With the winter clean up and spring pruning done, it is planting time in the garden.
Tom had a greenhouse full of his geranium cuttings, and tomato and flower seedlings, plus tender plants being wintered over. Now the greenhouse is almost empty.
The geranium cuttings have been grown on into plants that have been potted and placed for the summer.
Tom collects fancy leaf geraniums (pelargoniums) and wants at least one big pot of each variety to display. These will stay in a bright spot in front of the gate, where the golden hop is in training to soon shoot up the wire trellis and cover the gate. We took four pots to our friend who just moved into senior housing and can have pots on her balcony.
The big pots, on the right below, are going to the Whidbey cabin deck. The rest, still in nursery pots, will be given away.
Some are along the front steps.
Others are on the front porch.
The tender echeverias grown on from pups from last year's plants are now planted along the front walk.
The rest of the tender plants have taken their places in the display on the patio. All of the pots have been cleaned up and refreshed, mostly with starts out of our greenhouse.
You may remember this little wire rack, that was Tom's impulse buy at the NW Flower and Garden Show in February, and the ceramic pots we bought for it in March.
We have contemplated what we would do with it, and last week we finalized the plan and put it into place.
I had to find just the right metal arbor, not too heavy, not too big or small, and not too expensive. I found it last week at Fred Meyer.
Now it all acts as a "window" to delineate the patio as a room in the garden. The pot at the base of the trellis was also a find at Fred Meyer, at 25% off and only $18, and in the perfect colors, it will likely get planted with an annual vine for the summer.
We laugh at all of the effort and expense generated by that $6 wire rack, but it was a fun process, and we are happy with the results.
Fred Meyer is also where I found my flat of brightly colored impatiens, which I got planted under the cedar tree at the edge of the patio, along with the plectranthus that Tom grew as cuttings.
Tom's bonsai are out from winter cover and back on their benches.
The hanging pot for the patio is out of the greenhouse, rehabbed with a few additions and back on its hook.
The stag horn fern Tom bought in March doubled in the greenhouse, and is now outside for the summer.
His May Apples (Podophyllum) live in pots and are out from under winter cover. One of them is blooming.
The shed is just a shed now that Irene has outgrown her playhouse and garden shop days.
I bought an Edelweiss, just because, and planted it in the gravel by the shed. And yes, it makes me sing.
Tom's tomato and flower seedlings did not thrive, but he still has enough for us and some to give away to family. The tomatoes will be planted this evening, when it's cooler, since it is now 75 degrees, and warmer in the hot spot on the west side of the house where the tomatoes will grow.
I got the flower starts planted in the raised beds this morning, where the radishes, lettuce starts, and cilantro are up.
Dahlias are planted here. Under the cloche are chard and beets, protected from leaf miner bugs.
Sweet peas and annual flowers are in the fronts of three of the beds. I planted flower seeds as well.
The raspberry starts are coming along in the refreshed raspberry patch.
We have put out the "yard art", except for the glass flowers, which will come next.
Tulip time is nearing an end.
But the ground covers are covering the ground, and it's columbine time!
And the wonderful thing about doing all of this work is that we get to look up and see all of this. What a beautiful time of the year May is!
And down on the garden deck, the wisteria is about to bloom, just in time for Mother's Day!
Well, that was a long post. But then we've been doing lots of work. This doesn't show all the work Tom has put in getting the watering systems patched up and running. With that done, we can take off, which is just what we're doing.
We'll be spending a few days on island time.
On Facebook my sister Ilene reminded us that today would have been our parents 77th wedding anniversary. She posted this photo, which we believe was taken on the day of their marriage. It was not a church wedding but simply at the home of a Justice of the Peace. It was 1941, and Mom was 19 and working in Portland as a house maid. Dad, age 23, was a logger, working in the woods.
I remember what seemed like not that long ago when we celebrated their 50 anniversary with a big do at the senior center in their town of Molalla, Oregon. That was before they moved off of our little farm in the Willamette Valley, where they raised seven children.
A few years later they moved to a house in town. Dad died a few years later, at age 77. Mom lived there up until her last six months, when, at age 89, she moved into assisted living. She died a month short to her 90th birthday.
Mom and Dad are held, with love, in the hearts of many, as our large family moves into its fifth generation since that day 77 years ago,
Well, sort of.
My May baskets are nothing compared to Connie, of Far side of Fifty, who challenged us to make at least one May basket.
The Grands are staying with us this week while their mother is out of town on a mission of mercy, so I decided to add a little fun to their early morning breakfast.
My "baskets" are just small drink cups with a construction paper handle and an origami paper lining, nothing fancy. They held a dollar's worth of change and some Hershey's Miniatures, which went into the kids' lunch boxes. And flowers, of course, a few sprigs of Forget Me Nots and Lily of the Valley, which I foraged from the yard way early this morning.
Now that the kids have been delivered to their schools, we can slow down to our usual morning pace.
Have a great day! It's the first of May!
