More flower pr0n!

My daisies and black eyed susans look like they’ll be blooming in the next week or two, as will one of the mystery plants in the box on the front deck. The sundial plants and many of the low growing plants I got for ground cover are blooming, although the plants just aren’t very photogenic.

Must be bashful.

One thing I keep forgetting to mention, is why I planted Columbine. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve known about it since I was in high school and have always been curious.

Yea! I can follow directions!

See more flower picture insanity.

Viola (Viola ‘Johnny Jump-Up’)
(more…)

Was coming back from the post office Saturday, waiting for Michael to finish up at work (he had two hours to make up–that leaving work for class thing) and drove by the WVU Greenhouse, and Lo! It was open.

I was quite pleased by my restraint. I only got five plants (or was it six?). Then there was the trip to Lowe’s, but I only bought four tiny little succulents, so that barely counts, right? (Remember this, will you? In the fall, when I’m trying to fit all these plants into my house? Remind me that they’re “four tiny little succulents” that “barely count.”)

Anyway, took several pictures yesterday, most of which didn’t turn out as nicely as I had hoped. I did get an okay picture of the begonia and one of the daylilies.

At the Greenhouse I also picked up this:

I obviously wasn’t thinking when I picked it up, since I know that I looked at the tag. I suppose it just didn’t click–my excuse is that it looks a lot like the Mexican Heather I have, and everything there was annuals, perennials, and houseplants.

What I picked up is a Chinese Elm. (Elm should have been the give away. Like I said, I don’t know what I was thinking.)

So now I don’t know what to do. I have, apparently, a good tree for bonsai, but I know nothing about bonsai, and I’m not sure I have the patience for it. I suppose that I could just keep it root bound, which will keep the size small, but jeesh.

Anyone have any suggestions? The leaves are really quite lovely.

We’ve been doing quite a bit of gardening recently. I’d tell you all about the new plants I’ve gotten, except that I’m more than a little embarrassed by my lack of botanical control. My downfall is that we keep needed to make trips to Lowe’s. And Lowe’s has all these perennials for $2.77, which is Quite A Deal! I mean, that’s not even three dollars! Great deal! Except, of course, for the fact that when you buy ten of ‘em, it’s thirty bucks.

However, in my defense, they’re almost entirely perennials, which means that they’ll be back next year. So I can think of it as an investment in the house. Yeah!

Of course we’ve been doing other stuff outside. Since the neighbors finally repaired the year where last year they drove heavy machinery through and made a huge mess that involved all my topsoil being buried and replaced with what was underneath, which is clay, since this was repaired, we decided it was time to do something with all the blocks that never became a parking spot (don’t ask). So we now have a small retaining wall along the corner of the house, which in theory levels out that corner of the yard a bit, but in reality was created solely to do something with the blocks.

Since the blocks were moved, I decided that the flagstones back there would make a nice path along the back of the house, so we pulled ‘em up and made a walk from along the back of the house. Now I don’t have to tromp on the grass to water all the perennials I just planted back there. And that, of course, meant that we had to seed the area where the flagstones had been. So now, instead of a pile ‘o junk, we’re going to have a nice section of grass, which I will then proceed to tear up to make room for more plants.

But that’s all in the future.

Plus I transplanted some plants, which gives me the satisfaction of planting things, without all the expense. What I really need are a whole bunch of gardener friends, with different plants than I have, so I can take cuttings and bulbs that they’ve thinned out, and it won’t cost me anything—except the price of potting soil. Which reminds me, some of my day lilies will need divided this fall, if anyone is interested. Also, I have a spider plant that is actually at least two separate plants, that is too heavy for it’s hanging basket, so if someone is interested, I could divide it (and then in theory hang it up again.)

The problem, however with all this gardening and work outside the house, is that I’m actually getting some sun, despite the fact that I use SPF 45 sunscreen (you think I’m joking? You can only have so many relatives develop cancer before you Take A Hint and start to do something about all your bad habits). Normally my coloring is quite pale, perhaps even pasty, with a slight touch of ‘undead’ thrown in, just for fun. But I’ve been outside so much this spring that I’m starting to get the slightest hint of color to my skin. That means, of course, that all my scars are starting to stand out.

No, I wasn’t in some horrible accident where I was lucky to walk away, these are just the accumulation of a lifetime of being really damn clumsy: the scar on my forehead where I ran into a house with my face, the other scar on my forehead where I passed out in an elevator after donating blood, the myriad of scars on my hands from glasses shattering as I wash them, or knives closing on my fingers, burns because I thought a hot pad was Good Enough (I now own two super thick hot mitts that come up past my wrists) or because I spilled boiling water. All the stuff that doesn’t amount to anything at the time, but starts to add up over a lifetime. And since I’ve been outside during daylight hours, my scars are starting to become more visible, which is leading me to wonder how it is that clumsiness as a genetic trait wasn’t weeded out millennia ago.

Of course I know the answer to my own question. Other than post-blood donation passing out that required 12 stitches (after the ambulance trip to the hospital and the MRI, it was the least they could do), none of my accidents have required anything much more than a cursory treatment involving aloe and a band aid. So I apparently have a low level sort of clumsiness that allows me to stumble through life doing continual, minimal damage.

I read or heard a claim that clumsiness is just a lack of concentration. That people are not inherently clumsy, just aren’t paying enough attention. I can’t remember precisely who said that, I just remember thinking that I hoped they died the death of a thousand paper cuts.

…Drop another coin in the slot and I will tell you more.

Yeah, we wanted to buy new air conditioning this summer.

Definitely high up on our list of things to do.

Bah.

