spring gardening thus far
Emily Oster
This spring has been rather mild and excitingly we have had time at home to enjoy it! Last year, our spring was spent inside as Jeff prepared to take his licensing exam and I rushed to finish painting our hallway and stairs before our carpet runner was installed. It also was a record year for rainfall and our yard was a jungle so having a manageable yard and cooperating weather has been a dramatic improvement.
So for the past couple weekends, we have gotten outside and started our spring clean up and planting. It has been mostly weeding with some new planting but we are both really enjoying it. We have even instituted "Green Thumb Thursdays" in which we plan to garden for an hour or so in the evening and then enjoy an outdoor meal.
In the front, we started working on our main bed that was quickly being overtaken by day lilies. We pulled out a bunch and created a border along the driveway. Ideally, we would have dug out all of them as I don't like them very much. But, we don't yet have a plan for what to replace them with so we opted to wait. We also weeded (still a bit left to do), transplanted a few hostas and brainstormed what to plant in the bed.
In the back, we put in a climbing hydrangea in what is set to become our herb garden. My hope is that it will wrap the rather unattractive lattice work and add some "green" interest to an unsightly corner of our porch.
Adjacent to the herb garden is a small bed that has our hellebore which is continuing to do great - ya! And a bunch of lily of the valley that I successfully transplanted last year! So just a bit of weeding effort in that particular bed.
Finally, we expanded a bed along our driveway and planted two lilacs (the old-fashion kind), a bridal veil spirea, two little henries and transplanted some form of a monkey grass and two patches of irises. I am super excited about this planting effort as 1.) I finally have my lilacs! 2.) the bed went to bare to almost filled out and 3.) the little henries and irises should help with our water problem.
Tomorrow, we plan on hitting the first Saturday farmers market of the year and picking up our herbs to plant! I hope everyone has a lovely weekend.
