Freeze watch

Thanks to the local weatherman, who shouted 'Freeze Warning!  Mayday! Mayday! Your flowery leafy plants are goners!' on Wednesday, I took the time to run to the garden center to pick up some supplies to save my delicate (and brand new last fall) Japanese Maple, and my already-leafed-out hydrangeas that I adore. 

Yeah, this stuff was on clearance so I thought, what the heck?  It's supposed to add a few degrees of protection to your ornamental and fruit and veggie plants. 

I then waddled and grunted through my yard wrapping up my plants like mummies using the garden cover and binder clips. 

I got kinda lazy with my Endless Summer hydrangeas, since they are several years old and seem to be real tanks, anyway. 

After covering, I sprayed the rest of my stuff with the Freeze Pruf just for funsies.  Then, I find out that because we are near the lake it didn't even go below 32 degrees.  BUT WAIT!  THURSDAY NIGHT IT WILL BE EVEN COLDER!  So, I removed everything during the day on Thursday and recovered it all again Thursday night.  Guess what....

(source)

It didn't get colder.  It stayed the same.  And I did all that work for nothing.  So now, I have $20 of stuff that I didn't need and I officially don't care what happens.  BAH!

A new tree

When I went to find a replacement shrub for picky picky Annabelle a couple weeks ago, I also was fortunate to find some cute Japanese Maples left at half off.  I was a little tired of seeing the 'Charlie Brown tree' all summer....

Shaun couldn't get it out fast enough!  Oh, and those sunken, sad grasses got tossed as well.  They never really lived up to the image in my head. 

I felt so bad seeing the tree all tiny and dead on the grass. 

We enlisted the help of my dad (and his truck) to go pick up the tree, and he also lent his expertise while planting...the dude has seriously planted dozens of trees in his life. 

He was so happy to help, he actually dug his bare hands into the bag of manure we bought to mix into the dirt.  I think he was pretty revolted when he realized what he did.  Tee hee!

The new addition is an 'Inaba Shidare', and it is only supposed to get about 8 to 10 feet wide and tall.  I love the lacy leaves and upright habit.

It's so hard to photograph, but I assure you it is cute!

Next up....moving some poor astilbes that have been engulfed by our gigantic hostas. 

You can hardly see them peeking out of there...so that will be part of my weekend.  Have a great one, peeps! 

Annabelle's high maintenance

Whoops, I thought fo sho I had posted this week, guess I dreamed it.  Anywho, I've been busy in the yard.  This time of year I go a little crazy and start ordering hundreds of lily and allium bulbs and then freak about where to put them all.  I'm a sucker for the pretty catalogs, I tell ya!  Before all my bulbs arrived, I wanted to get my 'foundation' shrubs addressed.  Mainly, the always-dead-looking Annabelle hydrangea in the corner here:

Why so droopy, Annabelle?!  No matter how much water it got, the stupid thing ALWAYS looked like this.  When I planted it here, it was closer to fall and there was a lot more shade at this spot.  During the earlier months though, it was baking.  So, I picked this new bright-shade spot for her, by the AC:

Those coral bells never bloom in the shade, and I don't really love them anyway, so I just got rid of them.  I got them for free from our neighbor, so I didn't feel too bad about tossing em.  We have a very scientific way of removing dirt without a wheelbarrow around here.  Observe:

Yup, Home Depot buckets and random broken plastic storage bins.  Please don't try this at home, it really sucks the big one.  Anywedonthaveroomforawheelbarrowinthegarage, here is Annabelle all uprooted and still sad:

And here she is looking slightly better still pretty sad in her new home.  I'm really psyched that one day she may cover up that stupid white downspout extender that I have yet to address.

To take her place, I got myself a beautiful sun-loving Weigela, 'Red Prince.'

I already have a stunning 'Wine and Roses' Weigela on the opposite side of the yard, along with three tiny 'My Monet' Weigelas, so this is a welcome addition to the landscape!

I guess I stick to what I like!

Buried

Just when I thought I was done pulling huge flagstones out of the ground, I put my shovel down to plant a new grouping of coneflowers yesterday and heard that familiar 'chink.'  I am immediately disgusted that my quick planting is now going to take an hour while I dig this thing out.  And it did take forever, it was huge and also partly under the neighbor's fence. 

I cleared out as much dirt as possible and wedged the shovel under the edge to pull up with all my might.  Embarrassingly enough, I fell when the shovel slipped off while I was pulling up, I darn near broke my dappled willow and hit the grass flat on my back so hard my glasses flew off.  I'm pretty sure I heard the giggle of a fat ass squirrel, too...

Finally, without any more 'America's Funniest Videos' moments, I had it loosened enough to wiggle and pull it out with my hands.  And, poor flagstone was freed from it's earthy prison. 

Thanks, Boozie Susie for burying 100's of flagstones in our yard and planting grass over them! 

Who knows how many more we will find....but all of the stones in our mini retaining wall were once underground, so I'm quite sure there are still more in there.  Oh happy day.

New Roses

We planted the new rose bushes where the mums used to be.  I came home from work one day, and my lover had the holes already dug for me!  All I had to do was direct the placement, swap out the locations when I changed my mind, help refill the dirt, add fertilizer, and mulch-fluff.  Holla!

