Signs of Late Spring

I took this photo just after noon today. these mallow plants will grow to over 6' tall before November, and some of them won't die back over the winter. They will be in constant bloom until fall, giving color all season. Mallow can be a pest, though. For particulars on these plants, go here.

Pretty Portulaca

Yesterday I repotted about 30 or so different plants. It was a busy day, with the repotting, the watering, and the usual daily tending to the garden. This is a great time of year for us gardeners. I love being this busy, and being outdoors.

The days are starting to be hot enough to knock off working outside from about 10:00am until after 3:00pm. As of today, I am getting up earlier in the morning so that I can work outside when the morning-blooming flowers are starting to open up. Today's photo is of Portulaca, or Moss Rose. This particular specimen was given to me, The orange blooms are of a very common variety of Portulaca, but there are other, more exotic colors available. This stuff is great for hot, dry climates. Once established in the ground, it is very hardy, requiring very little water. In containers, more regular waterings are needed, but far less water than most container plants.

Portulaca is a late sleeper; that is, the blooms don't actually open until after 8:00am or 9:00am. The flowers remain open until about 3:00pm, when they begin to close. When I passed this pot at 7:15 this morning, there were no open blooms. I took this photo around 8:30am.

A busy time of year

It's been too long since I last posted, but I think most gardeners will understand that I have been incredibly busy outdoors since the late freeze happened. Freeze or no freeze, this is a very busy time of year for those of us who like to dig in the dirt. I've been re-landscaping the yard, mowing the grass, pruning dead limbs; and, of course, planting, planting, planting.

Sorry for the lack of pictures with this post. I simply haven't had time to make any photos during the daytime, and I've been too tired at night to post. The weather here has finally gotten hot enough in the middle of the day, though, for me to stop working outdoors in the heat. From here until the days start getting shorter, I'll be stopping outdoor-work around 11:00, coming inside to write, and then going back out after 4:00pm to work some more on the gardens and stuff. I promise to get some new photos up soon, too.

The damage isn't too bad

Okay, the freezing night-time temps are over for now, and I've been trying to figure how to catalogue all of the damage done by the hard frost for this post. I can't really give a comprehensive account of what took a hit versus what didn't. I've looked around, over at Leigh's site, and a few other random gardening blogs. Everybody took the same hit. Everything not covered that was susceptible to frost damage got it.

As Leigh noted on her blog, it was kind of crazy what survived. In my garden, the Ajuga blooms were untouched, and are still flowering like crazy. Harry came through without a single wilted young leaf. Daylilies looked fine, as well as the small trees that were potted 3 days prior to the freeze. (The trees were under cover, inside hastily-constructed cold-frames.) All the redbuds, figs, pears, apples, crepe myrtles, chinaberrys, and a long list of other trees that had just started to leaf were hit hard. I think most of them will re-leaf, although the fruit trees most likely won't bear fruit this year.

El Nino years are weird, and now I get to join everyone else in looking very closely to see which plants in the yard will come back, and which won't. I'm sure the centipede on the sheltered side of the house went dormant again, but it will be back. I mowed the weeds in the yard today, since the Johnson grass and henbit didn't take a break. The clover was untouched, as well, and was about 4” deep in parts of the yard. I hate seeing all of the wilted leaves, but I'm not too upset. The last El Nino, the Eastern Hemlock in the back yard produced seedlings. Our neighbor has one that was purchased at the same time, and she had the same results. We'll see. I'll keep looking under the Hemlock for the rest of the year. Who knows......

Here's another shot of Buckwheat, pre-freeze. He didn't really like the fern, but tasted it out of a sense of duty.

Cold weather and Murphy's Law

I hate Murphy. I know, hate is not good for the soul, but I just want to go on record for saying that Mr. Murphy can kiss my ass.

It's bad enough that the temperatures have been dropping into the twenties at night; I was already going to have to deal with some level of frost-kill among some fruit trees, and a few plants that couldn't be sheltered for one reason or another. We have a very long growing season, and an early frost-kill can be overcome by most plants that were going to get it, anyway. I had a couple of Hostas get nipped, but they got nipped by a late frost last year, and came back quite well. Same with the Chameleon plants. Everything the frost touches dies, but these plants are hardy and will just shed the dead growth and start all over again. Everybody around here is going to have lousy cherry, peach, pear, and apple crops. That sucks, but we've all had it happen before.

Mr. Murphy couldn't leave well enough alone, though. Last night, we discovered a water leak somewhere around our water meter. I've been investigating in the very, very frigid water covering our meter, and still can't figure out If the leak is on our side, or the water-company's side. I won't be able to tell until I do some digging. I came back inside to eat lunch and digest it, and will do some digging later in the afternoon.

Happy Easter, everyone.

A visit to the Vet with Buckwheat

I spent another morning doing the health care thing, but today was better than the last two days, because it was a baby goat that was sick, so my Mom and I took the little kid to see the Vet in Jacksonville. Vet offices are so much more pleasant to deal with than seeing an MD. I'll take a DVM anyday, when it comes to human interaction. Not to mention that this vet office has a really cool kitty that lives there as a blood donor. I like this particular Vet. (Dr. Clanton) He's an easygoing guy, and he really likes little goats, and the people that try to give them good care.

Buckwheat wasn't eating this morning, which is serious business for a goat. If a goat won't eat, you'd better get them to the Vet quickly, because something is wrong. Buckwheat has a slight Thiamine deficiency, and he needs a dose of bacterial paste to help him digest his food a little faster. Ruminants need certain bacteria in their gut to help release energy from their vegetable diet. In other words, Buckwheat's problems were easily solved, and he's back home and happy. Since he's been fed by people all of his life, he's actually a well-behaved little guy. He rode to see the vet very quietly, napping in my Mom's lap while I drove. He also was well-behaved with the vet, and friendly with the staff and the kitty in the lobby. (We have an embarassment of cats here at the house, so Buckwheat has been well-educated in not pissing off the kitty's. One longhair cat at the house, Hermione, has been known to sleep with Buckwheat in his little goat-house.)

No pictures today. All of my plants are covered with plastic, homemade cold-frames, because the temps here are dropping below freezing every night, in a surprise April cold snap. by Monday, we should be frost-free, and I can uncover everything then, and make some photos.

Rough April Weather

Not a lot to write today. I'm too beat, from trying to frost-proof all of my outside plants that will be damaged by the cold weather in the next three days. It's getting down in frost area temps, with a low of 28F in two days. Covering my plants with plastic, overturned pots, etc. was a big job.

Today's photo is of the ajuga starting to bloom, with Chameleon plant growing through it's edges.