Gardening

Well. I planted around seventy-five plants today in the garden along the garage, the only flat place to plant anything here, nearly. It's been a sadly neglected strip for a couple of years now, with just a few things that finally gave up their ghosts, leaving a palimpsest over which to begin again. I chose some interesting plants, including ornamental grasses, Lavandulas, Campanula rotundifolia (Bluebells of Scotland), violas, purple cosmos, a rare and beautiful type of Digitalis, some hardy snapdragons, blue flax, a collection of Monardas (bee-balms), two hardy roses, some Lonicera to provide company for the bedraggled Clematises that keep coming back despite looking terrible by the middle of June from the hot sun, and a whole lot of other things that I can't remember now...all from High Country Gardens. Here are some not-so-good photos of the aftermath:

Baby plants, Clematis on left, Lonicera (honeysuckle) on right

More...with second Clematis

Shadow-cat supervising

Doing an evaluation of the day's work

The dead wisteria (waaaah)

Deck view

Over the finally greening valley

We had a very bad winter for us. I know it wasn't as bad as Montana's, but today was the first day it broke sixty degrees without the horrible wind that always blows here. The extended period of really cold weather during the long winter killed or damaged a lot of our established plants: two wisteria, a honeysuckle, a lace-leaf Japanese maple, several junipers, half the lawn, several shoe-button spireas, which we cut all the way off. There are a few leaves on each. I found two stems on the big wisteria that have green, but I fear the rest of it is dead. The one we planted last spring is probably done-for. We'll leave them in for now and wait...Even the lilacs were damaged. All of the trees are late, and we're still having frost. Usually by now it's in the 70s or even 80s. It is a desert, after all.

The area vintners have been hit hard as well. There's still a great deal of snow in the hills, and we've had a very wet and windy spring. The river flooded twice.

I haven't worked this hard in a long time. Whew. I'll be glad to call it a day.