bring May flowers. Over the weekend, we received 4″ of rain, and we have more in our forecast every day this week. I can almost watch the perennials grow with this much moisture.
I’ve been working in between storms because the fact is that it’s a good time to move plants and shrubs because it’s easy digging, and you don’t have to keep them watered. 🙂
I have my share of gardening successes, but there is always opportunity for a good old fashioned learning experience. One of those is my winter sowing experiment where I purchased native seeds, sowed, and left them outside to overwinter. So far, not one seed has come up.
During the winter, we had a new Tractor Supply store open nearby, and I guess for photography purposes, they stocked shrubs in their lawn and garden area. Folks in this part of New England don’t buy shrubs in winter, but how could I resist $6 Red Twig Dogwoods and Winterberry plants that were about 4′ tall? I bought four dogwoods and one winterberry and then spent a lot of time trying to make them an outdoor home to keep their roots from freezing. I am happy to say, they all survived and are budding out. (Insert happy dance here.)
There are 51 potted up plants outside I’m hoping to keep alive and well until we have a final grade and seeding done as a result of a large 2022 project. I usually have a few plants potted up awaiting a new home, but I’ve hit a new high even for me.
Since it’s gardening season for everyone up here, I’ve also dug up and donated fifty pachysandra plants (ground cover for shaded area) to a friend who is the coordinator for a local town garden and close to a hundred day lilies of different colors for our upcoming Master Gardener plant sale. Lots of digging going on.
This morning I’m going to work my way through four large boxes of canna and dahlia bulbs that I stored for the winter.
As a I relax from gardening activities, I’m currently reading Marc Cameron’s “Breakneck.” I just finished Jonathan Kellerman’s “Unnatural History” and “My Sister’s Grave” by Robert Dugoni. Up next will be “Simply Lies” by David Baldacci. I do love my local library. 📚
Wishing you a good week and a healthy and happy month of May.
NewEnglandGardenAndThread 
Your flowers look wonderful!
I’m going to look for Robert Dugoni in my library when I’ve finished with Death in a Red Canvas Chair by N.A. Granger, and a Sci-fi called Genesis by Ken Lozito.
Happy digging! 😀🌺🌼🌻
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I just checked, and my library doesn’t have the N. A. Granger book or I would have reserved it. Headed out to dig right now. 🙂
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I bought that one on Amazon in the Kindle version. I can almost smell the damp dirt. 😀🌼🌺
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Judy, I’m looking at all of your spring flowers and reading of your gardening efforts as I am watching it snow here in Wisconsin. Yes, snow. Our spring weather has not been the best, but it appears after tomorrow, it’s going to warm up into the 50’s and 60’s. I have been itching to start visiting the greenhouses, but it will have to wait another week or two.
I’m glad your trees survived the winter, but it seems starting with seeds always involves making bets. I have two friends starting seeds indoors and it remains to be seen if they will turn into anything. Perhaps your seeds are just late growers.
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Snow? Say it isn’t so, Mary. You can’t ride that new bike in the snow. We had a couple of days in the high 80’s, but it’s been in the 40-55 range for a couple of weeks. My seedlings inside are doing great, but those guys outside not so much. It’s okay though because I always learn something, plus I’ll leave them there until it warms up just in case they decide to sprout.
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Unfortunately, it is so, Judy. It’s the white stuff and I don’t think anyone here is happy about it. It’s been a strange spring and I’m hoping we don’t go from 50 to 80 in one day. The trees are starting to leaf out and the pretty spring green color deserves better than to be covered in white.
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Here they come! I’m ready!
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Isn’t that the truth! Goodbye white and brown, hello green and color.
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I overwintered my cannas in their pot inside the garage. I’ve always had mixed result cleaning the tubers and wintering them without soil. Around March 1st, I moved the pots to a sunny basement window and they have prospered. They have been outside protected near the house under the pergola and I will have early blooms. I don’t do as much gardening as I used to and most of it easy. I found a lamb’s ear that doesn’t bloom. It’s wonderful. Love the texture and no need to clip off the buds. I’m using that as a groundcover in sunny areas. I had to removed a good portion of my pachysandra because of some disease or issue that caused it to die out. I love it as it’s no work. I’d love to find $6 plants. Or even any shrub under $30 although my $8 red pigmy barberries from last year are doing well. They were half dead when I bought them but they are coming back.
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You will have early Canna blooms, and that is a good thing! Pachysandra is a lovely shade ground cover, and as you said, it doesn’t require a thing to keep it looking good, and I have some of the short lambs ear. Congrats on the $8 barberry finds. It always makes a gardener smile when they find a deal.
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Beautiful photos, and what hard work is gardening! I wish I had 1/4 your energy/drive! I wouldn’t have energy to read books after all that! Thank God it’s Spring. Our winter wasn’t too wintery or too long, but it’s always so barren (and too cold)! Green is good to see again, and our lilacs promise to be wild this year.
