Pink Peonies

These pastel pink peonies are just beginning to open. I love having enough to pick some for inside and still having some outside.

Colors

The roses and irises are beautiful together. I sprayed the roses with a fungicide insecticide combination. I haven't sprayed them with fertilizer yet, but I sprayed two flower beds, the flower boxes and baskets today. I dead headed some but not all of the spent irises and hybrid teas.

Hard Nap

I woke up and tried to start my morning routine only to discover I'd already done them. I stared at the clock for a while and found it was 3:13 PM. I'd just had a nap.

More Irises

My irises don't all bloom at the same time. These just started opening up.

Next Idea

Casual clothing has embraced wrinkles, holes, and caked on mud. What's next? Spray on body odor?

Weeds and F!owers

Today I decided to dig out weeds and plant marigolds in the holes. I've planted Everton so far based on plans. Marigolds aren't tidy so I decided a random placement would work and I wanted to get the weeds out anyway. I'm pretty sure I have more weeds than flowers, but maybe not.

Hi!

I gave a big smiling hearty "Hi!" to a total stranger today. I thought I knew him until he looked back with a totally blank expression. Ouch.

Garden

The chaplain asked if I had been working in my garden. I enthusiastically started telling him about my flowers. He hastened to explain he meant tomatoes and stuff. Well, no. The cafeteria manager was in there and totally agreed with me.

Party

One of the hospital employees came into the gift shop today and twirled around saying, "I love it in here. I want to give a party right here!"

Grooming

This is a butterfly bush. Last year it was healthy and covered with blooms. This year it needs a lot of dead wood trimmed. Maybe that will save it. Lots of things need grooming in the spring. Between planting new things, grooming established plants, and weeding, spring is busy.

Japanese Maple

We have four of these, but this is the only one that doesn't have an upright habit. It's about six years old and has grown really well.

Part of a Plan

I put out the six packs where I intended to plant them. I got a few planted, then it started to rain again. So they are still sitting there. I brought my little trolley back in along with my tools.

Skunk

A skunk smell is really strong in the house today. Larry said the smell started around midnight. I looked under the house just now but didn't have a flashlight so I didn't see anything. Larry asked what I thought I'd do if I'd seen it.

Flower Boxes

Sometimes the dichondra silver falls is difficult to find. Actually, finding 45 of them is also an issue. This year they were available so my flower boxes are set up the way I like them. The next bonus is the rain, overcast weather. Hot, bright sunshine bleaches the leaves. Now I'm waiting one more week before it is all right to start fertilizing with a weak solution of liquid fertilizer.

Peonies

If it's going to rain on the peony blooms, they may as well come inside so they aren't beat to rags. Silk white flowers made the deep rose pop. Mainly peonies have a lovely fragrance, but today is too cool for the scent to diffuse into the surroundings.

Blue Iris

Our lawnmower is in the shop for servicing so the grass is ragged, but the irises are coming along really well.

Rose

I want enough rose blooms to cut a bouquet for a vase inside without stripping the blooms from outside. I'm working on it.

Rain

On the porch it didn't rain. When I decided to plant flowers, it rained. I went to town twice and it started to pour down and rained until I was back on the porch.

Meeting Annoyance

Our volunteer meeting went well. We decided to have a sale the Monday before Mother's Day. That was yesterday. Today I got to the hospital and saw a nice sign announcing our sale the Friday before Mother's Day. That isn't a good day because we have no volunteers on Friday. We had the but they recently moved to be closer to their kids as they require help. So I spent a lot of today trying to juggle volunteer schedules.

Outfit

Melody put three separate items from the gift shop together and I immediately wanted it. How dumb is that? It was classy looking, but would look awful on me, sadly.

Little Flowerbed

This little flowerbed needed something. Four small lavender plants with salvia and alyssum will do for this year but next year the perennials will probably fill the space without annuals.

Knockout Rose

I started out with 20 of these. I'm down to 15. I may lose another one because of a virus that took out the others. They are bright and colorful but I don't like them as well as I like hybrid teas. The shape, colors, and fragrance of the hybrid teas are my favorite.

Beside the Steps

Salvia and alyssum are what I decided on for the containers beside the front steps. I love the honey fragrance of the alyssum and the way hummingbirds visit the red spikes of the salvia.

