Today was just classic Kansas weather. This morning was a beautiful spring day, so inviting that I left 2 coffee cups out in the garden. Our garden show is this weekend, and I just never ever miss it. I chose to stay home and putter in the garden because it was so balmy outside. Then I realized my black pants felt too hot, and shorts were called for. Many years, we skip spring and go right to summer, so I sighed and found some shorts.
While pulling mulch back from roses, checking for signs of life, I notice that the ground is dry. Time to drag hoses, I guess! I start to unwind a few miles of drip line and see that the sky is darkening and the wind is picking up. Hmmm. Maybe just the action of unrolling hoses is enough to bring on rain? Could I be that lucky? Usually it doesn't rain until after I water for 3 hours and wash the car. Sure enough, i hear thunder, and the lightning brings me indoors.
Next thing I know, it's hailing! Little tiny bits of hail, not enough to do damage, but it is hail. I check the weather forecast and see we are expecting SNOW tonight, so I bring in the California roses that I had sunning outdoors.
Yikes!
What do I do with the 50 kajillion bags of plants I have sitting on the lawn? Guess I didn't tell that story here yet. We discovered we had tree roots in the sewer line, and had to dig out the old line and totally replace 80 feet of pipe. The previous owner decided to save $30 and put in a cheaper kind of pipe, so I had to dig out every rosebush, shrub, bulb, iris, daylily, hosta and mum that was in the beds on the east side of the house. Grrrrrrrr. My husband did the rest of the excavation with the backhoe and he was very careful to look for more plant roots. Most plants are still dormant, so it was kind of hard to see all the roots in among the leaves and mulch.
Some of the plants went directly into the garage, but some have been sitting in clumps on the lawn. I think I had 10 roses in that area, and a huge Incrediball Hydrangea.
So now those bags are even heavier since the clumps are mud. I think I'm going to divide all the clumps of daylilies, siberian iris, japanese iris and mums that I took out. There were several big clumps of lilium that will need a new home too. There's a big open sunny area I can use, but it's going to look like a bag of jelly beans until everything blooms and gets a new label. I was rushing so fast to get stuff out that I didn't even sort like items in the same bags. At this time of year, I couldn't tell you what all is in that flower bed! If I saw a root, I saved it. The clematis I dug out had roots 2 feet long!
Now the lightning is closer, so I need to unplug for a while. Ha! That will make the grass green up, for sure!
Guess the next round will be thunder snow. Crazy stuff!
