May Gardening Update

This is an 'occasional' post on gardening - more like cleaning up and adding bedding plants. It will remind me next year of garden growth on May 11, 2017.

The winter froze most of the buds on my small rhododendron tree (or very large bush) and the blossoms that did appear were sparse so I borrowed a blossom from May 2015.

Front Yard: 

Peony and oriental poppies have grown taller this last week and flower buds are getting bigger as are the dandelions.

Finally the weather warmed enough so that some bedding plants could be put in.

Always look forward to adding the summer plants to the front planting boxes, partly because it is a limited time task. 

After planting

An idea came to me when I saw this raw edge board in my wood junk pile. Added a stencil. Finished it with MMS Tough Coat.

It was just what I need to finish the planter boxes.

Before planting - the plants below are sitting on top of the soil, Monday to Wednesday forecast was for sunny/cloudy warm days, now is the time to plant.

The local Laity Farm aka Pumpkin Patch started selling bedding/baskets/small shrubs during late April and in May a few years ago and they are just a few blocks away so I like to stop and pick up whatever matches my planting plans for the season.

Picked up 25 allysum for the border, 3 dusty miller, a Kale Storm Mix, Rosemary, one more geranium and 16 discounted sweet peas plants (skinny little plants). 

Bought 4 geraniums at a church sale last week so now I have the bedding plants ready.

I am trying the Kale Storm Mix to see how tall/wide it grows. Sweet Peas are my 'always add' as is white alyssum for an over the edge border.

Before and after (right planter box). I removed all the plants (except the one green one below) from both planter beds. Things were looking very scraggy.

I added some sea soil and mixed it in with a gardening hand fork and checked for any bugs that shouldn't be in the bed. Slugs do enjoy eating bedding plants. Lots of wood bugs, found two earthworms.


Moving to the backyard:

Next job is planting dahlia tubers. I am (a little bit) considering moving my dahlia beds near to the fence in the back yard where my large white storage tent was. I gave the tent away a few weeks ago to a friend in Williams Lake who is using it for a green house/garden protection from the deer.

The back area used to be my garden until about 12 years ago when I had two raised beds added closer to the house (which gave me incentive to grow a few vegetables and flowers) as I travel into the late middle years.

I have cleaned out one raised bed and planted kale and parsley. I have 2 kale plants under the milk containers and they look appear stronger than the other plants.

The other bed (next to the kale bed) had dahlia and herbs last year. 2015/6 winter was mild and the dahlia all wintered over and produced a good crop of flowers. DGS wore shorts to school last year in April right through to October.

This year the winter 2016/7 was harsh and I have to clean out the dahlia bed - rotted tubers). Shorts have been worn once to school (on Tuesday) for the first time this year.

I picked up several colors of dahlia tubers at two different church sales last week. All tubers were untagged  and may be lilac, white, red, pink and mystery.

I don't have the dahlia bed ready so that is my next outside job - and I think it is going to be a big job if I have to dig holes in the back garden area. We'll see. 

To close my May Gardening Update is an overview of the front yard, small, simple. See the trees leaning toward the street? The winter snows weighed them backwards and they have not recovered, I suspect they may not recover - they used to stand up and lean at bit toward the house (making good shade for sitting outside). See my August 2015 post here for these trees and shade.

Thanks for visiting

Featured by: Linda at Coastal Charm May 22/17

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