Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Plants currently in bloom -- lily of the valley, spiderwort, purple rhododendron and the short yellow iris I call "the bumblebee" because of it's coloring.
I can see the fruit ripening on my apricot and cherry trees. I had a lot of bud-drop from the plums, peaches and pears unfortunately, probably because of all the cold, dank weather we've had this spring, so I'm not sure how good a crop I'll get of these fruits this year. The weeping mulberry seems to be a relatively happy camper, though, and has quite a lot of fruit for its size (less than 5 foot at present) and the mulberries are rapidly turning from green to reddish, so I expect to be able to munch on them sometime soon.
I recently purchased a few pre-made hanging baskets -- pink and white fuschia and deep purple verbena -- for the front mini-porch. Ordinarily I might have made the baskets myself, but I couldn't find the fuschia and verbena I liked in flats, just in these larger, pre-made baskets, so I caved and bought them. They look very nice though, and are in keeping with this year's color scheme -- the verbena in particular looks lovely!
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Celebrated Beltane by planting things -- big surprise, that . . .
I planted some "Red King Humbert" cannas in the plugged planters on the front terrace -- those hold water when their plugs are in, becoming mini-water gardens. In past years I've planted lotuses there, but the nice ones are expensive -- about $50/root -- and I have trouble getting them to survive the winter in the pots. I tried planting some lotus roots from the Asian grocery store near me, but they never grew -- just turned into compost . . . Maybe I'll have better luck with the cannas, which are MUCH cheaper -- I might add some black taro to the pots too, when I see them available in the local garden centers . . .
I also started to put annuals in the (regular) planters I have placed between the plugged planters, which prevent the regular planters from falling off the terrace when it's windy, due to the weight of the water in them. This year's front terrace color scheme is red and white -- I might throw in some pink or yellow later on, but so far it's just red, red and MORE red.
I planted some red geraniums with red and red-and-white petunias planted in between, so they can trail over the sides of the planters and contrast nicely with the white terrace wall. The varieties of petunias planted were "Red Dreams", "Fire Frost" and "Ultra Red Star" -- the last is my favorite though. No white ones since there's more than enough white with the terrace wall, thank you very much!
I didn't finish doing all the planters today -- only about a third of them -- so the rest will be done some other NON-RAINY day. (Yes, it did indeed rain again today -- 0.16 inches, by my rain gauge.)
I also put out a new solar toy -- a spotlight, with a nice bright white LED light. I have the spot trained on the Green Man plaque I have hanging from the chimney bricks. It's not a very bright spotlight, since I have it on a small table by the terrace wall opposite the plaque, but the distance spreads out the spot a bit and gives the Green Man a subtle glow. If I find some translucent green plastic I might put that over the light, so the spot will turn green, unless I find some OTHER solar spotlight that happens to come with a green light already. I have seen amber LED solar lights for the garden, but so far no green ones. Hopefully the translucent green plastic won't dim the spotlight too much -- if it does, then the Green Man will have to have a white glow to him, not a green one.
