It must be June.

A visitor on one of the butterfly bushes in the shrub island.



Black and Blue Salvia has really exploded this week.



Queen Anne's Lace snuck up on me this year.



Self sown petunias still look good. They get lots of shade until late in the afternoon.



The first Rose of Sharon. Purple will be along shortly.



It's 88 degrees and sunny. It's freaking hot.

Forgotten Camellia

Just beyond the top of the dead oak tree, there's a clump of shrubs that used to be part of the gardens here. They were likely planted years ago by Mrs. Russell, before the trees reclaimed the area. There's a stand of quince that bloomed even in heavy shade. I moved some of these to the yard two years ago, although mine haven't bloomed yet and seem unlikely to do so this year.

Surrounded by orange ditch lilies, crocus foliage, and mahonia, there's a single camellia. The blooms are the same as those on the shrub in the yard. I wonder if she took cuttings and propagated this one herself. I wandered out back yesterday to get a closeup. This spring, once there's new growth, I plan to take cuttings from this shrub myself. I'm thinking of planting a few along the back yard. Azaleas, abelia, and other blooming shrubs will be added when the time is right. I've already started propagating the spireas.







It's St. Patrick's Day. Wear something green. It's 36 degrees this morning. No frost. The forecast calls for 65 today.

9:33am - Spent the last hour "propagating" things. I've pruned some hardwood sticks and shoved them in the ground where I want them to grow. If it works, I'll have a backyard full of spring and summer blooms. If not, I've lost only an hour of time, outside, with a cup of coffee. I stuck Sweet Shrub, camellias, mock orange, forsythia, spireas, vitex, Korean lilac, weigela, althea, pussywillow, and crape myrtles. I think that's all.

New growth, new blooms, new foliage:

My fragrant, unknown spirea is starting to bloom.



The Korean lilac is leafing out.



Peonies.



My "dead" loropetalum isn't quite dead yet. Nell Jean was right.



Stuck cuttings of forsythia and mock orange. I may be too late for these to root, but the very wet soil should help.





Peach blossoms will be here by the weekend. The plums are smart, they're waiting.



New growth on the Oakleaf Hydrangea that I've tortured since finding it in the backyard in the summer of 2007.



Red Pussywillow is blooming.



And lookie here, my tulips are going to actually bloom this year. A testament to the cold winter we had. Only two out of the 40 bulbs I planted in the fall of 2007, but hey, that's two more than I had last year.



It's been a good morning already. I'm off to shower and work in a few.

Contemplating Purple, Pink, and White

There's the root mass of an ancient crape myrtle in the backyard. I cut it to the ground shortly after moving in. It blooms pink, the color of bubble gum. It's the starting point for the Crape Myrtle bed. Last year's growth is now about 6' tall. Powdery Mildew attacks it every summer. Now that the oak tree is down, the increased sunlight should help.



In this bed, I have echinacea, both purple and white, veronica, purple and white, Russian sage, and a packet of cosmos seeds that will be sown in late April, pink and white. Along the back edge of the perennial bed, there are altheas, or Rose of Sharon, moved here from the front of a house in Winston-Salem several years ago. They'll be used to form an edge along the top of the broken concrete retaining wall at the gully. They bloom purple and white.



To make way for these shrubs, which need more light than I have allowed them in the perennial bed, I need to move my Snowball viburnum. Maybe that will be done today. Maybe tomorrow. I'm still trying to find a suitable location.



It's sunny and 30 degrees. We might reach 60 today.

12:04pm - I've been to Carla's to unload the stone she purchased last night. It was on the back of the truck. Then I went to the store to pick up the stone she gave me from the leftovers. It was another $10 deal for some edgers that were used in the store last summer. They don't match the house exactly, but the red will be fine of what I intend to use them for this year. Tomorrow, she'll come over in the morning to help me set them where I want them.

I also moved the Rose of Sharon shrubs.



The snowball viburnum found a new home along the edge of the woods near where I hang my hammock in the spring. It'll do for now. I also moved two pyracantha to the impromptu path along the dead oak tree trunk. A few years, they should fill in and block the rotting carcass. I had already moved the vitex to behind the swing.

It's 48 degrees. The tomato seedlings are getting their first taste of the outdoors. I've got them in the driveway, shaded by the truck. There's a light breeze which should help harden them off a bit. They've gotten leggy in their enclosed containers. I'm hoping to pot up the four Marseilles fig cuttings today. Maybe after I get back from the mountain.

Weeding and such as...

It rained yesterday. My rain gauge cracked and split at some point over the last week, so I can't tell you how much we got. There's no water in the basement, so I'm assuming less than 1 inch. The ground in soggy wet this morning, so I've decided to spend some time weeding in the back meadow, trying to remove as much periwinkle as I can before the Robins force me to move elsewhere. I worked on a small portion while my second cup of coffee turned cold on the bumper of my truck. I'll get to the rest of it in good time. I've got lots of plans for the day.

I was up early, having gone to bed about 9pm. The trip and training session to Winston-Salem had worn me out. Lots of new ideas for the coming year in the Garden Center are still swarming through my head. I'll need to put them down on paper as soon as I'm back to work on Thursday. Yes, my vacation starts tomorrow, but with two large shrub orders scheduled to arrive the day after tomorrow, my own schedule was switched to facilitate putting the plants where they belong. At least the store will be ready for the weekend. I hope they have nice weather. I won't be here. More on that later.

Before heading outside this morning, I checked the 4 Marseilles fig cuttings in the cloner. I moved them all here rather than trying to root them in the orchid mix. I'm determined to have this fig in my yard by summer's end.



