garden to do list - spring 2024

 So much to do, so little time.  I have one more weekend left before the burn ban goes into effect, and then I can turn my attention to the garden.  Spring is almost the only time I have flowers blooming, thanks to my seemingly epic amounts of shade, and clay soil.  I am determined to do something about that this year.

Here are my plans...some of these will be for the fall or next spring, after we're finished with the back hoe work, but here is the wish list:

• impatiens in the window boxes
• flowers in pots on the porch
• bring out the houseplants to the porch
• small herb garden by the back door
• cutting garden - zinnias
• fertilize azaleas & rhododendron
• fertilize boxwoods 
• another raised bed
• replace camelia
• replace gardenia
• move peony
• new peony
• move Cramoisi Superieur rose
• butterfly bush?
• design & plant new hydrangeas and possibly boxwood
• Clean out back garden
• treat all hemlocks
• creeping phlox
• transplant some rock iris
• transplant some hosta
• make garden spaces to the right side of wooded path

march bloom day 2022

Happy Bloom Day!  Thanks to a nice snow this weekend, my daffodils have lost their blooms, and the the hellebores are the stars of my garden right now.  I quite enjoyed the snow this weekend.  It was my favorite kind of snow, a fluffy 3 inches, and the ground was warm enough that the roads were dry and clear. Enjoy the hellebores! 

PS:  It's been quite a while since I've posted here.  I like this corner of the internet, and hope to be back more often! 

plant swap!

** draft from 2015**

This was the *perfect* weekend to be outside in Chattanooga, and for me that meant working/playing in the yard.

Saturday was one of my favorite spring garden days - our 3rd annual plant swap + Belle's Garden sale at Green Thumbs Nursery! As always, I made out like a bandit.  From the plant swap I got black stemmed peppermint, white Japanese iris, early blooming daffodils, a jade plant, and ranunculus.  From the Belle, I got a 'winter wonder' hosta, a Japanese painted fern, 3 cantaloupe colored cone flowers, and some yellow hellebores. If you're a gardener in Chattanooga and want in on our plant swap, let me know, we have one in the fall too! It's a great way to get rid of your extra stuff, and acquire free plants that you know survive in our area.

Yesterday the weather was gorgeous, and I spent the day planting, mulching, burning brush, and even mowing the grass.  (I have so much shade, mowing the grass is something I do about twice a year.  It only takes 45 minutes, but it's a big deal.)  I worked all day, and I'm feeling it this morning! My calves and hamstrings are not happy. BUT my shade garden & fence gardens are coming along nicely, and my rock garden is getting the mulch it so desperately needed.  The soil is so bad, I feel like it eats mulch. I'm weeding as I go, so it's slow, but I'm about halfway done, and hope to finish up this week. 


For whatever reason, it feels like I haven't done too much in the yard this year.  I think I've worked in the yard two weekends, at most....with is not a lot for me.  Ever since I moved into my house, every spring has brought a huge garden project.  First there was clearing the ivy, then massive mulching of all the empty beds to improve the soil, and then working and planting in those beds (some of which were infested with tree roots btw).   This year there are no big projects, just maintenance and a few additions.  I've trimmed out the spent blackberry stems, and this weekend I filled in a few holes with new plants  All that is left is to finish the mulching, planting one or two more things, figuring out what is wrong with the boxwoods, and putting impatiens in my window boxes.  I'm not going to lie, it feels good to have things "under control".

april bloom day 2015

Happy Bloom Day everyone!  Today is also tax day, and my refund arrives day.  Not even the rain is getting me down!  Even though the tulip show managed to fit itself in between bloom days, I have quite a few pictures to share, and not much time to type.  So lets get to it, and take a walk around my yard.

Shade Garden:

Just a few wide shots for perspective

Wild columbine & woodland poppy, 2nd year purple azalea, 3rd year double columbine

2nd year wild geranium, 2nd year trillium (woodland variety)

Side yard:

Bird's foot violet, spiderwort

Dwarf rock iris with wild fern, dwarf rock iri, rue anemone

 Front Yard:

 

1st year purple tulips

Late daffodils, dogwood & half of my front yard

 new-to-me confederate violets

Wild Azaleas:

 

The wild azaleas are so pretty and just smell so good.  The bees are so happy, and you can hear them as you walk towards the plants.  At my house, the white azaleas bloom first, followed by the pink.  Some of the older azaleas are taller than I am, up to around 8-10 feet tall.  I am continuing to clear out underbrush around them every year, and the habitat is expanding. I'd love to nurse back the grove that my grandmother always talks about from her childhood.

Assorted:

There's not a good way to photograph the blueits and capture the carpet that covers my yard.  My yard is mostly moss, and I only mow a few times a year.  This has allowed the blueits to take over, and I think it is so pretty.

You can also see that my hellebores are very happy with my shady home, and are well on their way to multiplying & establishing little colonies.

Ok, that's it.  Not bad for a quick post!  As always, thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting Garden Bloggers Bloom Day!! If you'd like to see more of what's blooming around the world today, stop by her blog.

february bloom day - 2015

My crocus came back! I'm not sure where it came from, but it showed up last year in my rock garden, and it came back this year.  I snapped this picture Saturday afternoon when it was nice and warm and sunny out.  I should have taken all of my pictures then, because I waited until today, and it is a cold rainy mess.  Nothing like the 3-6 inches of snowy mess we were expecting.  Oh well.  At lease I have flowers in February!!

