from zero to garden

THIS is my year.  When I moved into my house, I said I would observe the garden for a year, and then start gardens.  Last year, my year to plant, ended up consumed by painting my house.  So this year is my year.  We got started last fall with the hydrangeas & day lilies, I have worked in the woods this spring, and I am moving into high gear.  I will have flowers this year.

The day lily bed is to the left of the pot. 
They are much happier this year.

This weekend I picked up some early blooming daffodils from my parents house, some composted horse manure from a friend's farm, and plants from my grandparent's house on Signal Mountain.  I made out like a bandit.

 
My Saturday afternoon was spent loading and unloading compost.  I also got all of the daffodils divided and in the ground.  They are some of my favorite spring flowers, and I can't wait to have more scattered about.  I also moved my awesome $2 azaleas into bigger pots until I can decide on a permanent home for them, they are much happier now. 

Sunday was busy too, and this is really where I felt like I was making real progress because it involved plants and not prep work.  We celebrated my grandfathers 87th birthday, and I came home with quite a few gems from their gardens.

Here's a list of plants I got on Sunday:

Trout Lily, Lilium erythronium americanum? Tiger Lily, Lilium superbum Australian Lily Wild Geranium, Geranium maculatum Trillium, Trillium kurabayashii? Bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis

Hostas (white blooming) Native Columbine Aquilegia canadensis L White violets (with purple stripes) Spring Beauty, Claytonia virginica Rue Anemone, Thalictrum thalictroides Gooseneck, Lysimachia clethroides

I'm happy to say that all of these plants now have new homes, or are in a holding bed.  That's a lot of holes dug this weekend.



The next step is digging the manure into 3 new beds around the foundation of my house.  They've all had mulch on them for at least a year, so hopefully it won't be too bad.  This is where the hostas will go, as well as some of the wildflowers, and also my roses.

My roses from Rose Petals Nursery shipped yesterday!!!  It will probably be two weekends before I can put them in the ground, but I'm more excited than most of you can relate too.  We all have our 'things' I guess.

Buff Beauty

Cramoisi Superieur

It started raining right as I was finishing up my plantings, so for those of you wanting to see pictures, they will be coming after I make a little more progress.