(Bonus points to anyone who knows where the title came from)

Are giving me lovely flowers.

You can check out what is blooming right now in my garden.

In addition to my climbing rose and lemon lillies, I also have flowers on my yellow minature rose, the violet, and the day lilies along the front of the house are almost ready to bloom. The holly plants have put out scads of new leaves, and the hydrangea and hibiscus, which I had feared were dead, are doing quite well.

It’s kinda hard to be depressed when surrounded by all this growth and all these flowers.

I’ve been busy. But a different kind of busy from studying.

We went to my cousin Eric’s graduation. It was lovely to see everyone, even if it was just for a short time.

Then we came home and did a lot of work on the house. We painted the front porch (and are now the proud owners of a paint sprayer–there was no way were going to paint the latice by hand), and the window frames (this involved ladder climbing and contortionism to paint around the awnings). And of course I did a small amount of gardening: I purchased another astilbe for the shade along the side of the house, and another Calibrachoa–this one purple–for a hanging basket. All in all I’m pretty pleased with the way things look. I’ll have more pictures of the plants as I straighten and mulch.

As I plants and flowers are ony my mind for some odd reason, I particulary noticed a piece of jewelry (I suppose) when I went to the breast cancer site. It was a gold rose, and, in my opinion, it was rather unattractive.

At least it had nothing on the real thing. Which reminded me of the following Japanese folktale:

Jade Leaves
In the land of Sung there was a man who fashioned jade into wild mulberry leaves for his lord. The leaves, which took three years to complete, were so perfectly proportioned in stalk and stem, so magnificently realized in the minutest detail, that they could not be told apart when mixed among living leaves. The state supported this craftsman for his skill.

Lieh Tzu objected, “What if heaven and earth needed three years to create a leaf? There wouldn’t be many trees. Surely the sage counts on the fruitfulness of nature rather than the ingenuity of man.”

(from Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies by Moss Roberts.

I shouldn’t be allowed near garden centers without a chaperone.

Went to WVU Greenhouse plant sale, and then went to Lowe’s “just to get some mulch.” Ha.

My new plants include:
Gerbera Daisy, orange (Gerbera jamesonii) for the porch to replace the one that died.
Calibrachoa (Million Bells) for a hanging planter. (I love these flowers.)

Along the driveway in the sun:
Lavender (Lavandula x intermedia) in the hopes these won’t die.
Lemon Thyme (Thymus x citridorus) just because it smells so nice.
Russian Sage (Perovskia atriplocifolia) because the leaves were pretty.
Daylily (Hemerocallis ‘Wineberry Candy’) can you have too many daylilies?
Coleus (Solenostemon scutellarioides) because Michael wanted some.

Along the driveway in the shade:
Viola (Viola ‘Johnny Jump-Up’) pink purple and orange flowers for the shade side of the driveway.
Baby’s Breath (Gypsophilia paniculata ‘White Festival’) because it’s shade tolerant.
Astilbe (Astilbe x arendsii ‘Rheinland’) because Kim suggested it as a good shade plant.
Bellflower (Campanula carpatica ‘White Clips’) because it’s shade tolerant.

Heliotrope (Heliotropium) along the front of the house where the Jasmine died.
Verbena (Verbena) for along the front of the house, just to add something else.
And another rose. A shrub rose. For no reason other than I put so many other plants back, I left this one in the cart.

I did NOT buy a small Japanese Maple (because it was part sun), another lilac, a second astilbe, oregano, or rosemary, although all these were, at some point, in my cart. I think there were some other flowers that jumped in and out of the cart as well, but I can’t remember precisely what they were.

Oh yeah, I ended up going back to get more mulch. We bought six bags of mulch all told. But we did have to put a good deal of mulch down along the front of the house, both to hide the soaker hose, and because it tends to be rather dry there.

But all my new gardening gloves are very nice. I didn’t feel the constant need to run inside and wash my hands, which is a definite bonus. (In my defense, I have to say that I have developed allergies to latex, fragrance, random chemicals, so if I’m not careful, I end up with itchy blisters on my fingers. Which is no good.)

The good news is that gardening is good exercise, so I can look at this as my alternative to a gym membership.

Got this in my mail yesterday:

3) PLANT SALE UNDER WAY AT GREENHOUSE
As gardening season kicks into high gear, WVU’s Plant and Soil Sciences Greenhouse is preparing for its annual spring plant sale. The sale will start with special hours from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, May 1. Regular sale hours will be 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, beginning Monday, May 3. The Greenhouse is located on WVU’s Evansdale Campus across from the Agricultural Sciences Building. “We have a good selection of vegetables, herbs, and annual and perennial flowers,” said Brooke Hart, a horticulture student who is helping to organize this year’s sale. The Greenhouse is a multipurpose facility of WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences, supporting teaching, research and service programs of the College.

So if you’re going to be in town this weekend, check out the WVU plant sale!

I’ll be looking for some plants to replace the lavendar that died over the winter, some sort of shade plant to put on the other side of the driveway, and perhaps some flowers to put into the shrub border, while my shurbs are still small and insignificant.

I also see a mulch buying trip in my near future.

Done! Final is over. Wasn’t too bad really. Six short answer, one short essay, one long essay. My only fear is that I didn’t answer the long essay in the way he wanted–it sort of turned into a rant against society’s unwillingness to care for the poor and elderly. But he lilkes that, so I may be okay.

At least I hope.

While we were in Akron, more flowers bloomed, so you can see some of my new flowers if you like. I also have pictures of the awning for the kitchen door, although I have not yet taken pictures of the new light and the trim. Later.