The roses we chose were recommended to us by the 'Weeks Roses' Rep at a wonderful event we went to at our favorite garden center in June.  I have to get pics up from that, it was fabulous! 

'Easy Does It' has plentiful blooms, is mildew and disease resistant, and beautiful peachy orange blooms that smell pretty.  'Rio Samba' is a little less mildew resistant, but the blushing yellow color was too hard to resist. 

They were a little wilty from the transplant, but I was thrilled when they were all planted and mulched.  Due to the cold Wisconsin weather, the tags recommend to sink the root ball a couple inches below the ground.  I put ours somewhere between 1 and 2 inches down.

I made sure to keep the mulch away from the main stem to avoid any excess moisture on the bottom leaves.  Roses don't like water on their leaves, and I take care to water them without 'sprinkling'.  

I can't wait for them to fill out this space with beautiful color!  The best part is the flowers bloom on long stems, so I can actually cut them and use them in vases.  That's awesome, since I have a slight addiction to buying milk glass vases at Goodwill.  Ooops!

What a knock out

The Knock Out rose I planted last summer used to be a puny little thing. 

Well, it seems to like the sheltered spot next to the house. 

The salvias are holding their own.  Since roses like good airflow, I have been very diligent about keeping everything all trimmed up. 

This little rose may just steal my heart away from my beloved hydrangeas!  

Ok, probably not....but they can't all be my favorite! 

Another one bites the dust

Remember when I announced that my beloved Japanese Maple was probably dead?  Well, it is.  Exactly three years after planting, outside of the two year warranty....of course! 

At least all the Japanese Maples are 40% off right now, so it doesn't hurt quite that bad...but I'm still angry because I have no idea what killed it.  And my heart has been heavy over the last few weeks as I realized that my fantasic super-mums also didn't come back this year, after three years. 

Nothing there now but dried up stumps.  Let this be a warning to you, do NOT cut them down in the fall!  Always wait until spring or you will lose them!  I knew I should've waited like I did the previous years....

And in related news, I think I went overboard at the garden centers today, trying to fill the void of my lost mums....

Two rose bushes, tons of annuals, a sunflower, some new planters, accent plants, vines, herbs, peppers, and a tomato plant.  I'm so behind on the veggies!  Wish me luck getting all this planted today...yikes!

Vegetation

So, my sweet potato vine grew a potato. 

This has never happened to me before, I actually thought a pesky squirrel had buried something in my window box!  So I 'dug it up' and whooops, there went my vine. 

Something doing much better than the now-dead sweet potato vine is our mums.  They are STUNNING this year!

They are around three feet across, big balls of gorgeous.  They started as $5 Home Depot specials two years ago.  I had planted four, and only these two came back. 

My mom is dying of jealousy, she can't get any mums to come back and I don't do anything special to these!  No purposeful watering, no fertilizer, no winter protection, no pinching back, nothing. 

They seem to magically move around every year, this was how they looked in fall of '09:

How can they not be touching anymore?  It's like the one on the left took some steroids and then heaved over 6 inches.  A 'mum' mystery, I tell ya!

Where the heck am I?

I'm a terrible blogger.  I've been eating chips and salsa all week and that is why I can't come to the computer.  I blame it on Jenny @ Anything Pretty for posting the ingredients for the 'zesty' salsa that she made.  I was so inspired that I actually went to the grocery store that evening and purchased Ball jars.  This does not happen at my house, trust me.  Just like Jenny, all the ingredients came from our garden except for the prissy cilantro that is TOO GOOD to grow for home gardeners.  Also like Jenny, an entire jar disappeared within a very short time.  I still have alot left, though. 

It is chunky and deliciously spicy because I threw some jalapeno seeds in there.  I swear, if I didn't make it myself I would think it had crack in it.  Shaun also thinks this salsa is the bomb diggity....too bad I couldn't recreate it easily.  I certainly didn't measure out all those ingredients, I just kept using the food processor on everything and mixing it together until it tasted like happiness and rainbows.  Walah!  

RIP Squash

Well, my squash plants have officially bit the dust. 

I guess with the frequent waterings, the soil level went down enough that the stems were exposed.  Before I realized what was happening, the stems were soft and rotten.  I blame the abundance of leaves for my misfortune!  But I can't say I'm that upset, I got some crazy zucchinis off this plant and I'm really sick of watering it, anyway.  Frankly, I'm tired of super heat, swarms of mosquitos and eyebrow sweat in general.  Are you with me? 

Is that a zucchini in your pocket?

The zucchinis in my container garden are apparently on steroids.  I pulled a couple monsters out of there and couldn't resist snapping a couple pics to show off.  

The squash isn't too shabby, either.  These guys were sooo tasty in a stir fry that same night!  And then the next week I pulled this one off the plant:

It is just as big, and we still haven't eaten it.  What should I make?  I'm thinking some veggie lasagna is in our future, if I can get a spare hour to cook something.  By the time I'm done with work, errands, exercise, picking up the house, or whatever I need to do, it's already 7pm.  I never feel like cooking anything that late.  I don't know how you ladies with kids do it!