In Georgia it’s notable how many Crepe Myrtles there are, looking at them you just can’t help but notice their showy full bloom splendor in the hot June, July, August months.

This year, I noticed other Crepe Myrtles not flowering, or flowering in a spotty, nastily skimpy way. I haven’t seen more than a handful of fully in bloom Crepe Myrtles (not that I’m a big traveler.)

Our Crepe Myrtle is a Muskogee and is supposed to have a very long blooming period. Not starting until August (and not very much at that) isn’t even a short blooming period. 2011 = Very Bad Year for Crepe Myrtles

Peony 2010 - photo taken May 14, 2010

Spring came early this year. It was absolute that many of my plants & trees did their Spring Thing weeks earlier than normal.

Peony 2011 – photo taken May 1, 2011

With that impact noticeable it must have some sort of impact on Crepe Myrtles, I guess. Not enough “down time”? Not exactly, the Crepe Myrtle had no leaves for a long time, not too early at all, in other words. Pretty much when they usually do, I think. FWIW it’s just annoying, the one grace to a hot summer day is looking at lush, vibrant Crepe Myrtles blooming splendidly against a brilliantly blue sky.

Not in 2011.

.:.

We have an October Glory Maple Tree in the front yard. My Peonies are planted beside it. This area we call “the berm” … it’s raised up, I want to beef it up quite a bit, restore it to the semi-glory it once had, and make it better than ever. I’m hoping to get the hosta tucked into it somewhere nice and shady for the most part.

I have some other bulbs to plant, summer blooming things. I want, have always wanted, a really good perennial 4-season set-up … I struggle getting it to come to fruition. So I’m mostly right now hoping to really work on the berm for the first major time since the early 2000′s. My Peonies will be here for the last time this year. I want to move them to a different spot. That will be later though. So now it’s:

• Get the weeds out (grassy horrid things for the most part, runners … ugh.)
• Add organic material
• Add soil
• Add bulbs
• Plant Hosta
• Plant sunflower seeds
• Plant some other seeds
• Get more bulbs (especially Fall, an d also Winter [if there are any for this area]

We got my Knock Out Rose bushes planted last weekend, finally. They were bought in 2010 and never put into the ground. Thankfully they lived alright over the course of the year until now. They are now happy coffee drinkers (coffee grounds buried with them) and are really starting to get where they are suppose to. Many blooms will be opening in the next few days.

I have another Knock Out Rose bush that is in a planter we bought last year, full of plants already. Only it lasted, and something else growing under it, some kind of snapdragon sort of looking thing. That rose bush is flourishing. It looked pretty good already, but I gave it some coffee as well, and it visible got nicer the few days afterward. It’s got a ton of bloom blooming, and setting more.

I’ve got lots of pictures on Flickr of the roses from this year. I also planted a few garlic cloves in the planter, they are sending up shoots and sending down roots. I’ll put some out by my other roses too I think. Aphids are not nice, we had some earlier, they seem to have gone away with my vinegar treatment and the rain we have had. I keep my eyes on them. Last year was my first with any roses that grow. No aphids then. Early spring, that’s when they appeared, I didn’t have these plants in early Spring last year, so I will look for a patter in coming times. Also of note is this year’s earliest  spring we have had since living here, most notably in how all the plants have responded.

It’s very hot again, and this week the humidity went to Southern Summer types. Bad enough outside, but inside it is worse right now, our A/C is totally not working (only the fan will come on, or the Heat Pump [like we want that right now :roll-eyes] – it’s too old and needs overhauled — really needs to be hauled OUT. We need new, better, the one we have NEVER worked awesomely, never was up to snuff most of the summer. Too small and wrong for the space we have.

A view of our Yoshino's in full bloom

March is nearly over already. Wow! Time is moving fast. Partially that is because Spring started so very early for us this year. Our Yoshino cherry trees are usually in Peak blossoming right now. They are done blossoming, have been for awhile. Our largest of the 3 we have still has many blossoms at the top half of the tree, but all the trees are leafing out and the blossoms that are still there are mostly hidden. Overall, the two smaller trees are done with blossoms, and the larger tree has many, but not even a 1/8 to a 1/4 of what it had in full bloom.

