Tuesday
I've never gotten into dahlias other than a single potted plant that I treated as an annual one summer. I've always liked them, but not the idea of digging them up every fall and storing them for the winter. I know that I likely wouldn't do it. Lately though, between Gardener's World and Garden Answer featuring them so often, they have started to catch my eye. There are so many forms, sizes, and colors.
I've ruled out dinner plates - although impressive, I don't think I want flowers that huge. I think my favorite form is the waterlily. I've never actually seen one in person, I just like the way they look in the videos and catalog photos. I decided to try a few this year, and although I didn't pick out a waterlily variety, I did see a sampler collection at Eden Brothers that I really like and I had a 20% off coupon. I think the various forms and colors look pretty together. The sampler comes with six tubers which I plan to grow in the back patio containers.
I'll start my foray into the dahlia world with these six, and maybe a waterlily that I have yet to find. If I can grow them in containers, it should be easy to dig them up and store them over the winter. I'll think of this as a little experiment...
Monday
How often can I ever say that? It is a rare occurrence indeed when I end the day accomplishing all the tasks that I had set out to do.
I picked up the 'Okame' cherry tree at Home Depot in the morning. They still had the two that I had seen on Saturday, so I was in luck.
I got home and started raking the remaining leaves in the Lemon Garden. There were a lot more than I had thought, especially at the wood line. Without Bonnie's help with her trusty tarp, I loaded up the big trashcan on wheels and wheeled it to a new dumping spot for composting. The trashcan is easier for me to manage than a tarp and the new dumping spot is a lot closer to the Lemon Garden than the drainfield is. I probably filled and emptied the trashcan at least a dozen times.
I was able to id the four daffodils that just came into bloom - 'Mite', 'Topolino', 'Tiny Bubbles', and 'W.P. Milner', and I made new slate labels for them. While I was at it, I also made up labels for the Calycanthus 'Athens', the two Philadelphus 'Minnesota Snowflake' and 'Snowbelle', the Baptisia 'Lemon Meringue', and the Epimedium 'Sulphureum'. I spent about an hour cleaning up my database too to update the records for the many plants that are no longer alive in the Lemon Garden. Kind of sad to see how many things have perished there.
The weather was ok, not great. It was in the 60s, but it was mostly overcast with a cool wind chill and only a few occasional nice sunny moments when the sun peeked out through the clouds. Around 3:00 I had a low blood sugar episode. They come on fast. Drank orange juice which is the go to that seems to work the quickest for me. Then ate a banana and a cheese and nut snack. The blood sugar started rising within 10 minutes. The shakes and the cold sweats take a bit longer, and leave me feeling drained, but the blood sugar was back to normal in a half hour.
I didn't think that I was up for digging the 'Van Sion' daffodils to transplant a few from that old house foundation to my Lemon Garden, but Mike got home around 5:30 and did it for me. He drove the tractor and I followed him on the ATV. He made quick work of digging up two clumps and then quick work of planting them in the Lemon Garden. He can do things so much easier than I can. It would be fantastic for me if he liked gardening instead of viewing it as annoying work 
So, all in all, the four things that I wanted to accomplish yesterday were! I was able to get another day of gardening in before the weather turned cold. The extended forecast looks pretty cold all week with low temperatures at or below freezing. I'll have to see how it plays out for gardening.
Sunday
Yesterday I noticed four more daffodils blooming in the Lemon Garden. I thought I got most of the fall leaves raked out earlier in the week, but there are still a few drifts caught up in between the daffodil foliage and the little decorative fence panels that I've tucked behind most of the clumps. I had picked them up from Aldi years ago thinking that they would come in handy for something. They sat unused in the pot ghetto for years and then I got the bright idea to use them to prop up flattened daffodil foliage, and bonus - not only are they functional, they look nice and serve as a marker for where bulbs are planted. I need to get more, and am hoping Aldi has something similar this spring.
