Progress...

Slow...but, sure.

Have a great weekend.

Happy Gardening...

~~Linda~~

Deja Vu, All Over Again...

Last year, we took a cruise to the Caribbean.

We returned to a garden full of weeds....and a LOT of work to do.

Well...we did it again.

 St. Lucia

This year, we took TWO cruises.

Two, ten day cruises, back to back.

The first ten was great.  Our niece and nephew were with us.

We took lots of excursions, to see these beautiful islands.

The last ten...not so much.

Oh, the islands were beautiful.  But, Mr. P came down with the flu.

I can tell you...having the flu, on a cruise, is not that much fun.

We need to do the second cruise again...without being sick.

Oh...I managed to avoid getting sick.  

Yay me!

The return home was pretty much the same as last year.

Weeds, weeds, and more weeds.

Plus, the hard winter freeze damage.

Another year of hard work, getting things cleaned up.

And, this year, replacing quite a few plants.

I'm not looking forward to the clean-up.

But, there is some Spring beauty already...

The old iris....pass-alongs....are blooming.

The new ones, the ones I bought and planted in September, 2015, 

are not doing so well.  

I'll just hope for better...next year.

So, I guess you can see what will be going on around here.

Pulling weeds...cutting back more freeze kill...pulling weeds...

replanting some things....

Oh, did I mention PULLING WEEDS?

Spring is bustin' out all over, here.

I hope your spring is, too.

Now, I gotta get to work.

Happy Gardening...

~~Linda~~

Leaves, Leaves, Leaves...

I hope your Thanksgiving was good.

Ours was great!

Now, back to the continuing saga of leaves.

This was a couple days ago.

We got those picked up.

This is now.

Not much, actually.

And, fewer seeds.

But, more are coming down.

When the wind blows, it's like a leaf blizzard.

And, the trees still look full.

This is over the back porch.

Which looks like this.

So many leaves.

So little time....and, energy.

But, there will be weeks more leaf clean-up.

And, it's time to pack away the pumpkins....

and, get out the Santas.

Time really flies by when you're having fun.

OK...out to clean up leaves...again.

Hope your garden chores are easy ones...

Happy Gardening...

~~Linda~~

November...

November!

Seems, each month, 

I'm surprised the time had gone by so fast.

I should be used to it, by now.

We made it through a Halloween,

without a flood.

So, I'm smiling today...even though we do need rain.

So...what have we been up to?

Well, mostly this....

It's Fall Leaf Season.

Or, more accurately, Fall SEED Season.

See all those seeds?

They're Cedar Elms.

The best germinating seeds ever!

At least 85%.

And, each one will be a little Cedar Elm tree,

if it falls onto soil.

I try to keep as many as possible out of the soil.

Come spring, I'll be out there pulling them all up.

So, every day is seed clean up day.

Next...when the seeds are done...every day,

will be LEAF clean up day.

Such fun.

But, we can at least use the seed-free leaves for mulch.

And, of course...there is always fun with deer.

They took the core out of the Spanish Dagger Yucca.

There is a REASON this is called a dagger.

Sorry to be mean, 

but I hope it really hurt.

There's already a new center growing back, though.

So, on a happier note...

the Big Muhly has really taken off, this year.

And, the Gulf Muhly is trying hard.

They're both really pretty, with the sun shining through. 

Oh, and we went to Oregon.

Tell you about that next time.

Hope your November is starting out good.  

Happy Gardening...

~~Linda~~

May 1...

Well...we made it to May.

Bet you didn't think you'd hear from me so soon.

The night after my last post,

showing you all the work and pretty iris,

we had quite a storm.

At 3:00 in the morning.

What is it with 3:00 in the morning, for storms here?

Like Halloween, it seems to be some kind of cosmic signal.

Anyway...

It hailed...

Not huge hail...but, larger than we liked.

(the wine cork was the closest thing I had, for scale. 

That was really good wine, on our cruise.)

The worse part was the wind.

Reports are, we had gusts to 60 or 70 mph.

It tried to pull up the windmill.

We've had 60 mph here before,

and the windmill never budged.

It brought down some good sized limbs here.

And, just generally made a mess.

More clean up!

How lucky can a girl get?

We were really lucky, though.

No real damage.

But, it did do some damage next door.

Giant limbs, from two different trees, came crashing down.

It landed on the AC unit. Didn't do it much good.

But, even then, they were lucky.

It missed the roof, and the car in the driveway.

It wasn't long before people arrived with equipment,

and before evening, those limbs were firewood and mulch.

There were the sounds of chainsaws all over the neighborhood.

But, I haven't heard of any injuries or big damage.

We were all lucky, here.

The storm kept going, creating much more damage.

I hope none of you were in it's path.

Stay Safe...

~~Linda~~

Another One Bites the Dust...

Seems like just yesterday,

I was being amazed it was April already.

Now, it's almost over.

Another month, bites the dust.

It's been busy.

Weeding, and mulching, and graveling.

I got the fenced yard almost finished.

Just have to clean up that bed at the back,

and along the Rio.

I got some of the Virginia Creeper cut back.

It wants to take over the world.

This is the before...

I got some things planted in the Veggie Garden...

tomatoes, squash...and, transplanted these cucumbers

that came up in the compost bed.

Not sure they'll do anything, 

but, they were there.

Why not?

The grapevine is putting on buds.

It looked so bad last fall, we thought it had died.

The buds on the softleaf yucca opened.

Aren't they pretty?

As an extra treat, here's our neighbor's yucca blooming.

No wire around it, and the deer didn't touch it.

And, to finish out the month with more beauty...

Last fall I ordered some iris online.

I got them all planted and they all did good...except one.

But, that's a good record, for me.

And, they're blooming.

First, New Moon

Next, Peaches and Dreams.

And today, Discovered Treasure.

And, all together...

We had some light rain, and have a forecast for heavier rain tonight.

So, I went out and cut the open ones,

so we could enjoy them, inside.

Look how the peach of Peaches and Dreams,

and the peach in Discovered Treasure, match.

Isn't Nature wonderful?

So...that's it from here.

Hope you have a fun and safe weekend.

See you next month.

Happy Gardening...

~~Linda~~

That's Pretty Seedy...

We've been busy around here,

taking down the holidays, and getting back to normal...

or what we call normal.

One busy chore we've had is seeds.

Millions and millions of seeds.

You see, we live under a lot of Cedar Elms.

Usually, I'm whining about all the leaves.  Usually, the fall brings TONS of

LEAVES.

We sweep them up and pile them in the beds as mulch and in the compost bin...

which is really a 'leaf rotting' bin.  

The deer don't leave green stuff in there long enough to compost. 

Yeah, I know...we could wire it off...but....

Anyway...the trees also have seeds. Those seeds usually fall in October.

Not this year.

This year they started falling in late November.

And, we have a bumper crop.

They can't be put in the beds or compost.

All of those seeds will turn into little Cedar Elms.

Millions and millions of Cedar Elms.

We'll have enough that will have to be dug up, 

just from the ones that fall into the beds.

So, we sweep them up and carry them to the Deer Grove.

The deer like them, and so do the squirrels.

Those in these photos fell in one day.

That's the porch and deck.

Didn't get a photo of the driveway...

But, it's almost over.

We'll have a short leaf break, and then the Live Oaks will start

doing their thing.

I still love the trees...

*****************

By the way...

Can you believe January is almost half over?

Me either...

Happy Gardening...

~~Linda~~