Tomatoes blooming

Both tomato plants started blooming this past week. Looking forward to some delicious tomatoes soon! And really interested in the Cherokee Purple ones.

One of these things is not like the others

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The Hops

Here are my cascade hops plants climbing the trellis twine...
No, they don't grow sideways, that's just the picture (and unless I install Picasa to edit (sometime) it will be sideways - sorry!)

Hawthornes

The ballerina hawthornes started blooming this morning. If you look closely you might see an oak tree needing removal as well.

Tomatoes

Here are my two tomato plants in the homemade sub-irrigation planter.

Artemisia

Here is a picture of one of the easiest plants I have found to grow in our landscape.  It's called Wormwood Artemisia.  When I planted it, it was in a simple 4 inch pot, and now it has grown HUGE!  This is a picture now, which is cut back by more than half over the winter.  Last fall it covered the daylilies (to the right) and reached all the way back to the tree trunk.  Highly recommended if you are looking for a simple silver foliage plant.  (You can also see where the grass suffered from too much artemisia shade last summer - I plan to keep it trimmed within the border this year).

Warning:  You HAVE to keep this thing trimmed back, or it MAY become a bit invasive!!! But if that's what you want, that's what you get!

Irises

Had first iris bloom on Thursday, followed by two more over the weekend. Hooray blooms!

April planning

Lots to do in April...

Fertilize (going to use all-nitrogen fertilizer)
Plant annual flowers in front and back beds and pots
Mow and bag
Overseed lawn in late April
Spray grassy weeds
Continue to spray broadleaf weeds
Apply Image later in month after green-up

Let's talk about March!

OK, so March has come and gone, and a good bit of things happened in our yard in the March timeframe.  So let's walk through what has been done and what is upcoming...

In February, I trimmed the rosebush and the butterfly bush back quite a bit.  Also, in late February planted a set of red onions in the garden.

Beginning of the month:

Applied a crabgrass pre-emergent to the lawn.  This year I used Dimension by Green Light.

I also planted an upright elephant ear bulb.  After doing so, I learned that I may have done that too early.  Recommended time for elephant ears and tropical bulbs is closer to May.  Oh well, we will have to see whether it comes up or not.

Mid month

Mowed the lawn for the first time.  I dropped the blade down two notches and bagged the clippings.  Man, that is a nasty and messy messy job, but resulted in a reduction in the dead grass and encouraged the green-up of the bermuda.

Trimmed back the Russian Sage quite a bit and trimmed the Salvia plant to the ground.

Cleaned out weeds from beds.

Applied Broadleaf weed killer with 2-4D.  Need to re-apply as necessary, probably will try to do some this weekend.

Cascade hops started growing - ran new support threads in a "half-christmas tree" spoke configuration

End of month (after last frost - March 20)

Moved citrus trees outside after temperatures stayed above 40 degrees consistently.

Started planting.  Here we go:
Planted bell peppers (some red variety, Valencia Orange, and a gold variety).
Planted two tomato plants in an experimental sub-irrigated planter (Cherokee Purple heirloom and 444 hybrid)
Planted begonias in the front bed around the tree (got two flats of 50 from Calloway and had several left over to fill a pot in the back)
Planted begonias in a  pot
Planted jalapeno plant in center of begonia pot
Replaced 3 back pots
Repotted spike grass
Repotted Rosemary, Thyme, Garlic, Sage, and Oregano
Planted Sweet Basil and Cilantro in the herb garden pot
Planted eggplant in the garden - probably needed to wait on this one a little, but I got carried away.
Planted sunflower seeds in the garden along the back fence.

Phew!  That's a lot.  I may have done even more, I don't know.

Time to follow this up with an April planning post!