More May Garden Activities

Today the lure of lavender pulled me from a good book.  Before I could answer its siren call, I had to stop at the grocery store for fruit.  Guess who found me there, ME!  She helped me rent a movie through Redbox (Life of Pi), and we chatted about her mom.  It was a mom day as my art class had canceled due to a sad mom story.  Anyway, when I was finished at the store, I stopped at the local nursery (bet you thought I had wandered so far from the lavender in this paragraph that I had forgotten what I meant to say!).

 

Before I could meander too far from my purpose, I asked where I could find lavender, received directions, and promptly meandered.  What, you're surprised?  Anyway, some more white petunias (for the white flower garden in the front) found their way into my basket, and then some double pink and white ones for the back gardens because I don't do a lot with pink, but it's a good bright color for summer.  And because I love the smell of them, marigolds - both the pure yellow and the orange/red splashed ones.  They're for remembering sunshine.  Since I had put sunshine in my basket, I needed sky.  Blue is difficult to find in annuals, but there are some (I do have morning glories already).  I chose the purpley-blue of ageratum. 

 

Ten packs later (!), I made my way to the lavender.  They had quite a selection, and as I looked through the pots, I began to be concerned that they wouldn't have the variety I wanted.  Luck was with me, though, the last four pots were Lavendula "Grosso", and I bought all four.

 

Once home, I planted the white petunias, decided the Japanese iris needed thinning, did that, and then turned to attack the most noxious weed of my experience.  The weed comes up usually individually on a single stalk with furled leaves, the stem is a purpley hue near the leaves, and then becomes white.  You dig, and dig, and dig, and if you're lucky, you find where the stem turns in an almost right angle.  If you get it there at that angle without breaking the stem (which is what usually happens), you have a chance of eradicating that one weed.  It seems to know how difficult it is to dig it up if it comes up next to a concrete sidewalk or wall or driveway.   It's a miserable job, and like many other plants and shrubs, this appears to have been a wonderful winter for it.  I stopped counting at 35 individual stalks. 

If you know the particular weed and know what it is, please tell me!  Also, do you know any way to get rid of it besides digging to China?

 

Anyway, at first I thought I'd stop after that job, but when I went to the back yard, I decided to plant maybe one or two packs of plants - just to see how they look.  By the end of the afternoon, I had everything planted (which included digging up and replanting plants that weren't quite where I wanted them) and watered D's bonsai and birdbaths. 

 

The one thing I didn't do - yet - is snip all the flowers off the plants.  It's hard to do because I love the flowers, of course, but it does force the plants to put their energy into new roots, new stems, and more buds.  It'll be a job for tomorrow.

 

That's why you won't see any photos of the garden until the end of June - there won't be any flowers to look at until then!