Goodbye February (here's your coat and hat as you go)

I am ready to kick out February and usher in March!  It felt like March was knocking early on Saturday.  I battled wind all day and had the red/windburned face to prove it.  I was able to mark a few things off my gardening to-do list such as weeding and mulching this area where my daffodils and tulips are planted. 

I also cut back my monkey grass and cleaned up dead stella d'oro and hosta foliage.  Sunday I planted a few yellow iris bulbs and spent the rest of my outdoor time just soaking up the sun, listening to the birds chirp and watching the goldfish swim.  I have to MAKE myself turn a blind eye to all that remains to be done and just sit and "be" sometimes.  I'm looking forward to the gifts March brings.. ornamental trees, forsythia, quince, daffodils, tulips and many more!

Beginnings of a Woodland Garden

I am really curious to see how my woodland garden emerges this spring.  I started it last fall so I would have something nice to look at as I come up my driveway.  I want LOW maintenance since I have so much else to tend to in other parts of the yard.  Also I thought it would be a good place to plop some of the woodland plants I acquire at plant swaps as well as support my hosta habit.  I have since added 2 large boulders to anchor the left and right corner.  Kudos to Glen for moving them from a remote area of the property for me!

Pictured are the 3 mature acubas that started it all.  Me and my coworker Kim (aka my gardening partner in crime) were driving by to get lunch one day and spotted these tossed ruthlessly on the side of the road behind the local college.  I couldn't get them in the back of Kim's Explorer naturally so I went back to work hoping they would still be there after work.  After giving Glen a few pitiful looks --he took me to get them and helped me plant them with the tractor.  (and he thought that tractor was bought for him....)

You can see how the groundskeepers hacked on the one in the back!  Later I planted 4 blue lacecap hydrangeas along the back in a semicircle and along the front the common green/white hosta.  There is a stump to the far left (out of view) that I have ringed with fancier hosta I got on clearance late last fall.  I hope to add hellebores, ferns and other shade loving perennials. 

Let the (Gardening) Games Begin!

Everyone is so into the Olympics lately but this gardener just doesn't have time for that.  I have my own sport to begin training for..extreme gardening!  It is about this time of year that I realize how out of shape I have become over the lazy winter.  I was winded just pushing a wheelbarrow up my hill today-- with nothing in it!  After a string of below average temps for the entire month of February I was revived by the 52 degree temp that greeted me post workday.  (insert angels singing Hallelujah chorus here).  Unwilling to waste a moment of daylight I enlisted my chief hole digger (aka Glen) and my chief soil tester (aka Pixie) and set about planting some bareroot trees and shrubs.  Strike these off the growing to-do list...Grancy Greybeard (fringe tree), redbud tree, 3 burgundy glow barberry shrubs and a mockorange shrub.  Here I am standing by the redbud looking all proud.   I should get at least a bronze for today's accomplishment.

My First Garden Blogger's Bloom Day!

Thanks to Carol at May Dreams gardens for sponsoring this.  I am so excited because it's my first submission and coincidentally at the start of the GBBD year.  I have only one bloom to show but it has brought me much happiness!  I don't know the name of this lenten rose since I acquired it at a plant swap.  It is the only thing that is bravely trooping on in the unseasonable cold and snow we've had this winter in southern middle Tennessee.  Shine on little one!
http://www.maydreamsgardens.com/

Nothing says I love you like CONCRETE!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  I got my perfect Valentine's gift from a local nursery in Florence, AL.  Dear Glen was more than happy to have both Valentine's day and our anniversary (Feb 25) covered in one fell swoop!  She resembles the Bird Girl statue found originally in the Bonaventure Cemetery of Savannah Georgia. I have named her Lorie (short for Lorraine which is the name of the little girl who posed for the original statue).  She will look better when I clean off my porch behind her and when the Heritage rose beside her is covered in springtime blooms.  She makes me happy everytime I drive down my driveway as she is positioned by my back entry.  Here is a link to the Bird Girl history you may find interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_Girl

A Junkin' We Will Go

There is only one thing I love (almost) as much as gardening...yard sales and thrift stores! Saturday was a fun day spent with my sisters going to Goodwill 1/2 price Saturday. We covered lots of ground in Lawrenceburg, Columbia, Spring Hill and Franklin TN. I felt like I had been on a world tour after going to so many in one day! Barbara and Donna know my heart lies in anything that can be potential garden decor (aka, the older, rustier and most peeled paint an item has the better!) I thought I would share some of my treasure finds with you.

Here is a little weathervane thingy that was still new in the box. It is temporarily sticking in my overwintered Kimberly fern in the sunroom.



Here is a plethora of goodies. A wooden butterfly (begging for brightly colored paint), some colored rocks in a jar, a rusty red star metal luminary, a mug that says "gardeners know all the dirt" which will hold my markers in the potting shed, 3 matching glass beaker looking vases (will be oh-so-cute with a single zinnia in each, 3 cool gardening books (herbs, flower arranging and general gardening), a little birdie tin, and a funky mushroom picture that somehow I couldn't live without. I'm sure you will be able to pick out some of these items in future garden shoots. A girl's gotta do something till spring and this trip eased my gardening withdrawals for a while!