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Lilacs are one of my favorites, and it’s also our state flower. 🙂 Green is always a good color after winter.
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The best! I looked down the length of our street today, and there is suddenly so much GREEN!
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Wow! I gave myself credit for planting four plants we bought and one that I had to move. My effort pales by comparison. Your photos are gorgeous, Judy. I wish you great success with the project and the plantings. I think you do deserve to relax.
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For a plant move you get extra credit because that’s hard work. 🙂 I moved a large shrub this morning but after 4″ of rain, it was relatively easy. It was harder work taking that shrub apart and making seven plants out of it. I relaxed and finished a book this afternoon. 🙂
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We bought two maple trees two years ago (mail order). One was broken. the company replaced it. We stuck the broken one in the ground anyway. It didn’t look too good the first two years, but it came back strong this spring. Then we realized, if it did grow, it would be a danger to our house and our neighbor’s house. So we decided to move it. It seems to be doing well.
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Oh, for that you get double extra points. You not only moved but you ‘saved’ a tree. 🙂
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🙂
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Your work ethic is impressive! I’m in awe of it! We have three dead shrubs in front of the house that will entail a call to a local nursery for digging out and replacing. Then the flower boxes, (if it ever stops snowing!) and we’re done! 🤪
When we first built our home, I purchased about $100 worth of pachysandra and planted it myself. That was in 1985. It spread and flourished and remains today, the perfect tightly packed, large area, weed free cover for our shaded lot.
I see that my fellow reader in Wisconsin is also “enjoying” late spring snow. I should clarify that what we get is non accumulating flurries that touch and melt. Still disheartening, though. Impatiently waiting for 70+ warmth that’s long overdue!
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Just the word, snow, gives me the shivers. 🙂 You would have a hearty laugh watching me use my truck and a ratchet strap to yank out a shrub if I don’t want to replant it. 🙂 I have a friend who has a small shade garden full of pachysandra, and it is beautiful. We had to take some trees out so I moved the pachysandra that was then in full sun to a shady area off the edge of the lawn. Now, when anyone needs it, they call and ask me to dig because I have an area as big as a swimming pool. Enjoy filling those window boxes and getting back to your beautiful hand quilting. The grands will be out of school before long. 🙂
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I can’t even read about everything you have done without reaching for the Geritol! But what rewards — your spring harvest of color is rich indeed! This spring we’ve had weather to make a gardener act on faith alone, I think. It’s certainly been up and down here, and we had a freeze last week which had me rigging covers for several perennials, poor shivering things. I shivered too. (I’m a particularly delicate perennial!) Thanks for all the inspiration!
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We’ve had some days where I gardened in t-shirt, sweatshirt, jacket and two pairs of gloves. 🙂 You are a delicate perennial, but those have the most colorful blooms. 🙂
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It so funny, because just this morning I was looking out my window at the rain, thinking, “May showers bring May flowers.” We didn’t have a lot of rain in April. But man, it’s been raining now nonstop for several days. From the look of things, you live in such a beautiful place!
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Have you heard Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote, “The earth laughs in flowers.” Gardening is truly my happy place, and flowers just make it even better.
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No snow here, and the sun is actually out and rain has ceased….for a little while. Forecast is for rain all week. We need it, but I wish more of it could concentrate on getting into the reservoirs!
No big yard projects for me anymore. I can’t physically do it. I’m past being mad because I just want to cry. I love gardening. But I get to see your creations and that makes me smile! Your blooms are just beautiful.
Happy Monday. Happy May. Happy gardening. Happy sitting with ice packs! 🤗
Ginger
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I use to be able to work from breakfast to dinner. Not so much these days. I’m down to breakfast to lunch, but I’m grateful for what I can do. If I lived closer, we could do some container gardening together. The ice packs are always at the ready. 🙂
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Judy, your flowers are gorgeous! Your plant sale will do well with all those plants you potted up! We had a lot of rain, too.
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Spring flowers are always so welcome after the white and brown seasons. We have wetlands behind us, but usually it’s just a wooded area. I was out there this morning, and it’s definitely under water right now. Nature is always interesting.
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Grape hyacinth seems to be popular everywhere at the moment. Ours were very late this year, but nonetheless finished quite a while ago. The extra wintry weather delayed many flowers, but to varying degrees. Some actually bloomed right on time.
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Isn’t it interesting how the changing weather affects plants, shrubs, and trees differently. I really like grape hyacinths.
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Those from harsher climates seem to ignore aberrations of weather. Those from milder climates tend to be more responsive. Some are as responsive to daylength as they are to weather.
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Good deal on the TS sale and congrats for keeping them over winter. The cool, rainy weather has been a boon to emerging plants, everything is a rich green and I’m loving it. By the end of winter I forget just how green it gets here. Happy May Day!