We got some daffodils planted this year in the front yard. They were supposed to be planted in November, but got lost in the garage and it wouldn’t have worked out in any case. I found them in the shed a few weeks ago and was surprised to find them there, buried in a corner. They were nice bags that we got at Costco, 80 bulbs in each. I opened one up and the bulbs were sprouting roots a little and growing upwards. The other bag was the same. A few bulbs seemed no good (that would be the case whenever we would have opened it in the Autumn.) Since they probably spent most of the Winter in the shed, I guess they were treated to enough cold to grow and do their thing.

We have a Mantis, but it was out of service in the Autumn, so we hadn’t done any prep for new flower beds or anything at all. My daffodil bulbs were a great buy, but bad timing. Anyhow, we got the Mantis in for service late February, but couldn’t pick it up until just a week ago. I found the bulbs and with that status find and the early spring we were having I was anxious to get them planted immediately.

Our yard is the typical Georgia one, clay and weedy grasses. Hard, awful. It had rained previous to start digging the grassy surface off of the dirt, so that job was a bit easier. It would have be heaven to have the Mantis at this point, loosening the earth to get it amended and moved to get the bed of bulbs in place. It was a messy thankless job without the Mantis. My husband did most of that work in the end. I didn’t do the digging, I’m not capable of it. I started laying the bulbs in, but grew sick of it with the condition of everything and left it for my husband to finish. I hope all the bulbs ended up pointing up properly.

Close-up of Daffodil emerging from the Earth

It seemed forever until one green pointy thing poked through the dirt. It was forever. It was the only one for a long time, then another and another. A few days later a couple more, then it rained and I didn’t look yesterday, chilly day that it was, and very wet. Today I went out in early morning and sure enough, more and more and more are coming out. Still nothing like should come up, but it’s a start. Other peoples daffodils are up and blossoming already (for some weeks!) Ours say on the bag “bloom mid-spring” so what does that mean exactly in our case? If they were in the ground since November, they’d be further along now? Probably, I guess. I’m hoping these daffodils will naturalize. I did have some before that never came back. It was several years ago, but not as many or even as nice bulbs as the ones we just planted. Mid-Spring is what though? I guess we’ll see in coming years.

There are at least 4 or 5 stalks from these bulbs which are forming blossoms in their tops. Some are supposedly full yellow, others yellow centers with white petals. I’m hoping to get the area fully finished (dirt moved, mulch applied, etc.) so that when the flowers bloom I’ll have some good photos to get.

Chives from my Barrel Garden

Originally uploaded by CrazyMaisy.

My Chives (Onion Chives acutally) are from a long time ago, I am not exactly sure, 2004 or 2005. I had them in a ground garden first year or two, then moved them to the barrel when I got that a few years ago. They are perennial, faithful lovely chives.

They are looking sprite and growing a lot this past week.

I need to get a few more herbs for the barrel, I have some Greek Oregano that stayed the winter, and some kind of leggy weird Thyme that also did (but I don’t like.) I need some nice thyme varieties and a good basic Basil and some thing else like it in another variety or something or other. Sounds vague, yup, that’s how it is until I find what I want at Home Depot or Whole Foods Market.

We went to Ikea and that is a one-thing for me. I mean, it’s like walking a million miles for me, so a one-thing-trip, nothing else should be done. That was not all we did though. Walking, walking, going more. [I'm still an introvert, of course. Like that would ever change ]

We ate at Fox Sports Grill in Atlantic Station (Atlanta, GA) which was nice. I had a Blue Cheese Burger, very messy, but very, very good. I also had a “Grand Stand Lemonade” which is a drink with Amaretto, Jack Daniels, Pineapple Juice, and Sweet & Sour in a tall glass over ice. The drink was nice, not heavy, but got more “thick” nearer to the bottom and was over tangy, not as nice as the rest of it. I was done eating, and hubby ready to go anyhow, so I didn’t finish the last inch or two of the drink.