Happy Easter!

French toast with low carb bread and sugar fee syrup made a decent breakfast for a holiday.

Irises

The irises have just started blooming. They are wonderful.

Hardening Off

Yesterday I bought flowers and today I started bringing cuttings I've rooted from the greenhouse. I also got flower boxes from the basement and baskets for the porch. I'm ready to welcome spring. All the roses are planted... seven in all. We cut asparagus and planted a dozen cabbage plants. Nice day, except I have managed to misplace my key to the gator and did all that hauling around with my hand cart.

Fragrance

This is the first year we've had enough lilac blooms to be able to enjoy the fragrance while on the porch.  This one is located to the south of the porch so the breeze brings it to us.

Clematis

This clematis is alive and blooming, but it doesn't look as good as before I transplanted it.
I planted some of the roses today and will finish the roses tomorrow.

Basement Flowers

Larry keeps amaryllis in the basement over the winter. He cuts them back and they started growing without light. They will green up pretty soon. He got these from his aunt who had gotten a start from his mom.

Christmas Tree

Larry bought this little tree today. He said it is a dwarf and we can decorate it for Christmas and be able to put a star on top without a ladder. I didn't know that was important to him, but it's a nice little tree.

Washing the Truck

Pollen from trees had turned everything yellow. Since it was raining today, Larry backed the truck out so the rain could get rid of the pollen.

Walmart Rose Sale

Walmart had roses on sale for $10 each today. They have a beautiful shape and color.

There is a fragrance, but not very strong.

Gardenias

I have gardenias iin the ground . If we have a mild winter, we get blooms. But I'm keeping eight gardenias iin the greenhouse ovet the winter so we will have blooms on them regardless of the winter. When I bring them out, I dig them in about halfway down the pot so the wind doesn't blow them over. They ate easier to water if they aren't sidewasys! So today I brought them out and dug five of them in. Some already have buds.

Lavender

I went to the co-op this morning to see if they had anything on my list. I got a flat of marigolds and one of lavender. The marigolds are bright and cheerful, but the lavender will last for several years.

Dogwoods

We are starting to get dogwood blooms. This one was in the woods until Larry dug it up and planted it beside the driveway. The full sun makes it fuller than the ones in the woods. They have a drift of blooms and are beautiful in a different way.

Asparagus

Today we had fresh asparagus with our lunch. Some of it was from our garden, but Larry brought a nice bundle home from the store. It only cost ninety three cents. Great lunch! The first fresh asparagus we had was white asparagus when we lived in Germany. I wasn't wild about it. But it turns out we both like green asparagus a lot.

Columbine

The columbines are starting to open. I've been trying to get the ground cover dug out. I bought round up but have not used it because I don't want to kill the flower seeds that are waiting for the ground to warm up.

Political Mess

I can't tell what is true by listening to TV or reading articles. If all the media networks said the same thing, I would think they were paid off or state sponsored. It seems like we should think about what we read and hear to decide if it makes sense. But a lot of things don't make sense to me even when both sides say it's going on.

Perfect Day

When I was working, this was the kind of day I wanted for a weekend or holiday. It wasn't too hot or cold or windy. It was perfect.

First Iris

Whatever that thing is that shows photos from whenever showed a bunch of dark purple irises. So far this year we just have one.

Stumbling in the Dark

When the power goes off in the middle of the night, I get up to run the extension cord to the bathroom. The generator works everything except the bedrooms. The power was off for five hours so when I got up I fiddled with stuff nothing annoying was obvious, then went on the porch. Our huge trash can was well down the road. I dragged iit back, grateful that the garbage bags hadn't scattered or been opened by dogs or other critters. Then I gathered up things that had blown off the porch. I didn't find anything destroyed, just a mess. It was annoying, but nothing to call the insurance company about.

First Hummingbird

Today I saw this season's first hummingbird. Larry says it's a scout.

Lilacs

We had large lilacs in one of the places where we lived in Germany. I hadn't been aware of them in Alabama. Since we moved to Tennessee, we've planted a half dozen. We have some blooms this spring.

Helpful

I took a prescription to our regular pharmacy to try to get the original prescription transferred. The pharmacist said the generic medication would cost $2 for 100 capsules. I wish the original pharmacy had been so helpful!