This year gardening has taken on a whole different meaning for me. Just recently my grandson, Marcus, age 7 has developed a love for gardening and has decided to create
a garden of his own. Over the past 2 weekend he has worked for hours cleared the area he has chosen. He then raided my many garden beds for just the right plants. I took him to the local garden center , he was like a child in the candy store. He wanted to know the names of each plant , their color and if they like shade or sun. He picked out some panies , and snapdragons. As soon as we got home he was in his garden again. As I sat on the lawn mower I could not help but smile and feel the joy of my little grandson loving what I so love.......Gardening.
Lynn

Very Sweet...I have to confess that my little ones keep wanting to help (and at 5 & 6 they finally are really old enough to do some actual helping), but my favorite time in the garden is when I'm alone! Oh well!

I did a ton of staking this weekend. Hoops and stakes, tying in, blah blah blah. This may be my least favorite task of the year. I also went into the compost pile, and spread about 5 wheelbarrows-full. I planted out a bunch of annuals, did some more dividing/transplanting, and spread some anti-slug stuff. Got the Mosquito Magnet up and running. Edged the last few beds. Lots of shrub pruning, too. But mostly I remember the sunshine and the staking.

Tulipscarolan, how do you like your mosquito magnet?

Belle Isis

Lynn, that is lovely.

Help him grow a gigantic pumpkin and/or a few things he can eat, like snow peas and he will REALLY be hooked!

Patty

Patty,
I will do just that !!!
I know that Marcus would love to watch a pumpkin grow, carve it and lite it on Halloween.
As much fun as it is to watch my flowers blossom it is more fun to watch Marcus blossom !!
Lynn (A.K.A."Nana")

Lynn, my sister tells me that being a grandmother is "her best role yet". Sigh - I'll probably be too old to appreciate it by the time my kids get around to having children....

But, to the topic! I am weeding, planting out wintersown babies in baskets, mostly, but I have started in the yard as well, figuring that we are probably not going to be able to do the big drainage/landscaping project this year. I'm just hoping plants can be dug up and moved if we change our minds, because we will surely have to move a lot of them!

I planted a pumpkin seedling in a large container today - big experiment - I am trying to beat off the squash borers; evil beings that get my squashes & pumpkins every year (and I'm too stubborn to quit planting). Since I've tried 3 different places in 3 years, I figure they're pretty much in the ground in my yard, therefore, the pot. I will cover this baby with remay & hand pollinate if I have to.

Mowing will be happening tomorrow, weather permitting. I mowed once this season, and it was horrendous, the "lawn" (I grow way more weeds in it than grass)was ridiculously long. Now it seems that way again, even though it's only been a week - or so - since I mowed it.

After my piano recital this past Sunday, my schedule has lightened up a lot, so I'll have more time to work in the garden.

I slowly started planting the window boxes. For some reason, I find planting annuals to be a tedious, hateful job. I just have to keep remembering how much I like the end result.

Most of my time seems to be spent in not particularly fruitful thinking. The irises have started to bloom, and I really must figure out a better way to keep track of what is where. They were all moved into one big bed because they rotted if planted with anything else, and when they aren't in bloom, they all look exactly alike.

I realized that I have way too many winter-sown seedlings that need sun, and not enough spots in the sun for them. So I started building another cinderblock raised bed. My other three beds are two levels of block; this new one will only be one level - that will be enough for annuals.

I did plant out about ten milk jugs full of seedlings. I cleaned up a few beds, including one lasagna bed that not only was a mess itself, but having never had an edge on it, it was poorly defined and had very tall grass growing around it (the grass is greenest around the lasagna beds!). It looks great now! What a difference an edge makes!

Yesterday planted out some more lettuce. We had the first lettuce from our garden for dinner the other night!

Believe it or not, after all that rain, I had to water today! Granted, I watered mostly pots and newly planted plants, but some other beds are looking kind of dry already.

Hoping to get to the compost piles this week to sift and condense. That's such a huge job and I don't feel like starting it, but it really needs to be done - I'm running out of room to dump stuff.

:)
Dee

Dee--I agree about the huge impact a fresh edge makes on a garden!

Belle--I am addicted to our magnet, and grateful that our surrounding neighbors also use them. They definitely work to an extent. However, they are not miracle-workers by any means. I know a lot of people complain after buying them that they still have mosquitos. But for me, if they eliminate half of the mosquitos, I'm glad to have it. They've come down in price somewhat, but are still expensive. I think the complaints may be justified in that it may be fair to expect near miracles for $700 (for the big guy). How's that for a vague answer?

So far not too much. On Monday night I moved enough wet, mucky compost off the driveway so we could get the trash barrel out for pick up. It actually took a couple of hours. Last night I planted, planted, planted. Tonight I treated myself to a pedicure to get rid of lizardy garden feet(I garden in Tevas). I decided I would do that once a month this season. All week I've been hitting nurseries at lunchtime and picking up little do das of plants here and there in preparation for planting the containers over the holiday weekend. My husband is trying to fanagle delivery of a ton of stonedust by Friday so he can install the patio around the new hot tub. We decided to use tumbled bluestone. Not that I'm anxious but it would be nice to clean up that mess.

Dee, it's probably the wind that dried everything out so fast. We had two days of it here. Last night I had to water potted plants too. Tomorrow it's supposed to get close to 80 F.

Sue

Belle,

The only time I ever see your name on this forum is on this post and the one about "what happened in your garden?". What a shame! why is that? you must have tons of knowledge that would benefit us all. Will you be attending the swap in early June? (hope so!)

I went a little overboard at the local plant sales and at my favorite few nurseries here last weekend, so I've spent a lot of time this week walking around with a shovel in one hand and a plant in the other. Oops, I thought I'd gotten over that kind of thing!

Replaced lots of spent lavender, and planted many large pots. The more pots I plant, the more I like really simple ones - as in one plant per pot. So I've got about a dozen singles - a cardoon, variegated Salvia uglinosa, variegated Trachelospermum jasminoides (star jasmine), Lavandula grosso, a huge pot filled with nothing but thyme, a smaller one with dianthus. A hugh variegated brugmansia, and a tibouchina.

I dug many Angelica archangelica, Filipendula rubra, perovskia, and caryopteris for the swap, then found out I'll have to miss it after all. Some friends will probably take these off my hands, unless I find a way to get them to Billerica by June 3. Anyone coming to the cape this weekend who'd like to adopt some plants, let me know!

Mulched and weeded, weeded and mulched. Kicked myself for not ordering in a few yards of bark mulch, and had to settle for the bags of cedar available at the hardware store. It's ugly, but I was desperate.

My wife is the real gardener in the family, but this hack had 2 big events, about 5 minutes apart yesterday. First, I saw my first hummingbird of the season. And second, I discovered that cutworms got one of my newly planted tomatoes.

Belle -- I second Chelone's wish that you'd participate in more threads. This is a great one -- but we need more of you!
I moved J anemones, monarda, persicaria dragon's blood, added Sweet Dreams coreopsis, per DtD's favorable reviews, thought about adding a columnar juniper, bot but did not put in yet more Provence Lavender -- the only one of 4 varieties I tried last year to come back well. Also planted lots of tiarella (butterfly wings?), a beautiful 'samobor' geranium phaeum, moved stachys, added geranium magnificum, moved persicaria bistorta, added echinacea, killed my first red lily beetles, etc. Watered and watered and watered and watered all of my new transplants. I am pooped. Enjoy the beautiful weekend, all!