What did people do today in the garden?

[Jangchub]

Okay, so I HAD (shhhh) to stop at Home Depot and I was pretty good-ish. However, I did see a pot of Bulbine being sold for 14 dollars and came home, dug my clump out and potted up four flats of 4" pots. That prompted me to shlep out the gear and weed the front beds which have not been properly weeded in two years.

Somehow, while weeding I noticed the return of the Sambuca mexicana, aka Mexican elderberry. It's coming up throughout the bed. Three years ago I pulled it out with a huge chain and truck! It's back. "F."

As I was weeding, I found a whole bunch of echinacea growing like mad, and tons upon tons of coreopsis, the common ordinary orange.

Not an interesting post, but now everyone knows why my knee is up and both a heating pad and one of those freezer thingies are above and under my knee.

V

[Ann]

Jangchub expounded:

Today I raked and fertilized my lawn. I've been digging Johnny jump-ups and potting them up for our herb society sale May 12. I've got my peas going, planted shallots and those little bulbing onions, spread a nice layer of compost on my perennial borders, and picked up tons of sticks and branches from the storms we've been having. It's raining (again) today, and I've got two privates to teach, so it's an indoor day today. Tomorrow we're going up to the Maine ranch to get the bear fence set up for the bees.

[Cheryl Isaak]

Not as much as I wanted - I still trying to recover the laundry area from the minor basement flooding and get all the laundry done (as much as laundry is ever done).

BUT - my daughter did do some more cleanup for me and my son got to flex his muscles removing all the storm downed branches.

Cheryl

[Jangchub]

Is this from the recent nor'easter or whatever they called it? The big dump of snow, that's what I call it. Tomorrow I plan to try and finish the front beds and plant some Tithonia aka Mexican sunflower.

[Janet Baraclough]

Got up at 6am . made tea and wandered round the garden in dressing gown with mug of tea. Another clear sunny day. The rubbish-tip rhododendron had just opened it's first flower. I found this 4ft high plant 2 years ago on the rubbish tip at my volunteer job, waiting to be burned, and brought it home, not sure it would survive; there wasn't much root and after planting I had to weigh them down with boulders to make sure it didn't blow away. This is its first flowering, the flowers are large, flared, white, deliciously and strongly scented of lemony honey. It must have been a left over or reject from a reclaimed woodland area called the "secret scented garden". which we cleared and planted with scented rhodos some years back.

This afternoon when I got home I put on my new sunhat and finished weeding the big triangle bed while John spread out the cow manure mulch on it; then I covered the cow manure layer with a thick layer (5") of grassclippings. While weeding found two self- seedlings of the cotoneaster boundary hedge, and planted them into its gaps. Dumped weeds in compost heap. One neighbour had left a sack of grass clippimgs and another brought a sack of shredded paper; more food for compost heap.

Golden hop (humulus lupus aurea) is rampaging up the black trellis which screens the oil tank; I wove in some escaped tendrils and layered a few into pots for the open-gardens plant sale at midsummer. Planted out half a dozen golden rush plants (forgot name) in front of some very black phormiums Sat on the cliff-view seat with tea (again) husband cat and dog, enjoying the sun; the sea was blue with small white caps.

Janet (Isle of Arran, Scotland).

[Cheryl Isaak]

Oh ya - the storm that knocked out trees, flooded many areas and there are still people with out power in some spots. One town may not have phone for a month since a relay station was taken out by trees. Verizon has given everyone a temporary (and free) cell phone and brought in a temporary cell tower until they can restore phone service.

Cheryl

[Manelli Family]

We received part of our Greenhouse kit. We unpacked it to make sure there were no missing parts. That took awhile. We expect the rest to be delivered on Monday.

I repotted a bunch of rooted geranium cuttings and did some light weeding in the veggie patch.

[Persephone]

I weeded AGAIN/STILL -- this time in the veggie patch.

Also continued tearing/cutting down entrenched post-bloom Wisteria which had congregated under and over the roof of my back porch. As I am very small, I used a ladder, and as I have injuries on my dominant hand, I struggled with loppers and pruners. You should see the mess that got hauled away! Including two birds' nests. Still much to be removed, especially what has overgrown the main house roof. Nobody warned me about Wisteria...sob...! But the blooms were magnificent this year.

