Showing posts with label Astilbe bed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Astilbe bed. Show all posts

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The *NEW* Astilbe Area

Last weekend I cleared an area for my Bluestone Perennial order.  It's mostly Astilbe and Ferns to go on the shady side of the house (part sun, only in the afternoons).  Today the plants arrived!  Yipee!

Yesterday we got a lot of rain and we're predicted to get more in the next few days.  If I wanted to plant these guys before next weekend (10 days out) it had to be today.  It's a good thing our soil is loose and sandy.  Planting in damp soil is not a good idea and if it was damp clay it would be impossible!

Here's the after.  See all my nice little plants?

Now I just have to break it to the husband that I'm not ready to put in the Asters yet - that's another area that needs to be prepped!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

FINALLY!!!!

After a long, hard snowy winter and weeks of below normal temperatures the weather pattern finally changed and I was able to get out in the garden yesterday.


A ladies' hands proclaim her habits.  I have a habit of working in the garden without gloves.


One of my neighbors worries about my tendency to wear sandals or, worse, go about in bare feet!  Yesterday she told The Husband that he needs to buy me some socks.  I explained to him that "socks" is New England code for pansies.  Got a shopping trip scheduled for today.

The Husband is like Royalty in that he has many titles.  One of his titles is Major Spoilsport of Plant Buying.  Every time I talk about buying a plant he asks "where is that going to go?"  So I check the tag and mention that the conditions are just like those needed by the vaguely-Latin-sounding-name-that-I-just-made-up and there is a gap in the garden there.  If he's on the ball he persists in wanting to know where that vaguely-Latin-sounding-etc  plant is - he doesn't remember which one it is.  Spoilsport.  The point of this story is that I have ordered plants from Bluestone Perennial and he wants to know where they are going.  So here they are.


All of those plant labels are where the plants will go.  This was my big weekend project - remove the grass, add compost, be ready for their arrival.  That will put a pin in his Spoilsport bubble.

Just don't tell him about the OTHER plants I've ordered that aren't going here.    Shhhh!

Gratuitous photo of Crocus and First Bee of the Season!