Green popping up

Another inch of rain this week! Perhaps the weather patterns are changing?

I have two types of sedum, and both are beginning to come up, as are some of my daylilies. No sign of any grass yet.
The first sedum is a ground cover. It seems to be a slow grower. I was hoping it would grow faster. The second one grows about 2 ft and has wonderful reddish flowers. It grows a bit faster. I separated lots of it last year. I think I will leave it in clumps this year.

Nice day for a little work

Another tenth of an inch of rain last night.

Did some general cleaning in the yard today.  Cleaned out the back herb bed of leaves, and swept up the patio again.  Cut some volunteer plants on the south side of the house.  Pulled old plants our of some pots, and threw away  some old pots.

Also cut some more daffodils for the house.  They really are beautiful this year.  Cut some Daphene as well.  

The star magnolia will bloom this week!  It hasn't grown as quickly as I expected.

Not enough rain...again

Only about a quarter of an inch yesterday. Actually the ground is fine. The soil is fairly moist.

Lenten Roses are starting to bloom, and the hyacinths are as well. Daffodils are the prettiest I've had. I'm also seeing some amaryllis beginning to pop up in the front yard.

I'm still frustrated by the back yard, very back near the fence. It is just so junky looking with vines and bushes and buckets and crap. I would love to have a hedge of camelia and azalea back there.

I want to concentrate on cutting beds. I love to have cut flowers at home and at work. I'll plant several more Gerbera daisies this year. And, as always, I'll have Zinnias. I may skip the Cosmos. I like them, and they look fun, but they don't do well cut...the stems are too delicate.

Return of winter?

Its again cold. Today was in the low 40s, and there is a chance of sleet and freezing rain tonight. This won't hurt the daffodils, but my hyacinth are up enough that they might get frozen.

I'm hearing conflicting forecasts, but I think we may end up with about an inch of rain. I've been walking around the Cameron Park area looking for gardening ideas. I'm going to have to do something drastic where I use to have grass!

A little rain

We had .6 inches of rain measured in my gage this morning. I've read that we need something ridiculous like 24 inches in the next 4 months to get out of the severe drought. But the reality is, my ground is fairly moist. After the rains, the sun came and and the temperatures shot up. Some hope for the grass seed?

I set up a grow light in the office, and I have some gerbera daisies and lavender plants ready for the spring.

I took pictures of the dismal front yard. I am not sure I will end up with anything pleasing this summer. I think the perennial beds will be ok. The rest I'm not so sure of.

An Early Spring

This winter has been mild, so my garden is coming to life early.  As expected, the Daphane bushes are blooming.  I also have crocus and daffodils in boom.  The hyacinths and daylilies are emerging as well.  Mid February seems early.  Last year the daffodils did not bloom until early March.  My Star Magnolia is also budding.

I found that there were perhaps 50 daffodils coming up under a gardenia bush.  They were getting no light, so of course there were no buds.  I moved them today.  They won't bloom, but the weather is still cool enough that they will survive.

With the lingering drought, all the grass died last fall, or what was left of it after the invasion of chickweed.  So, we killed off the yard.  We won't be able to water this year.  In an effort to have some green in the yard, we've begun to put down centipede seed.  Today we covered it with coffee grounds, before the rain began.  An experiment in drought tolerant gardening.  I like to have some grass, but it may be time to look at other plants.