I spent a couple hours last week cleaning up the rain garden. Although still attractive in their paper dry form, the grasses needed to be cut back since new green shoots were already emerging. The Siberian Iris had also started to push up new shoots with 2 inches already above ground level. Tiny groups of leaves were out on the Aquilegia canadensis (Wild Columbine) so the fine dry stems from last year needed to go. The Tradescantia (Spiderwort) is growing faster than anything else and is already 4 inches tall. That and removing leaves that had blown in during the winter pretty much took care of the spring clean up.
I'll be monitoring the garden more often now that we have had a couple of 70 degree days as dormant plants will come back to life quickly.
As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we are still lacking in rain fall.. The local weatherman says we are currently 4 inches below the average for this year. Thunderstorms are forecast for tonight and tomorrow morning and then again later next week so there is hope for some catching up.
Oh, and Michael is building some ingenious stands for the rain barrels from scrap lumber left over from building the puppy fenced in area. They elevate the barrels about 16 to 18 inches and help get a better flow for watering taller planters. They also eliminate the problem of having the hose kink at ground level when the barrel is too close to the ground and the faucet is a mere 3 inches from the bottom of the barrel.
Did I mention that the chrysanthemum I tucked into the rain garden last fall has produced a great many new shoots? Mums hate having their feet wet and the soil mix drains quickly so they seem quite happy. Think I'll add a few more this year for a nice colorful addition for late summer when everything else has bloomed out.
I had intended to include pictures of the before and after clean-up but during the process of downloading the images I received error code 503, whatever that means. I am a far better gardener than a computer person. It's time to call my friend Greg at Great Services to come find out why my computer is missbehaving. He can always fix my problems and demistify what occurred.
I'll be monitoring the garden more often now that we have had a couple of 70 degree days as dormant plants will come back to life quickly.
As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we are still lacking in rain fall.. The local weatherman says we are currently 4 inches below the average for this year. Thunderstorms are forecast for tonight and tomorrow morning and then again later next week so there is hope for some catching up.
Oh, and Michael is building some ingenious stands for the rain barrels from scrap lumber left over from building the puppy fenced in area. They elevate the barrels about 16 to 18 inches and help get a better flow for watering taller planters. They also eliminate the problem of having the hose kink at ground level when the barrel is too close to the ground and the faucet is a mere 3 inches from the bottom of the barrel.
Did I mention that the chrysanthemum I tucked into the rain garden last fall has produced a great many new shoots? Mums hate having their feet wet and the soil mix drains quickly so they seem quite happy. Think I'll add a few more this year for a nice colorful addition for late summer when everything else has bloomed out.
I had intended to include pictures of the before and after clean-up but during the process of downloading the images I received error code 503, whatever that means. I am a far better gardener than a computer person. It's time to call my friend Greg at Great Services to come find out why my computer is missbehaving. He can always fix my problems and demistify what occurred.
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