Today it is raining so I am forced inside and it even is much cooler so maybe that string of late spring type weather we have been having in mid March is done for now.
I have been working on my spring cleanups around the garden this past week and a half as it has been so warm. Unseasonably warm for mid late March. I finially got all the roses prunned back for the major spring prunning but I was really annoyed with myself because the roses were already leafed out by the time I was finished. I have a lot of roses. Honestly, this is exactly when I do the rose spring prunning each year, mid late March and they have never been leafed out in years before. So this is unusual but it seems to be a very early spring this year after a warm winter with no snow.
I takes me long enough to get all the roses done but while I was spring prunning I was also chopping back and trimming some shrubs around here plus all my butterfly bushes and my honeysuckle. And now I will have to start spraying the roses with fungicide already this week. Which is an annoyance as it is early in the year. But once the leaves come, they need spraying every two weeks all season.
Now that I finially got them prunned I will have to go within the next few days to get the bagged fertilizer as I have to put fertilizer on them already. I use Rose Tone because it is easy to get locally. Might as well get the Flower Tone for the daylilies at the same time as I fertilize the daylilies each spring also.
I just sprinkle the fertilizer on and let the rain soak it in. Honestly, everything is the lazy way around here. No pulling back mulch and scratching in the fertilizer around here. The only time I use the bagged stuff is now in the spring anyway. For my summer fertilizing I use a liquid. Neptunes Liquid Seaweed
I also have both my small 35 gallon ponds cleaned out and new water in. It is always a stinky mess. The fall leaves blow in all winter and start to decompse in the water and when they are dregged out in the spring they really smell. But I dump them both each year. First I bail out the water and leaves with a bucket. Then I pick them up and scrub them out and after that I put them back and fill with water. I put feeder fish in them that I buy el cheapo from the pet shop to take care of any mosquito problem. Can't get fish quite yet as that water was COLD! One is in ground with these paver blocks that it rests on so that it can be lifted and put back in ground. The other is one of these patio ponds which means it stands above ground. Not on my patio though but in the shrub border.
I haven't done anything about my big 350 gallon in ground pond as that has fish in it which overwintered from last summer. I don't want to mess with it yet as I figgure I will have to add some water after scooping bottom sediment and putting in the pond filter to clear the water. Will wait for warmer weather.
I have been good this year and haven't ordered lots for spring like I usually do. I still haven't oordered any new daylily plants at all. I did order some Four O'Clock tubers from Brent and Beckies and I ordered a compleat tray of FRUIT PUNCH poppies from Graceful Gardens. That is all so far. As too those Fruit Punch Poppies from Graceful Gardens, I had never seen the Fruit Punch anywhere else. But I flipped over the colors in the pictures. It seems to me these were the perfect height, not too tall as some or too short. I do love poppies, didn't really have much but had always liked them. Had to try Fruit Punch, just had too. These are the ones I ordered last year and those are growing great but they didn't bloom last year. Now I am really wanting to see them in bloom this spring.
And I haven't done my order from High Country Gardens yet. Each year I order INDIGO SPIRES Salvia because each year it dies here over the winter but I love it so that I just have to have it. And I have lots and lots of Agastaches from them also. I love the Hummingbird Mint types as I have them to attract the hummers and just because I love them. But I have to wait a little while to make sure none of the Agastaches died over the winter. Sometimes a plant or two does die for me and I buy new Agastache to replace them.
New daffodil blooms open everyday here and the tulips finially have buds. Honestly there were no buds afew days ago and then they just seem to have appeared overnight!
I was almost ready to go out and buy annuals already with all the warm weather but it really is too early. Well, I think I will get some violas for some of the pots but that is it. I think some of my columbines in my little Columbine garden died overwinter. I see new growth on many but not all. Will have to replace the dead ones.
Enough about my garden for now. I do so love spring.
dipsandtets
newyorkritaOriginal Author
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