Early Spring Work {Play!} in the Garden

After last month’s arctic storms, we are having a mid-winter warm-up. With that, I treated myself to some workdays in the garden…. This post is a bit long, but worth it. Grab yourself a nice cup of something hot to drink, and maybe a biscuit or two, and enjoy this garden post!

.

Making a mental list of chores to do

First thing I began working on once our nights were back up into the high 40’s or above, I tempered off the shed plants and brought them back outside to get some sun. They are staying outside all night now, at least until we hit low 30’s again. 🙂 I think I will end up just lightly covering them again, if need be, instead of lifting them all inside.

.

Getting bulbs planted in the first weeks of February

I am a good month late this year, but I finally replanted all of the old daffodil and tulip bulbs in pots again. They were soooo ready as sprouts were already coming out on many of them. They did receive their cold stratification in the garage this winter as I placed some into the little refrigerator out there, and others I just kept in their bags and boxes on the garage floor to chill.

Isn’t it amazing how bulbs just know when to just start pushing growth?! I think these daffs were in this planter for maybe a week and you can see the massive growth already.

Because the local wildlife will munch anything with tender green growth this time of year, I placed chicken wire over the tops of most of the pots as a deterrant.

Earlier in the day Monday last (February 9th), I went by Lowe’s and picked up two boxes each of anemone and ranunculus corms plus a few other bulbs to plant. Lowe’s didn’t even have plants at the beginning of February. I know… I have been haunting the stores looking! They just got these in I guess over the weekend prior. 😀

After soaking the ranunculus in the kitchen overnight, the next day I planted 15 corms in each matching terracotta pot.

Here are those ranunculus corms going into their pots. The first one is already filled. Both ranunculus and anemones need to be planted 3″ deep. Leaving just enough room after adding fresh soil for an additional 3″ of dirt, plus another inch for watering, worked perfectly here in these French-style pots.

Here are some ranunculus in bloom back in our old garden in California, out by our pool and rose parterres. Back then, i didn’t realize you could save the corms and that they would come back the next spring! I was very new to planting bulbs. It hadn’t occurred to me that you could plant bulbs; I think this was the first time I ever had. Prior to this, I had just planted annuals and perennials.

Looks like I had just cleaned up in the garden back then. The boxwood were all tidy. 🙂 Wish I still had this cherub pot; it was a favorite. That broken pot had a cute bunny attached to the side but it got broken off along the way but the pot itself was still good. Funny how we justify keeping a pot!

Anyway, enough reminiscing… When these new ranunculus are in bloom, they will look lovely flanking the shed doorway.

{full photo of doorway of shed}

.

A new friend

Later in the week, I was just typing away in our living room while sitting on the couch, when… This guy comes up from underneath my computer!

Scared the dickens out of me, at first, but he just came by to say hello. Not sure if he hitched a ride inside on my pants or boots when I was planting spring pretties out front. Nevertheless, I took him outside on a napkin to get on with his day.

He’s really a garden pest, and agriculturally they eat crops (I looked him up.), but I didn’t have the heart to kill him. They need to eat, too. <3

Plus, he was kind of interesting to study!

.

Raking out masses of leaves

What a big chore! Oak leaves are wonderful for mulching around plants as weather protection, but eventually they need to be cleaned up. So, over a couple of days, I blew leaves from behind the shed planters and pots, raked around the oak tree inside the courtyard area (and those pots) and got most of those leaves out to the lawn. The next morning, I raked out each main section of the backyard ~ seen below.

I thought about pulling out the leaf chipper, but using the lawn mower was going to be much easier to deal with these leaves. The mulched leaves are now either in the compost pile or chipped fine over the lawn itself. 🙂

Much better!

Now onto the fun plants…

.

Blooms!!!

On another day, I raked the leaves from under the bedroom window area. Some I save and others I throw out. Because leaves and mulch around roses can harbor diseases, I threw much of these leaves in the trash. I also did that while cleaning up the leaves out in the main flower beds.

Love that the muscari are up!

And the sweet hellebores…

The rose pots got their leaves cleaned out, too. Funny, I see a couple of errant leaves inside this one pot… It’s almost impossible to get them all. Never happens. 😉

Just yesterday I planted the sweet violas out front which I picked up this week Monday while getting more bags of dirt and treatment stuff for roses.

Please share!

Thank you so much or stopping by today! I hope you enjoyed this early spring tour of the gardens. There’s more to share from the greenhouse but I’ll save that for one of the next posts. 😉 Hang in there, y’all!

.

Springtime is coming, dear friends,