Didn't do any Gardening today, think I have a cold or my allergies are just really bad because I don't feel sick otherwise. Rode past an area with blooming poison ivy when it was windy so that didn't help.

My family went over my Grandparents house, I was pretty bored, so I went for a bike ride being this used to be my old Neighborhood. Got a video, you see some nice landscaping and why I probably got into flowers and gardening to begin with I was raised around it.

(Video)
http://vidmg.photobucket.com/a...


Also photos of my grandparents huge yard (jealous!)

Yesterday I spent most of the day trimming the grass and edging the beds, then raked up clumps of grass left by the mower, it was a big job, the grass is thick and wet from a lot of rain. Couldn't do anything past 2: pm as we had more thunder storms in the afternoon and evening.

I bet it looks perfectly beautiful, Margaret. I love the tidied-up look when grass edging is nice and neat, yet still thick and green. Not much of that here...ever well, except for small sections every now and then.

Hope you feel better really soon, Keith. It's rough to miss any spring gardening time, and especially from an outdoors allergy. I have a sinus allergy to MSG, so it's self-inflicted (read -could be avoided ), but sometimes I just can't turn down a processed meat sandwich or a yummy egg roll or three.

chelle said:I bet it looks perfectly beautiful, Margaret. I love the tidied-up look when grass edging is nice and neat, yet still thick and green. Not much of that here...ever well, except for small sections every now and then.

Hope you feel better really soon, Keith. It's rough to miss any spring gardening time, and especially from an outdoors allergy. I have a sinus allergy to MSG, so it's self-inflicted (read -could be avoided ), but sometimes I just can't turn down a processed meat sandwich or a yummy egg roll or three.

I got a mold allergy which is found in grass and fallen leaves so spring and especially fall are my worst seasons, windy and damp days are the worst though.

I planted two heuchera I got on sale yesterday (have yet to plant the salvia purchased at the same time for half price).



I also weeded -- I always think that's going to be worse than it is! I was sure that after watering everything the weed grass would just be everywhere. Well, it was somewhere but not everywhere, LOL! There's still one bed I didn't get to but, honestly, it's never as bad as I expect it to be, with the weeding, which makes me feel my lasagna methods worked more than not!

First bud showing on the poppies. I think it's a Lauren's Grape that's going to show a face first.

And a lily bloomed.

I spent what little extra time i had this morning in the greenhouse potting up new cuttings of a red-orange Chinese Lantern, an orange brug, and started 10 seeds fresh from my old plumeria who blessed me with babies for the first time in over 20 years.

Kyla, I like your gazing ball. I just got my first one a couple of weeks ago, and it's similar to yours. At first I thought I'd rather have just a solid red color to match the fence, but the multicolor is working okay for me.




Did some weeding in the rock garden and one of the strawberry patches. Tossed out fresh repellent to deter digging critters, and thought about what I wanted to get done next time... while on the hammock "just resting my eyes".

Also been doing a bunch of painting lately. I've decided that the terra-cotta look just doesn't work for me, so I'm painting most of those things the dark green-blue of the arbor pictured above. I like to paint!

Chelle, thanks. All the gazing balls are belong to my cousin, LOL! She is a great garden art appreciator and collector. I joke that we have a gazing ball propagation bed out back. But that one I agree is especially nice. I like yours as well and the birdbath it's sitting in even better. Really nice!

Thanks! That birdbath top is constantly being re-purposed, because the bottom of it is broken out. I lined it with hardware cloth and used it as a sunflower seed feeder for the birds last winter, but now it has a different job to do.

@chelle, if I had a gazing ball as pretty as that, I would sit and gaze at it and not get any work done!

I got 3 urn type planters done for the front, I used the spiky dracaena and marigolds, may add some alyssum and lobelia, hoping it is something that the deer won't eat. I got one bed bordered with white alyssum and crystal palace blue lobelia, just got the front done today. I still have 5 more beds to do..

I have asthma and everything makes me cough, my nose is always runny from the pollens, grasses, just about everything, but I sure don't let it stop me from gardening.

I'm grateful not to have pollen allergies here, these days. Have had them in the past in other locations and they can be turrible!

My main issue is the mosquitoes and this year, so far, using a dot of pure geranium oil on each arm and each leg seems to deter them sufficiently, which is truly amazing as nothing has ever worked in the past.

I have to cover myself in deet, I get a terrible reaction to mosquito and black fly bites, wonder if that would work for me. Where did you get the pure geranium oil, Kyla???

It's just an essential oil I have here, it's an old bottle from Elizabeth Van Buren. Any good geranium oil should do though. Can't hurt to try it! I tried using DEET myself one year and it was awful plus which it didn't work all that well. It probably also depends on what type mosquitoes you have as I know there are several biting kinds that each have different "preferences" as to what odors they are drawn to and what repelled by.... I did a (very little) bit of research into this once in hopes of finding a better way than just to give up! I didn't find it, but I also never tried pure geranium oil before this.

If you do try it, you do not need much, really, just a drop on your limbs. It doesn't have to cover at all as it is the scent the repels them.

Food coops, health food stores or vitamin/supplement stores should carry essential oils. Or online.

Thank you Kyla and Deb, we have a couple of health food stores in Kamloops, I will check that out on Tuesday.

It's a wonder I got anything done in this heat -- I have a hot spot area in a corner of the pool deck by the side of the house and it registered 98 degrees. When my son visits from PA he will lounge out there for a while and fry -- I can't take just sitting in the sun anymore.
But I managed to repot two Adeniums, a Christmas cactus and a couple of small succulents.
Did some tidying up around my potting bench. My potting mix was running low so I mixed up a bag of potting soil with peat moss and some perlite in a big bin. I always try to keep an extra bag of potting soil around. Gave all my containers a good watering with rain barrel water. I don't mind doing this -- takes longer - but I get to inspect the plants more thoroughly.
Found some mealy bugs on a jatropha so that had to be taken care of. Thinned out some seedlings of swamp milkweed I recently planted.
I need to prune my Beauty Berry and would like to find a way to use the leaves as a mosquito repellent. I read about this not too long ago; experiments are being done with the oils in the leaves. Hunters crush the leaves and tuck them in their hat bands and other places on their clothing and swear by it. Anything would be better than Deet on your skin !

I follow the shade, for personal comfort and to keep the sun off my skin. So, weeded two shady beds

Gave my outdoors plants their once a week thorough watering, while temps are still in the low 70's. We are expecting 87F today, and we usually exceed that.

Checked on some budding plants..well, still waiting..really long wait, maybe it will finally bloom today once we get the low 80's. Still nice good breeze outside.

85 in the shade here right now...and I'm following it, too. All I've managed to accomplish so far is checking up on things and hilling up the potatoes, but I'd love to do a planter or two. I need to mow, but it may have to wait for cooler temps.