Garden Games Rained Out

We have been getting a lot of rain here the last couple of days. Yesterday it rained just about all day and last night it rained too.  Today looked a bit more promising.  Ed spent the morning weeding.  Many weeds pull much more easily when the soil is wet.  With warmer weather and all the rain everything in the garden is growing fast.  I've been waiting to see  plume hyacinths for the first time and they are almost there.  It would be nice to get them weeded so that they look their best.

Here we have onions and pink poppies.  I love my pink double poppies, but these will have to go!  This bed belongs to the onions.

Ed and I worked on a spot to plant asters and some more pansies.   Thunder rumbled in the distance as we worked.  Wanting to finish, we ignored the impending rain until a really loud clap of thunder directly overhead made us decide it was time to head inside.  It was too late.  By the time Ed and I traveled the short distance to the house we were soaked to the skin having been pelted by huge raindrops.

For the rest of the afternoon the sun would come out just long enough to slip outside to take a few pictures or dump the compost, but the dark clouds, wind, and rain always returned.  Garden games have been rescheduled for tomorrow.

I Just Love A Happy Face!

I have always loved pansies.  There is something special about their happy little faces.  You can plant them out even when you are still getting freezes  and frosts like we are now.  They really are tough which makes me wonder why the word pansy is used the way it is sometimes.  Even though I love pansies, I have not planted them since the first year we had a garden here.  The simple reason is that they got eaten.  I don't mean the flowers got nipped off or the leaves got trimmed.  The entire plants were eaten, gone, missing, vanished!

This year when we visited our favorite local nursery and we walked into the greenhouse where the pansies were growing, the fragrance was amazing.  Ed asked me why we don't grow pansies since I love them so much.  I explained.  He  does not give up easily and decided we should try again.  So today we once again planted pansies.  Ed built cages to go over them.

He watered them well.  For the first time in years I have pansies in the garden.

Pretty purple and white pansies look great with those  happy little faces peering out of their protective cage.  They have been planted there to make me happy and tonight I am.  I'll be ecstatic if they are still there in the morning!

Time for More Plants

We had some errands to do, and with gas prices being what they are, we made a circle and stopped at some nurseries to look at their plants. It's early of course, but we were driving right by, weren't we?

We walked around the first place and looked. My sales resistance was good. I just picked up some lavender plants since my are all either dead or doing Camille.

The man at the second place had promised me lemon verbenas plants when I stopped there last year late in the buying season. "I had them", he said. "I'll have them next year. Don't come so late in the season." We looked around, asked where the herbs were, but alas no lemon verbena. This time we left empty handed.

The last stop of the day was in Franklin, NY. This nursery has been a favorite of mine for years. The stand is up by the road and the green houses are down the hill. The stand looked lovely with pansies, primroses and other cool loving plants.

"Can we look in the greenhouses?" we asked. "Of course", she replied. "Can we buy the plants now?" we asked. "If you take care of them you can, you know it's too soon to leave them outside!" We assured we would carry our plants in and out until the weather was better, and down the hill we went. She cares because they grow plants here, they don't just unload them off of a truck, and she wants them to live.

These greenhouses are special. The plants are healthy, well cared for and gorgeous. We came home with the plants in the picture: parsley, curled and Italian, tricolor sage, golden sage, a single sweet 100s tomato plant, and red and green basil.

I stopped to look in the pansy greenhouse. The sun was shining and the fan was blowing across the pansies. The fragrance was every bit as wonderful as the colorful display of those happy faces. I took a deep breath, and then turned and left. Here, pansies are rabbit and deer candy. The animals seem to find them irresistible. We promised to take care of her plants, so I couldn't expose them to certain and untimely death.