Also finally planted corn among the cucumbers.

Also removed approx 100 tons of pine needles from the midst of two "guardian" shrubs on my front walk. Now wondering if I did the right thing. Will take and post a picture under Subject "Shrubs and pine needles" on showing how shrub appearance has changed for the worse.

Also watered veg patch as well as one flower bed in front and one in back. This is So. Calif coastal, which had very little precipitation during our "rainy season", purportedly Nov-March. Global warming in full, menacing swing.

Persephone

(even goddesses can get achy muscles after exertion)

[Persephone]

Damn, that .sig makes me yearn! I LOVED Arran when I drove (and ferried) around Scotland, mainly the Highlands, a few years ago! Stayed with local hosts through a hospitality network. They couldn't have been more cordial.

Driving on wrong side of the road in a non-automatic car with the wheel on the wrong side, maneuvering through those infamous roundabouts WAS a bit of a challenge, but I returned intact, with such fabulous memories of the trip!

Persephone

[Ann]

Cheryl Isaak expounded:

Our Maine home is in Lebanon, roads and bridges are gone, some poor woman from NH and her granddaughter were washed away by raging floodwaters and killed, I guess they got 7" of rain up there within hours! We haven't been up to the house yet, we're going up this afternoon if we can get down the road (one of the bridges that are gone is on our road).

[Cheryl Isaak]

I heard about that death.

Wave as you drive by!

C

[Jangchub]

Sounds like just another day in paradise. v

[Jangchub]

I am terribly sorry to hear this. We didn't get such detailed information down here in Texas. The worst thing that happened down here were three days of freezing rain during which the entire city closed down. Dell Inc, where Mark works, was closed for three days! It liked that.

Most of our weather deaths are caused by flash flooding and people driving over low water crossings. The other nightmare on the dry line, down the mid-section of the nation are tornadoes. We rarely get them this far south, but we do get straight line winds up to 80 MPH.

I hope they get things up and running again.

[Janet Baraclough]

The message from Persephone contains these words:

Glad you liked it; it is exceptionaly friendly .

Nah, I know you can't mean Arran's roads, where there are no roundabouts, or traffic lights, or zebra crossings, and lots of roads so narrow that if you meet an approaching vehicle one of you has to back up to a passing place :-)

Janet.

[Janet Baraclough]

The message from Ann contains these words:

We haven't been up to the house yet, we're going up this

Hope all is well at your place when you get there.

Janet

[Ann]

Janet Baraclough expounded:

Thanx, Janet.

Well, just got home and thankfully nothing is horribly wrong at the house. A few large pine boughs down, a bit of seepage in the cellar, nothing major. The road was passable, but had been totally undercut and washed away, they've already got a temporary fix there (it's kind of a major road for major roads around there!) and in another spot half the road was gone, but semi-repaired.

It turned out the woman and child who were killed were *walking through* (!!) the Little River trying to cross where a bridge had been washed away - what was she thinking! A man went in and tried to save them, all three were rescued by boat, sadly the grandmother and granddaughter were drowned :o( I can't imagine why anyone would try to drive through flood waters, never mind try to ford it on foot!

We got the fenceposts in for the electric bear fence for our beeyard, between raindrops. It's still raining! Oh well.....

[Janet Baraclough]

The message from Ann contains these words:

As a child I lived right on the bank of a deep river (where we swam unsupervised in summer). In winter, it often flooded right up to the house and we were absolutely forbidden to paddle through even shallow floodwater. The volume and speed of water coming down in a flood was huge, 6 inches deep could be running fast enough to knock you off your feet.

Janet.

[Cheryl Isaak]

Lucky you!

An EMT buddy of mine said there was some thing "off" about the whole incident. No matter what, it is sad.

DS is still trying to separate that grass.

C

[Ann]

Cheryl Isaak expounded:

???

[Cheryl Isaak]

I assigned my broke but strapping teenager the dividing of my Miscanthtus. It should have been divided at least 2 years ago....

He's still at it - 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there.....

C