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You’ll get a chuckle, but I double potted them, put them each in a fabric grow bag, and then encircled them with row cover fabric up against one side of the house. It looked kind of funny, but it worked. 🙂
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Brilliant! With our unpredictable winters, why take a chance?
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Violets and bloodroot – I love seeing those in the spring. What a deal on the dogwoods – irresistible!
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I do love those little unassuming flowers too. I could not pass up that deal. I figured if one of them survived I’d gotten my money’s worth so it has been fun to see them all make it.
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4” of rain is almost half of our yearly average! 😉. I wish I could see your garden. We’re into hot, dry weather now. This fall when we’re on the new house, I can figure out what to start planting, cutting out, and cutting back. We definitely want a lemon tree.
I’m waiting for “Breakneck” and “Simply Lies.” They’re on my “hold” list. I also have ebooks on hold but sometimes the popular ones have hundreds of holds almost as soon as they arrive ad since they can be checked out for two weeks. That s long wait!!! I’ve been rereading the Lucy Kincaid series by Alison Brennan. Just finished “The Way of the Bear” by Anne Hillerman continuing her dad’s series, “The French Paradox” (new) and a reread of “Double Exposure”, both by Ellen Crosby, and blew through a new to me series byRobert Pobi about Lucas Page. Libraries are the best, although I do wish ours would let me put more things on hold. 😉
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You’re moving – happy move and happy gardening. 🙂 I’m taking note of what you are reading. I have read some of Robert Pobi. The library is the best use of my tax money. 🙂 I have five 2023 books here, we read, we return, and I don’t have to buy bookcases to house books I’ve already read. Winning combination for me plus they will buy a book if I ask them to. 🙂
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I agree that the library is the best use of tax money. It’s about the only thing we’ll give a “yes” vote for an increase. I have to have bookshelves too, but if I bought all the books I read, my husband would have to be Bill Gates!
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You tire me out just thinking of all your gardening projects. I don’t have space to do much gardening living in a condo. I do have tulips, daffodils and iris. The deer got one small clump of tulips. I need to plant some daffodils around them.
I discovered over the weekend that robins have build two nests on a brick ledge we have around parts of the condo. There must be eggs in one nest because I saw mama sitting on one nest today.
Enjoy your spring gardening.
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I absolutely love tulips but can’t grow them because of squirrels and chipmunks. The daffodils do just fine so I keep planting them. My Iris are coming up, and I always enjoy them. You have new feathered neighbors, how fun.
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Your ‘voice’ sounds light as a feather when you talk about gardening. What’s not to love, right?
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That’s right – hands in the soil, face in the sun, and song birds, chickens, and ducks to keep me company. It’s a good thing. 🙂
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Your spring garden has plenty of colour, and you achieve so much in one gardening day, I’m not surprised everything looks so bright and healthy. I never fail to be inspired! Dogwood trees are one of my favourites, and I would love to have four of them for my garden.
Happy gardening!
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When you have time and are on line, look up red twig dogwood. They have gorgeous red branches that show up in the winter months. They will be a bright spot in the sea of white. 🙂
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Love your flowers. I envy you the daffodils. They are almost impossible to grow here due to the humidity
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Oh, that is interesting. I can only grow daffodils because the squirrels and chipmunks eat the tulip bulbs.
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I am enjoying your Spring flowers and glad your trees have survived.
Your gardening and your hard work are getting me ready for the Pennsylvania gardens. It will be soon. I weed like a crazy person when I get there. I hope I have half the energy you have… I’ll need it for all the weeding.
Have a great week, and I hope it starts to dry out a bit for you.
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Ah, weeds, yes, they are sure growing in this wet weather. I hope you have safe travels and a wonderful summer at the lake.
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Thank you… 🥰
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You are amazing. So much gardening would make me run to my bed and pull the covers over my head. But, from the pictures you have posted I can see that your work produces a lot of beauty.
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You create in the kitchen, I work in the garden. 🙂 If we lived closer, I’d trade working in your garden for a take out meal. Win – win. 🙂
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That would be lovely.
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You’ve been so industrious. I bought three punnets of pansy seedlings. I put three in a small pot, some more in a larger pot and the rest out in my garden. Unlike you, there’s been no rain so I’ve been watering every day.
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Pansies are one of my favorite annuals. I wish I could share some moisture with you. We are truly saturated here right now.
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It sounds like a wonderful spring for you Judy – nothing more fun than planting in the garden in spring. We’ve had lots of rain here too and I do the same, plant before a rain – less work, better results!
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You said it – “plant before a rain – less work, better results!” Hauling water is one of my least favorite jobs. 🙂
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Sounds like a daring move with those shrubs, and yet it paid off. Well done!
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I had a lot of laughs at my own expense tending those things to get them through a winter, but I’m sure enjoying the leafing out and the savings. 🙂
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