The King Alfred daffodils are also fully in bloom, the hyacinths are opening. The fritillaria and narcissus are laden with buds. I expect to find something new every day now!
My gardens have many growing zones. In one of them, the crocus are finished. In another, they are peaking.
On Friday afternoon I did my garden shopping, which included the purchase of a fine new pair of garden gloves. I went to Borders for books and music, too. The books must await a rainy day. The weather is exquisite, and I only want to be outdoors!
On Earth Day--Saturday--the Chap and I, and the girls spent our day outside. He was involved in fleet management--washing, detailing, prepping the four automobiles. Two are being taken off the road, two were being made road-worthy.
I was double-digging new rose beds, re-routing garden paths, weeding like a demon, top-dressing my antique roses (gallicas, damasks, boursaults) with composted manure. And I transplanted my Portland rose to a better, roomier location.
At one point I removed my new (but well-dirtied) gloves and tossed them onto the lawn so I could undertake the most necessary and most maddening and most fiddly of tasks, erecting the mesh deer barrier around the front garden. Suddenly I heard the Chap shouting, "No, Jewel! Put that down!"
I looked round to see the dog gnawing on one glove. She wrecked it. My fault for being so careless.
When we finished our work, we celebrated with caipirinhas on the screened porch.
Last night, before we settled in to watch Cousin Bette (the ancient BBC television serial, with a baby-faced Helen Mirren as Valerie Marneffe) I remembered to take down my bird feeders. When I stepped onto the deck, I saw a snowshoe hare--not, I think, the one I saw a few days ago. This one was more brown.
I was in such a rush that I didn't check or change my camera setting, so the low-light image didn't turn out well. And the flash gave him "mad bunny" eyes. But here you have him...or her.
It's changing colour...only white underneath. The other one I saw was mottled, mostly white with a little brown mixed in.
We saw the much whiter bunny in the main drive very late, just before we went to bed. It was up to no good, as I discovered this morning when strolling my garden. I'd left a gap in the deer barrier at ground level--the bunny had got inside the garden and gnawed the leaves of some crocus down to the ground. They'd finished blooming, but still! And it left a little bit of bunny poo as further evidence.
Right after church we drove to the city for more shopping. At Lowe's, I used up what was left of that gift card, buying more manure and an identical new pair of garden gloves, stargazer lily bulbs, and sweet williams. The Chap had received a Petco gift card from his fellow board members, so we used part of it for stuff the girls needed.
Including this new red ball. Oh, the joy!
Ruth thinks it's just for her.
When we returned from our walk round the lake with the girls (see previous post), I moved plants and planters onto the deck and the porch. I transplanted some sweetheart roses I rooted from cuttings over the winter. I planted my lily bulbs.
So many more gardens to tidy. More roses to prune. The tasks seem endless--but so is my enthusiasm for them!
No comments:
Post a Comment