It Survived!!!
In the spring I’m always eagerly anticipating the growth of all the plants, but I’m particularly interested in the plants that were added the previous season. This is always make or break time, they either survived the winter or they didn’t. After a summer and fall of drought last year, I was worried about the many new plants/trees I added to the garden. This spring I was over the moon when I noticed my Cornelian Cherry dogwood (Cornus mas) starting to bud. I watered it religiously last summer, but that’s not always a guarantee that things will survive.
When the buds burst forth into bloom I was even happier. This lovely little tree will be a welcome addition to the early spring garden, the sunny little blooms add such a pop of color. This year I’m hoping to prune it a bit and get starts from soft wood cuttings in July, perhaps I’ll save seed from the fruit and try that method as well. I’ll have to read up a bit on propagating this tree to ensure success.
Did you lose any plants this past winter?
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Potting on the Peppers
My peppers are growing very well this year, probably better than they’ve ever grown. Typically, I plant them directly in the garden in their soil blocks. This year they outgrew them and needed potting on.
Now they are happily enjoying more root space and the warmth of the office. My tomatoes are just starting to germinate, hopefully they will be ready to transplant directly into the soil without repotting. I used to start them early and pot them on, but I found out they don’t seem to produce any earlier and it’s a lot more work.
What’s growing in your seed starting area this week?
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Friday Favorite: Amazon Music & Bose
I keep my blog add free for a variety of reasons, mostly because I hate ads on blogs. There are some of you who support me with a monthly subscription of $5 or $10, that’s a huge help in paying my hosting bills (which are spendy). Another way to help support this blog is to click through my amazon links (or set up a bookmark through my affiliate account). I get a few pennies whenever you purchase something from amazon. Between the subscriptions and amazon most of the bills associated with maintaining the blog are covered. Amazon is a huge bonus for those of us who live rurally and can’t make it to the store conveniently or quickly or find some products locally. I also love that lots of small businesses use Amazon as their storefront so they don’t have to maintain their own websites. Because we purchase a lot from Amazon we have a Prime membership and we love all the features that come with it, like free TV shows and movies. One feature I’ve discovered this past year is Amazon Music, which is so much better than Spotify (which I was using before). Even their free version that comes with Prime has no ads (something I’m really keen on). A few months ago we upgraded to the paid version and am really enjoying it, since we have music on in the house for 12-14 hours a day, it’s something we get a lot of use out of.
We use our iPad mini as our music player and it hooks up to our speakers via Bluetooth. Mr Chiots got me a Bose SoundTouch for Christmas this year, the main unit along with a smaller speaker for my sewing room. It’s super nice because I can turn on the smaller speaker when I’m in my sewing room and it plays the same thing that’s playing downstairs. We’ve always liked the quality of Bose products (their noise cancelling headphones are another one of my favorite things) and we are really impressed with this particular system. If you’re in the market for a music system with add-on speakers I highly recommend it!!! In the future we’ll be adding a few more speakers for different rooms in the house, I’m thinking my office could use one next.
If you’re a music lover give Amazon music a try, I think you’ll end up loving it as much as I do! I even download lots of songs to my phone and use Amazon music to listen while I’m out and about. I’ve been able to discover lots of great new music that I would never have found otherwise. My music tastes are pretty eclectic, I’m a big fan of modern folk, bluegrass, and pretty much everything but top 40 type music.
Are you a music lover? Do you listen in the car and around the house? What’s your favorite style of music?
If you’d like to try Try Amazon Music Unlimited
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Quote of the Day: Gordon Hayward
“Stone gives our garden solidity and weight. It helps to frame views and bring out the colors of the foliage in our plantings; and it provides places to rest and foils for lawn. Used in paths, it shapes how we move through space. Stone artifacts lend a feeloing of time and history and often determine the mood and tone of an area.”
Gordon Hayward in Stone in the Garden
My Ohio garden had lots of stone features, every planting hole produced hundreds of stones ready to be used in walls and walkways. So I build walls and walkways with them.
Now that I’m settling on a design for this garden, stone walls are going to be added here and there throughout the garden. My first wall is on the upper side of the potager. Now that the big maple tree is gone, it’s time to level out this area and build walls around it.
The only difference is the size of many of the stones. I have access to stacks and stacks of large stones, these stacks were made by the original homesteaders here in the late 1800’s. I’m slowly moving these large stones and building walls that define gardens spaces and level out the very hilly nature of this garden.
Do you have any stone walls, walkways, or other features in your garden?
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New Vines
One thing I need to work on in this garden is vertical height. I need more climbing vines, more tall shrubs, more small trees, and a few specimen trees. Starting with climbing vines seemed like the easiest way to work on this. Lucky me two weeks ago when I went to a local store and they had clematis for $6.99 each.
I bought one of each variety and potted them up when I got home.
They’re currently growing very nicely on the back porch (didn’t think about getting photos until it was dark). One of them has shoots that are 6 inches tall already. I’m looking forward to adding these lovelies to a few areas to add a bit of beauty and height.
What’s your favorite climber?