I have five sage green colored containers at the far end of the Lemon Garden where it transitions to the Cherry Nook. That area is sloped and the containers sat all wonky. I've been asking Mike to level them up for me by digging a flat spot into the slope, layering in some stone dust, and tamping down squares of flagstone for the containers to sit on. These types of little projects only take him about 30 minutes whereas it would take me hours. He always says fine, no problem, but then in true Mike fashion, procrastinates on it forever while I either mention it again a dozen times, do it myself, or give up on it completely. Well, wonder of wonders, he did that little project for me when he got home from a job yesterday. BUT, also in true Mike fashion, he had told me he was on his way at 1:30 and would help me all afternoon, then finally showed up four hours later. He WAS on his way home at 1:30, but then got a call from a friend who had overloaded his trailer with material, got started down a highway, and then couldn't go any farther because the trailer was weighing too heavy on the tires for the wheels to turn. Mike spent the afternoon going to pick up a second trailer, unloading material off the first trailer until the load was balanced, and then driving the second trailer while the friend drove the first trailer to the job site. So much for the afternoon helping me here at our own place. Do I sound miffed? Not really. After 40 years I am used to it. And those containers in the Lemon Garden did get leveled. And they look nice
Today I want to get the remaining leaves out of the Lemon Garden and figure out the id of those four daffodils that are now blooming. Another small project on the to do list for today is to dig up some of the daffodils that are scattered around the site of an old house foundation along the driveway through our property. I've been meaning to do this for years. They are an unusual twisty double with green streaks. Someone id'd them for me as a very old variety called 'Van Sion' or 'Von Sion', I've seen it spelled both ways. I'd love to have some of these along with my other daffodils in the Lemon Garden.
I also want to take my dad's little truck to Home Depot this morning to pick up an 'Okame' cherry tree that I saw there yesterday. I love this cultivar, but they are nearly impossible to find for sale in my area. They bloom early, and often the flowers brown if there is a cold snap - much like the magnolias do. They are so pretty though with a much more upright columnar structure than the more widely available 'Yoshino'. Several years ago I happened on a chance finding at Lowes and purchased two of them. I didn't think to put deer protection around them and both were destroyed later that year by buck rubs. Home Depot only had two yesterday, but I was in my SUV and even though I only want one this time, it wouldn't fit. I'm hoping one of them is still available this morning.
So, I'm heading out to town and when I get back, I hope to have one more decent weather day for working outside before the cold temperatures return tonight.
Saturday
Boy, do I ever let routine chores get behind. Things like laundry, and mail, and balancing the financial accounts, and cleaning the house 
I spend my time jumping from one pursuit to the next, most often doing deep dives into one type of activity to the neglect of everything else. Then I buckle down and spend time getting those routine chores caught up, telling myself to do a little bit of that kind of thing each day from the catch up point forward. Do I do it??? That is an emphatic NO 
So today, I'll try to catch up on those routine chores. I can't stand the piled up laundry, the piled up mail, or the dirty house. I would rather finish the Front Steps Bed spring cleanup that I started a few days ago or work on seedling care and more seed starting. It comes down to which thing will bother me more if it isn't done today. We'll see.
Yesterday I did get out in the gardens by mid afternoon. It was very overcast and I could just feel the dampness in the air. Rain was coming. Eventually. It finally started in the evening. I spent time before heading out googling about my honesuckle 'Scentsation'. I have several two year old plants that I put at the base of a pretty four paneled trellis that is meant to hide the propane tank at the back of the Lemon Garden. This particular cultivar is a Proven Winners - always a good sign, and it has great reviews for non-invasiveness, heavy scent, deer resistance, and even ok in partial shade. Perfect!!! However, even my very immature two year olds have put on way too much straggly top heavy growth - not at all like the bushy specimens this variety is supposed to be. Everything that I read indicated that little to no pruning is needed, but I spent about an hour and a half yesterday pruning mine nearly to the ground, and also untangling and removing all the staggly twinings in that four paneled trellis. I'm crossing my fingers that it will rebound beautifully. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Friday
Yesterday was as wonderful as the weather guessers predicted. It was still light outside at 7:00pm and in the high 60s. I was tired though and finally called an end to my gardening day. I worked in the Front Steps Bed. It has really mature hellebores clumps and it takes a lot of time to pull fall leaves out of them and clip back the ratty hellebores foliage. Every spring when I do this, I swear that next season I will cut back all the foliage before fall leaves accumulate to make the job so much easier, but I never do.
The Front Steps Bed is one of the few gardens that never got mulched last season and every square inch is covered with that hairy bittercress weed. I kept thinking that I should just spray it with RoundUp, but there are quite a few emerging jacobs ladders and fringed bleeding hearts mixed in that I don't want to destroy.
I spent hours on the hellebores and pulling the bittercress and am still only about 1/3 done in that garden. I hope to get back to it today. There is a chance of rain, but not until late afternoon. I have errands to run in town though and will meet my sister for lunch. I also need to do something with the sweet onions that I started from seed. I had no idea what to expect, so I sowed each pack of seeds in an open flat. My neighbor Joey is doing onions from seed for the first time this year too, and he took the time to sow each seed in its own individual cell. I guess I'll do that next time because now I have to prick them out and get them into individual cells without damaging them. With three flats of seedlings, I can see that this will be quite the job. I also need to get my tomato seeds started. Ahhhh spring - lots to do on the gardening home front 
