Blossoms

Look here at my little dogwood tree blooming already!!

The flowers just glow, don’t they?

A few other flowers have been blooming too, now that the sun is out.

The succulent plants have also taken off, and I noticed this one falling out of its hole in the strawberry pot. Since the one above has crowded over that hole, I decided to repot the one that had fallen out. I got out the Miracle Gro Succulent and Cactus mix and filled the little green pot. I had the pots on the plant stand waiting to get other succulents to put in them, so this worked out fine.

These pots were waiting on the plant stand for succulent plants. Note the bee waterer at the top.

The new bee waterer. I replaced the glass marbles with some stones. And I have resolved to keep it cleaner than I had been!

Lots of stuff happening in the yard now that the summery weather has arrived! We got all the yard decor set out, just have to get the yard mowed before I take photos to show you. More updates forthcoming!

Trees

Yesterday we planted our new magnolia trees in the front yard. I was wondering if we should plant one in the front and one in the side yard, but I finally decided that I wanted two matching trees in the front yard. We picked our spots and The Hubs began digging.

After digging the hole for the tree, he carted off some of the dirt from the hole back to the garden area.

The Hubs running the wheelbarrow. It’s harder than it looks.

After digging the hole the correct size for the tree, The Hubs mixed some of this planting compost mixture with some of the dirt from the hole.

Once a good amount of dirt and compost were mixed, The Hubs put some of the compost mixture and a couple of handfuls of this transplanting fertilizer at the bottom of the hole, as directed by the nursery worker he had spoken to.

Then he plopped the tree in and he filled the hole with the compost mixture, tamping it down good and solid. I supervised during the planting process.

After doing that twice and watering them well, here is the finished result.

Two baby magnolia trees!

After planting the magnolias, The Hubs suggested I might like a tree to plant in “my” yard, the side yard, and I said, “Why not?” So we made the drive back up to Al’s, this time in the minivan. We had driven the big truck to get the magnolias and they would have fit easily in the van, so we thought we’d just take the van since the big truck uses a lot more gas. When we got the Al’s I was able to find a worker to help us find the “Venus” dogwood that I had chosen from their website. You can see from the tag that it has “exceptionally large white flowers” and also has nice fall color and attractive (though inedible) fall fruit!

The lady said, “Oh, those are BEAUTIFUL,” and I was glad to hear it since I hadn’t seen one bloom in person. She talked to a man called Gustavo on her radio and he came and led us the long way down to the fruit and flowering trees. I chose a tree I thought looked good and The Hubs dragged the pot to the cart. Once we got it up onto the cart The Hubs went in to pay while I stayed with the tree and the three Marzinera tomato plants he had picked out. When we got to the van we realized that the dogwood tree was a bit taller than the magnolias and it reached clear up into the front seat!

Oops! I had a couple of plastic bins in the way back of the van, so we put the tree’s pot in one of those ostensibly so the van floor wouldn’t get wet and dirty. It kept the floor from getting wet, but a whole lot of dirt came out of that pot when The Hubs was taking it out of the van! He did (bless him) vacuum out the dirt and also the driver’s side floor with the mini ShopVac.

We stopped for lunch at Route 99 in Brooks on the way home, and then started in planting the dogwood outside my office bay window. The Hubs dug the hole and put the fertilizer in, and we took the tree out of the pot.

The bottom of the tree was wrapped in burlap, with some rather hard clay-type dirt around the roots. The Hubs cut off the burlap before planting the tree but we left the dirt around the roots to protect them.

The Hubs with the “Venus” dogwood tree.

It was the goal on Saturday to get all my yard decorations put up and around the yard but that didn’t happen again, so I’m shooting for this coming weekend when it is supposed to be sunny and warm.

Updates forthcoming!

Ready

Well, not many interesting things have happened here in the last few weeks. I have bought more things for The Grandbaby for when he arrives in July, we haven’t gone on many hikes for various reasons, and I haven’t been doing much around the house. We are, however, definitely wanting to get ready for summer!

So on Sunday we went to Al’s Fruit and Shrub Garden Center in Woodburn and bought two magnolia trees for the yard. I was thinking we would put both of them in the front yard but now The Hubs has suggested putting one in the side yard, so now I’m not sure what we’ll do, but he definitely wants to plant one today. They are the “Vulcan” variety, with dark pink blossoms. I think they will add a lot of beauty to our yard!

Our two trees.

Also, I have received many yard decorations from my friend Linda, who with her husband is selling their house and downsizing into their R.V. I had planned to have The Hubs help me with the decorations last week when the weather was nice but he was busy, so now that will have to wait because it’s going to rain again for awhile. As soon as the sun comes back we will get out there and put up all the decorations and bird feeders. I may paint some of the stars and other decorations. Right now they are a sort of chartreuse color.

Many decorations including the new table and chairs – there are more stars too and two large gazing balls, and a bench!

Not sure where we’ll put this chiminea since we already have a fire pit, but we’ll find a place!

You can see that the dandelions have taken my sign seriously!

Here are some updates on my little patio garden. Most of the succulents are doing quite well and making all sorts of little baby succulents:

But I’m really not sure what this one is doing. Is it still alive? I think so, but it’s hard to tell.

The rosebush seems to be going great guns and enjoying the very wet feet it got throughout the winter.

This little plant has bounced right back:

I thought this pink lavender plant with the bee waterer had died, but it is coming back. I will clean the bee waterer and add some fresh water.

This lavender plant seems to have died, but I think it seeded some new little plants in the pot.

The rosemary and silver lavender plants seem to be doing well, although I do think this lavender plant needs to be in the ground or at least a bigger pot. I’d like to set up a little bed with the rosemary and lavender plants at some point.

These pretty little flowers just grew here all by themselves.

We will have to get after the blackberries coming over from the neighbor’s yard. He refuses to cut them back for some reason. We did have a very large blackberry patch in our yard due to the neighbor’s blackberries and it was nice to have the berries, but they were out of control and we don’t want them back again!

Garrett’s blackberries.

That’s about it for this update, will do another update when we’ve gotten the yard all spruced up!