The Black Mission fig I showed yesterday, which may or may not be properly labeled, has grown even more roots in the last 24 hours.



Heading outside, the little bluestem grasses I transplanted into the meadow garden has new green growth.



So does the spirea in the shrub island. This one was transplanted last summer right after I built the bed. It needed more sunlight than it was getting in its other location. I hope it's covered with blooms this spring. I'd like to root more of these.



Ditch lilies by the mailbox are putting out lots of new growth too. We'll get another couple of hard freezes that will burn this foliage, but that's what happens every year. It didn't seem to affect them at all when it came time to bloom.



On the slope, about 2 dozen of the 200 daffodils I planted this winter have sprouted.



The red maples by the street are starting to bloom. All they needed was a little warmth. The flowers are tiny and red, mostly insignificant. You can only see them if you know what you're looking for.



By the garage door, at the top of the retaining wall, I've finally realized what these are. In the fall of 2008 I received some Carolina Cherry Laurel seeds from a City-Data user. She also sent some hardy palm seeds. I cannot remember, or find in any of my notes, the name of this palm. She told me it reseeds for her and she moves the babies around the yard. I'll transplant these to the perennial bed where I have other tropical-like foliage in another few weeks.



I pruned the fig I grew from cuttings this year. I stuck the branches where I want them to grow at the corner of the yard along the street. I did this with butterfly bush last year and had great results. I'm hoping the crape myrtles and this fig do the same. The crape myrtles I've done are Dynamite. It's a dark red mid summer bloomer. The cuttings inside in the orchid mix have leafed out, but no sign of roots yet. Patience, grasshopper.



And then, I pruned the double pink Althea I purchased last year for a song on clearance. The soil they were potted in was mostly bark and these were always wilted in the Garden Center. We marked them down. I bought the last one just as someone else came in looking for them. You snooze, you lose.



The limbs of the althea were also pushed into the soil around the Neighbor's Corner. I've already got seedlings of the purple and white single vartieties back there. Crape Myrtle seedlings, Ligustrums, Loropetalum, and lots of other huge shrubs are being forced to compete. The winners will shield the backyard from the prying eyes of neighbors. The losers will be removed at some future point.

It's still foggy. At 47 degrees, I'll be working sleeveless in a couple of hours. Tomorrow, more rain is in the forecast. I'm preparing to do some work inside. I'm just not sure what my focus will be on, yet. I'm guessing the kitchen.

Today, I noticed things.

I tend to spend a lot of time with my face near the ground regardless of the season. It's easy to overlook a lot of things that get lost in spring, summer, and fall just out of sight from the safe areas of the yard. I took a walk last year in the wild and gully. I did the same thing again today. They're always there, sometimes covered by fresh spring growth, shaded by oak leaves high up in the treetops, or ignored completely due to things that crawl and slither.

A bird deposited nandina so red it's nearly black in the sun.



A leatherleaf mahonia on the other side of the dead oak tree.



Another one in the gully.



Oranges still trying to ripen before the wind and rain (possibly snow) take them down.



I wonder who was living here when this one fell? The rotted stump is where I planted shastas, bamboo, and forget me nots in the perennial bed.



Next year's Rose of Sharon seedlings.



A very cold camellia.



A fancy leafed English ivy that's nearly overtaken this maple.



Catbriar (smilax) with berries that the birds love to spread.



It will offer the lucky pair that takes refuge in the house I built for them some protection from the neighborhood cats.



The intricate patterns of strangling vines.



Long ago, this pine was the victim of a lightning strike.



The bark tells me it won't be long before it falls to the ground. I wonder if I'll notice.



The seeds of Miscanthus "Cosmopolitan" against the blue sky.



Finally, something new, that I didn't plant, poking out of the leaves in the former white bed corner.



I just wanted to take a closer look at some things today. I've spent so much time planning the big picture lately. It's 45 degrees and sunny.

Tomorrow I got back to work until Saturday. I'm going to miss being outside, in my own yard.

The sun made a rare appearance today.

It seems that lately, as soon as I walk outside, the sun disappears behind thick clouds. I know it's just my imagination, but with all the rain and even more in the forecast, I miss my shadow's company in the yard. I got a short chance to see my shadow for a few minutes during my lunch break today. I snapped some images as I walked around the yard surveying the damage.



Wine & Roses wigela with the found canna lily. Surrounding it, the purple lantana is still blooming.



Nicotiana



A red knockout is still blooming. More to come.



Sedum and sedum passed.



Next spring's red clover with Bunny Larkspur donated by Janie, the Obsessive/Compulsive Plant Collector.



I spread the love of althea all over the back edge of the perennial bed.



Alstroemeria from the Gaudy Garden's Jim with grape hyacinths



The butterfly weed finally died down. I got no seeds from these plants, but Cameron at Defining Your Home Garden sent me a few and other varieties.



Kris from The Gardens at Melissa Majora will appreciate these perennial aster seeds. I'll collect them in the morning to add to her growing pile.



Nell, the Seedscatterer, had butterfly ginger that bloomed, but mine didn't. Next year, they'll be moved in the spring to a sunnier spot.



Catherine from A Gardener in Progress grows these too. Veronica speedwell. Still blooming. Slowly spreading.



The lantana formerly known as Miss Huff.





That's about it for what's still going in the yard. It's 34 degrees and clear according to AccuWeather. My thermometer reads 42 degrees. It's been saying that for nearly a week. So much for digital accuracy. Tomorrow, I have plans.