be doing any gardening.

But I’m still waiting on flower pr0n from S.

Well, most of today was super. Except for the bit with the chimney fire. But OTHER than that, today was super.

Slept in (well, slept in as much as I can, knowing that Grandmom won’t leave her bedroom until we’re up, because she “doesn’t want to disturb” us.)

But more importantly spent several hours getting the garden ready for spring, which involved raking up all the leaves we’d covered the beds with, which showed that a lot of bulbs are starting to come up, and even the day lilies are starting to sprout. Also uncovered my herb garden, and was very pleased to discover that the rosemary seems to have survived the winter. So it looks like being close to the house and covered with leaves allowed it to survive in a zone colder than it normal can take.

I also see that several plants I put in last year seem to have survived the winter, but I’ll have to wait a bit more to see if others survived (including the foxglove). All in all, I’ve got a fair amount of variety right now, so the only planting I really need to do any more is fill in spaces where the occasional plant didn’t survive the winter.

Least pleasant was cleaning out the flower beds on the side of the house with the bearded irises. The greenery never quite dies back (especially when bedded down with leaves) so the beds are a nasty mess to clean up. And I can’t do a whole sale cutting back, because I’ve got spring bulbs coming up. But really, if that’s the worse I have to deal with, I’ve got nothing to complain about.

And I trimmed back most of what I’d left for “winter interest” including the dead heads and stems of the black eyed susans and purple cone flowers. So Although things look extremely bare right now, I see the bones of my garden starting to come back, and that always makes me feel good. And I thinned out the lavender. I felt like I should be doing something with all the stems I was cutting back, but into the compost they went.

We also went to Lowes, where I picked up some seeds. I’m going to try–for the umpteenth year in a row–to grow sunflowers. We’ll see how it works this year. The problem is we don’t have much full sun space (that’s an understatement) so plants like sunflowers and tea roses don’t tend to thrive. Which is too bad, because sun flowers provide food for birds (food other than what we supply in our multiple bird feeders) and because I love the smell of roses. Of course tea roses are no the most environmentally friendly flowers out there. So I should be happy that my rose bushes are thriving. But they just don’t smell the same.

So even though right now my garden looks bare and sad, I can start to picture how things are going to look, and in a month I can start bringing plants outside, and deciding what I want to put in planters on the deck.

It’s always nice to have something to look forward to.