Exhausted

I spent today ripping out another planting bed and relocating plants. The hardy geranium with the above flower is now much less happy looking. I have a larger plant of the same species, and I used the one I moved today as an experiment. I also move a fringed bleeding heart (which did not appreciate it), three christmas ferns and my cinnamon fern. It looks like I'll be leaving the other large planting bed until the fall as the large geranium and bleeding heart will not handle being moved when out of the ground. In addition, I planted out the black raspberry plant, ripped up the red raspberry plants (have a virus), moved five other hostas, planted out my last two lupines, a rose of sharon, crested iris, and moved around the chives.

I did bother the other planting bed a little bit however by digging out the very stunted hostas that have been growing under them. Those hostas have been beaten up a lot, several years ago they got shredded by the dogs, and moved around the yard to multiple low light locations. Turns out I had 5 of them, four are in the garden in better places and the last is now in a pot. I also potted up bleeding heart seedlings. I found them a few weeks ago under the parent plant. I waited until they were large enough to handle.

All in all I'm exhausted, and still have a ridiculous amount of dirt I have to move from the old planting bed. I have one other small bed I have to rip out this year, but I'll be doing that in a few weeks when all the bulbs in it are done.

Crab Spider

I have never spotted one of these before June until this year. There it was hanging out on the blackberries on Saturday. I guess the winter was extremely mild if these guys are getting this big this fast.

Pond

Well it isn't a flower, and it isn't particularly pretty but my partially finished pond will have to do. I kept attempting to level it, but it never completely worked. It has about 3 inches of water in it and I'm mainly doing that to make sure I didn't make any holes with all the dragging the liner around I did this week. The liner will be trimmed as soon as it's full of water, then I'm picking up some patio blocks to put along the top edge to hold the liner up, hide the edge of it and hide the holes in the blocks. And yes, those plants less then one foot away will be moving yet again. The raspberries I'm declaring a lost cause and the blackberry will be moved.

Queen of Night Tulip

These were supposed to be black, but all are definitely dark maroon. I promise, not a flower tomorrow.

Easter Cactus

I picked this plant and a red flowering one up a few years ago, mine died, but the pink one I gave to my mother hung on. It picked up some yellow fungus last year and she put it out on the screen porch and ignored it. I took it in last fall and sat it on my plant table. The fungus hasn't gotten any worse, and here it is happy enough to bloom.

My good camera is still broken and I haven't made up my mind about what to do yet. The pond is about half done. The cinder blocks are in, but I need to level a few of them a bit more before I can fill the pond. I might manage to finish the yard this week, but I have shifts every day for the next six so maybe not. I also have to plant more stuff inside this week.

Striped Lilac

This was a new one on me. I've seen lilacs all the way from white, to pinks, and deep purple, but I don't remember a striped one before. I was in New York City for the weekend, and this was near Belvedere Castle in Central Park. Random info: Estimated total to repair my XSi by canon is $216. I brought it to a camera shop and they said the shutter is likely toast, light research through my image files makes me think I'm around 61,000 clicks which seems low to me.

Ahhhhh - Err 99

So my Canon Xsi with who knows how many shutter clicks now displays this error, and won't let me do anything. It makes a squeak noise when you turn it on, or attach a lens, and won't let you do anything. I've swapped batteries, swapped cards and cleaned contacts, but I expect the squeak noise means something is wrong with the lens attachment, or shutter area. Of course it did this at the New York Orchid Show and I hadn't brought my backup camera (which also is sick as the battery contacts are not always connecting.) Grrr.

Turk's Cap Lily Roots

Well, it's not pretty, but I dug up a dozen or more of them today. I also managed to drag out a stump which has been the bane of the garden for a few years, but the Turk's Cap roots were more interesting. There were three times as many as I expected, and they ranged from about 6 inches deep to right on the surface. I transplanted them to three new places about 4 inches deep, and tried to keep them a little crowded so they will hopefully bloom this year. I potted up a few of the smallest roots just so I can keep a closer eye on them. The one pictured above is one of the smaller ones and went in a pot. The garden is maybe 70% to where I want it. I still have a few plants to move, a large spirea comes to mind, and now that I have more space I need to finish the new pond.

Lady Jane

I seem to have been missing for a few days. As I didn't have any shifts this week I was using the mild weather to start fixing the garden. The pond was removed, plants temporarily in a big low pond on the driveway. I decided mid removal I wanted to reuse the original liner (new one is PVC which kind of annoys me and reeks of vinyl), and rework the new pond area larger. One of the raised planting beds was demolished and all the plants from it replanted or set out on the curb with a free sign (older large hostas I no longer had space or interest for.) I broke down the planting bed at my back door and replanted the monstrous plants from it. It's becoming a 8" deep veggie bad, and is largely complete.

I pulled out the wood that borders the veggie beds completely (rotten) and started sloping the sides a little. I emptied out the planting bed that is blocking the new pond location except for the turk's cap lily. I'm overly cautious with it, and need to just dig it up and split it a little so I have more than one. I began the new veggie planting beds, but I need more newspaper and soil, and it finally started raining, so I can take a breather.

Tulip Lady Jane

I'm eagerly anticipating these guys opening. Hopefully, early next week. For me the true test of a tulip is seeing it come back next year.

White Hyacinth - Open

They still look a tiny bit crowded, but much better now that they are fully open.

Spiders

The yard has been full have 1/2" long spiders for a few weeks now. Not many other bugs about, but the spiders are hopping everywhere you step.

White Hyacinth

These were gifted to my mother last Easter Sunday. I planted them out without separating them, so they look a bit squished, but they came back well enough. No ideas on variety. The flowers are a little smaller then they were last year, but I figure they're a success.

Hyacinth 'Woodstock'

This is the first year I've tried hyacinth. this variety 'woodstock' came up nicely, though a bit pinker then the packaging would indicate.