We also went to Whole Foods Market (we try to get there at least 1 time a month, it’s an adventure in it’s own right) which was more than I could muster up energy to think about what to get by the time we were there for very long. I did see the plants outside before we went in, and I took the time to look at the herbs and tomatoes and choose a few to get. Nice organic plants, good prices.

I had finally gotten a hanging tomato thing, the topsy tuvy that does tomatoes & herbs. I’d never had one before. I didn’t thing well of it when I saw the first commercials for it sometime ago. But last year I saw more value in it, and this year I decided to go with it since I now have a cottage shed in the backyard which I’m building my gardening things around. I’m hanging it off the side of the cottage. I previously had several plants to put into it, but wanted more and the Whole Foods plants help a lot to get me nearer to having enough to fill the topsy turvy with. Looking at the instructions for it I noted that I could get more than 9 plants into it since it says you can get two plant into every port …

Hubby helped me set it up this afternoon. I thought I might need to get a few more things for it, I don’t have quite all the herbs I want. Home Depot had some that I got earlier, so to get something else it probably won’t be “Organic” since I picked through stuff like that there already last couple of weeks.

At Ikea we got a bunch of little things: Magazine holders (now I need more for the Magazine that will be coming from Maghound in the next months [just for the ones I keep, Organic Gardening, Hobby Farms, Hobby Farms Home, Martha Stewart, Southern Living, Mary Janes Farm, Scrapbooks Etc., as well as my subscription to Creating Keepsakes mag.] hooks, little kitchen things, of course more wooden hangers too.

We saw a cabinet there that I immediately thought of as perfect for my scrapbooking space. I then went online once home and found a few pictures of it on Flickr, in a MA Ikea store setup as a ‘craft room’ … there sat my desired red cabinet filled with craft stuff.

For “Mother’s Day” my hubby took me back to Ikea yesterday and we bought the cabinet and a few other things.

I put half of the cabinet together yesterday in the basement before giving up feeling overworked/overheated … which makes me quite ill and only rest and hours of sleep every restores me from that state.

This morning I was able to get more of it done. It’s in place, just the hardware for door hinges needs to be finished, and get the doors on. I have the shelves in, and some things inside already. I bought a package of light that will go into the top of the cabinet, but I’ll need to work on that to get them installed, not a “plug ‘n’ play” thing at all.

I need to make sure my Topsy-Turvy planter is still hanging well. It rained the past couple of days, very hard yesterday, so it’ll be very heavy. FWIW

I also have more in my barrel planter now. The old perennial onion chives I planted some years ago is thriving, I have a few other tomato plants in there, as well as oregano, parsley and thyme. My old thyme died back and only a teeny-tiny bit is now starting to come back.

I have ants in my barrel since one big rain in the last week or two. I have to find my de-whatever-earth stuff that I have to deal with those critters. I was trying to find something to get rid of them with that’s safe and organic and totally forgot about de-whatever-earth, which I do have in the garage somewhere.

I want to grow more, but don’t either have the space set up, or don’t have the plants, have seeds but don’t want to grow everything else I want from seed, and want to have Red Peppers mostly, but never have had success in growing (red peppers) to eat any of them.

I can hardly wait to get some fresh beans on the dinner table though. It’s been a long time since I had a real garden, and that is because of needing to amend places for one in our backyard (it’s horrible georgia clay which isn’t good for growing most veggies.) My first garden spot in this yard I abandoned, and the seconded as well. The third I didn’t abandon really, but it just faded away sort of. I was to have a grand garden in 2007 but it never got going though I had things for it. I wanted to also do it last year and never got to do it. So I made it happen this year.

Next year it had nice leaves, that’s all.

This year (2009) it was putting out little buds to open into leaves and then blam, an early April freeze, just barely, again. But this year the freeze was lesser than the 2007 April freeze by far and wide with the Crepe Myrtle very early into it’s growth for 2009, and noticeably affected just barely, but within a few days it was just brown dried up stuff where the leaf buds were. That nice new growth starting cut off.

