Floral Monday

Tis the season of the Iris, and I love every minute of it. It doesn’t last long so I make sure I go out to check on them every day because I don’t want to miss one beautiful bloom. Are you a fan of the Iris?

The regular lilacs have been finished for quite some time, but the dwarf Korean Lilacs are just finishing up. If you are every looking for a compact shrub that has beautiful fragrant blooms in the spring and lovely foliage the rest of the year, I can highly recommend the Dwarf Korean Lilac. I bought one maybe eight or nine years ago and have since divided it into about six plants, and I love them all.

The Peonies are up next. It just makes me smile to look out the window. What doesn’t make me smile are the homesteading habits of the huge population of chipmunks and squirrels we deal with because of our large oak trees. I know, I know, many of you think they are cute and enjoy taking photos of one or two of them. That’s fine, but here on the farm there are so may that they destroy some fruit and vegetable crops and make more work for the weeder in charge – me. Want to guess how many of these sprouted acorns I pulled out of just one bed? 10, 20, 30? How about 69 in one bed. I’m headed back out this morning to pull more.

The perennials are doing well, but the container plants are another story. They are all alive but with so many cold, wet, dark days, they are just sitting and resting. If I’d taken photos of when I planted them and today, you wouldn’t see much of a difference. I fertilized them again yesterday hoping to give them a little nudge.

I do have a couple of flowers on my tomato plants – picture the happy dance here. 🙂 But, gardening is never simple. I bought these interesting clear plastic twist up and down tomato cloches to protect the plants from early blight. They work great, but now the concern is whether I will get as many tomatoes if they are enclosed in the cloches. Wind and movement helps the blossoms turn into fruit so we’ve added additional grommets so air can flower easier. But, I’ll probably take them off when we aren’t getting heavy rain.

I did start my fabric piece using a photo of our barn. It is as challenging as I thought it would be. I sewed on it one rainy day, and the next day I spent a couple of quality hours picking out stitches. I’ll get back to it. In the meantime, I did finish a couple of small hand projects that I am happy with.

I will be on line sporadically for the next week because on Thursday we’re headed to the Midwest for a Celebration of Life and a family reunion.

Hope your gardens are beautiful, and the week ahead is a good one for you and yours.  🙂