If you've been looking around at other bloom day posts, I'm sure you've seen lots of hellebores/Christmas Roses/lenten roses.  Mine are pass along plants from my mom, planted in November 2012.  They've settled in pretty well, but they're not as full as hers are.  (My baby hellebores from this fall are growing, but no blooms yet.)

I also have daffodils blooming!  The first daffodils opened up on Saturday, just in time for the weather to turn cold, and wet.  There was a little bit of freezing rain when I took these pictures today, so I appologize the quality of the daffodil picture.  It was just too cold to try and get it just right.

Since we're looking at falling temperatures (into the single digits!) in the coming days, I pinched these blooms and brought them inside.  They make my construction zone of a kitchen a little brighter.

Happy belated bloom day everyone.  I have the really bad habit of blogging from my work computer some days.

april bloom day 2014

It may be raining, but I have flowers!  That is my #1 garden goal this year, and I'm excited about what all we've done, and the things I have found, so far. I knew the weather was going to be a mess this morning, so I took my pictures this weekend.  I hope you'll forgive me.

When you turn in my driveway the first thing you'll notice are the Dogwoods.  They are especially white this year, and dot the woods all through the property.

If you take a walk in my woods you will see a lot more wild azaleas than I have noticed before.  I thought I had two or three, but they number more than 30, and are in a couple of different spots.  Some are taller than I am, and some are just babies.  We cleared underbrush last year, and I think that's helping them bloom.  I spent the weekend clearing out around the newly discovered azaleas, so the show should be even better next year.  The white azaleas are are first to bloom, and the pink ones are just starting to open up.

Also in the woods is a thicket of Carolina Sweet Shrubs/ Allspice.  Seriously, a thicket. Most range 4'-5' tall, with a few closer to 6' or 7'.  They have really cool blooms, and I transplanted a few small plants near the house. They are pretty much in my ideal category of plants - plants that thrived on their own through 20+ years of neglect.

When you get to my house you will notice that the yard is covered in little purple flowers called Blue Its.  I don't mow my grass very often, so these flowers have really taken off and spread since I've lived here.  I love them.

I have later blooming daffodils blooming in scattered spots around the yard and woods.  I love how haphazard their placement is (before my time here).

The hellebores are still going strong, and a few of the earlier blooms have started to go to seed.  Looks like I will have more baby hellebores next year.

The Bird's Foot Voilets (Viola Pedata) are really happy this year.  I have 4 that come up in my kitchen garden, and they seem to be growing some this year.

I also have this giant bush/small tree that was must have been planted by my great grandmother 30-50 years ago.  It has a huge trunk, and arching branches that have taken over a walkway.  It is a survivor, but I don't remember it blooming since I've been here.  I cleared out some small trees around it last fall, and it's got a few blooms.  It's not very showy, it's hard to see the white trumpeted flowers against the silver leaves, but the bees are happy.

The bees are also happy with the spiderwart and this purple ground cover that everyone loves, but I kind of hate.  It's pretty when it blooms, but the other 11 months out of the year I think it looks awful in my driveway.  I'm sure it is nice in the right setting, but my driveway is not it.

Moving on to my oh-so-cleverly-named 'Shade Garden', this is one of the areas where I said "I will have flowers damn it".  It's undergone a small transformation, moving the wild huckleberries, a holly tree, and Hearts-A-Bursting back from the one thing of interest, the azalea.  And man the azalea is happy now.  I don't think it's received much attention since it was planted, so it is thrilled to have two years of fertilizer, pine mulch, and one year of extra watering under its belt.  It's like the plant version of spa treatment. 

This bed is now home to two of my seven $2 alazeas.  The pink ones have been re-potted and are blooming, and the two purple ones in the ground are right behind the pink one above.  I haven't decided where the other 5 will go, but I have a few ideas.  Side note, I'm not sure when 'hot pink' became 'pink', but these pink azaleas look nothing like my mom's pastel pink ones.

There is also a columbine from last year that is about to bloom.

A few weeks ago I picked up some plants from family, and the wild geraniums and trillium found homes in the shade garden.  They look pretty happy so far.

I also picked up a native columbine that is blooming in the also-cleverly-named 'Mini Shade Garden'.  It sits behind a group of Lily of the Valley, that just put out it's first flowers yesterday.

Let's see, what else.  The vica minor is still going strong, and I have a little bit of thrift that survived an accidental roundup treatment when I first moved in and was tackling some nasty ivy in a rock wall.  The Little Brown Jugs have jugs, and the violets I got from family are doing nicely in the cracks of my rock walkway, even though it's mostly clay.  I know most people think they are weeds, but I like them, and these are really unique.

So look, FLOWERS!!  It's a really nice start to having established gardens, and the project for this week is digging out 3 old beds around the house so I can plant some hostas, bloodroot, and my new roses, and clearing 2 new paths in the woods.  Not overly ambitious at all. :)

This post is part of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.  Check it out!!