I’ve looked online and found info from 2007 about freeze damage, and the basic consensus is to leave the poor trees alone, and when another warm spell of a few days lasts it’ll put out new growth again.

Thing is I’m hoping for more than growth, but nice leaves and actual blooms for once. I supposed it’s a young Crepe Myrtle and perhaps hasn’t liked where it is, in the South with the drought, and in the front with not full sunlight all day. It’s where the landscaper we hired years ago had put a Crepe Myrtle on our landscape plans, and we put it in finally a few years ago. It’s supposed to get lilac color blooms. We’ve had plenty of water the last few weeks, and that’s a plus, hope the Crepe Myrtle see it that way.

There are a few suckers coming up that I need to get rid of, and perhaps I could do a little tiny shape pruning, other than that, there’s not much I can do. I sure won’t top it off, no way. That’s a very mean thing to do to a Crepe Myrtle and I bet 75% of the Crepe Myrtles I see around the NE GA area are topped off every year. Horrid.

Our backyard is overgrown right now, and we’ve had trouble with the mowers, so it’s kind of “status quo” dormant.

Last year I was supposed to have a good garden. It didn’t happen. I was pregnant and Frank was going to help me but getting the ground ready, and then also help me planting and caring for things. Well, that’s the past. This year I wanted to use what I had left, any of the seeds I’d purchased for 2007.

It’s now July.

I have time, really, since this is The South. But it’s imperative to me that it happens NOW, so I can get tomatoes going, for one. And green beans, and be ready for later when I can plant the end of the season cool vegetables.

This then is what I need to convince Frank of: to get something cut short and de-nuded of grass so that I can plant something somewhere out there. Please, dear?

I’m getting much closer, and time seems to be going faster and faster …

We ordered our Birth Kit yesterday, and hopefully it will arrive before our Home Visit on June 4th (when I’ll be 38 wks 0 days.) We also need to get some other supplies for the birth together still (and have them ready for the HV also.)

My midwife gave me a nice chart listing all the days of my pregnancy and the week+day information for each day.

Here are two links to the same OB Calculator which will list your weeks+days of pregnancy in a chart, according to the information you provide:

Last Menses + day cycle, or
Date of Conception, or
Due Date

http://www.floridamidwife.com/calculator.html

http://www.vgio.com/midwife/obcalc.php

Both calculators are the same, but the first link is to one that is customized for a midwife (so has some text added, but just an extra title on the chart produced) and the second link is a plain calculator (and no extra title on the chart produced.)

Hubby is out again this week, and has promised to take off Friday and start getting the flooring installed and finish it that weekend. It’s a holiday weekend, so we’ll see what can be done. It’s just our master bedroom and the hallway we are going to do the flooring on, and plan on doing the other two bedrooms on the same floor of the house later.

Also my garden has never been dug out, hubby wanted our eldest to aide us and get the grass layer off of part of the area so that I could get a few of my plants in (the ones that are still alive, I’ve lost several that we bought, urg!) but DS balked and wouldn’t do it, and hubby didn’t do it, so now I have another week to see if I can keep the few remaining plants alive until planting (which will be when?)

I do have space in my whiskey barrel, to put a few things, but I wanted to get that moved to another spot before playing with it, and the plants that have died are mostly herbs that I bought for the barrel, not all though, and the only ones alive are a couple of bell peppers, and one herb or two, and a tomato plant which wasn’t happy but is re-growing where it did seem to be dying before.

Most of my intended plants are still seeds, and I still am glad I’ve never gotten them started in their little peet pot tray thingies … since I have no way to transplant the many things I would have started. I also have beans and a few other things that are best planted straight into the ground. I was going to get at least two teepee hills of beans planted yesterday, but alas that didn’t work out because of the lack of garden dug out-ness.

I really want that garden fully planted soon though, and need for that to be completed before long, before the baby arrives for sure!