Gardening!

For the past week I have spent my "free" time gardening.  Last weekend I prepared the flower beds and got all the weeds out of them while Greg worked on the kitchen and mowed the grass.  Then I had to work a few days and for the past three days including today I have been buying plants and putting them in!  I love this time of year.  It's warm but not exceedingly so, comfortable for sundresses and being outside in the shade.  The garden is full of hope right now, the weeds haven't gotten out of control and I have energy and hope that this year my garden won't get away from me and will look beautiful all year, that I won't kill any plants and maybe I will even get all my gardens planted instead of just one or two!  So far we are off to a great start.  I just finished planting my third flower bed.  Now all the beds in the front of the house look nice and are full of hope!  There is still a side bed that I have only planted once in the eight years that we have lived here.  That one has Irises in it and is very shallow with some concrete under a layer of dirt.  I think I am just going to try to get the weeds under control and get more bulbs in it to fill it out because I don't think the dirt is deep enough for much else, but bulbs go in the fall so for now I am not very motivated, plus it's not in the front!

My little helpers!  We had a little scare with Sarah getting off the porch while I was weeding on the weekend.  Nothing bad happened, thank goodness, but I needed a way to keep her from getting away while still keeping her happy.  I thought she was too big for the exersaucer but I forgot that it wasn't lifted up to the max height and now I can use it at least a little while longer before she is able to climb out.  These pics are from Wed.  She was happy and safe and in the shade!  The boys played with her or road their bikes and occasionally stopped to help me.   

This bed below is my current favorite!  My mom mentioned to me that a local greenhouse had excellent succulents and it got me thinking that this might be the answer to my problem bed.  It's very shallow and sandy and never does well, but those are conditions perfect for succulents!  We'll see how it does.

Here are close ups of the plants in my rock garden!  Some are even perennials and the lady at the greenhouse said that its very easy to take in the ones that aren't during the winter, or even make cuttings from them so that I will have even more the next year!

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I love the hens and chicks the best I think, I have two different kinds, the ones below are cobweb ones!  Hens and Chicks remind me of my Great Grandma Schmidt and her front rock garden full of hens and chicks!

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The other hens and chicks below are called Red Rubin.

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The grasses below are also perennial and will grow 4+ feet high!  I needed something to take the place of a shrub I bought last year that got eaten by beetles.

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The leaf below is Luke's Joseph's Coat from school.  I hope it doesn't die!

I have a growing love affair with blue salvia (below).  It is gorgeous!

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I forget the name of this one below but I saw it and had to have it!  It's supposed to attract bees and butterflies.

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Correopsis, and old standard that I love.

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Wed. I got the first two smaller beds in, but I worked at it all day from just after lunch when Kara and I got plants until after 7 pm!  

These pics are from Thursday evening after I got done gardening!  Sarah decided to try on my sun hat that I had been wearing and was very cute but once the camera came out she took off the hat so she could see the camera!

Her hair is getting LONG!

These next pics are from this morning!  I took Sarah out again and put her in the shade next to me and she did a great job playing happily.  Then suddenly I realized that she was quiet and looked over to see this!

I did this half of the large bed today.  The area on the left in front used to be full of irises but they were blocking everything in the back so I moved them to the back on both sides of the middle section so that I could plant smaller stuff in front.  Grandma Bartel told me that I might lose them but they might be ok and either way she would go ahead and do it since Irises aren't hard to get and it would make a big difference for my garden.

Below are some zinnias. 

A new blue salvia plant, the other one was from the year before and came back magnificently so I got another.

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Some smaller snap dragons, they will be pink too.

Below is the left half of the bigger front garden that I did yesterday.   More Zinnias, Snap Dragons, as well as some Impatiens, Correopsis, that spiky purple plant I posted pics of above, and three little puff ball plants called Ballerinas!

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The Ballerinas above!

Sleepy girl woke up when I was done and had to move her inside but I got it done!