Reporting In

So here I am in FL, and pleased to report, that the garden has a tender!  Mom is doing a wonderful job keeping the babies well tended and growing happy as clams.  The transplanted sunflowers have even made it passed a week of life now and I'm so happy!  There were three babies, but only two made it, but that's better than nothing!  She's even sent pictures to show us all how wonderful they were doing!  That picture is the weekend that I left, and the one on the right is as of last night! You can see the two tiny baby sunflowers in the bottom left corner!  The bud below is from the sunflower that towers over the shoulder of my momma now, and she reports it as a 2 inch in diameter, golfball shaped bud.  Hopefully it doesn't bloom until I get home on Sunday!

The elephant ear has grow exponentially! From the tiny bud in the last post, to a two pronged leaf baring beauty! Soon it might get taller and I simply can't wait. There are so many growing things that she has had to send over 9 pictures last night to cover all the bases!  And apparently last night she potted the picasso petunias, the tequila sunrise petunias, and weeded! The picasso's you can't really tell, but they have purply pink flowers, with lime green tips! They are beautiful! You never know what you might find! She added some other plants but I can't quite make out what they are but there's also some spikeys!

Its the neatest thing ever.  The dill, and the lavender are yet to be close uped, but I saw some yellowing on the dill's lower branches but mom said that was from a few days in between where she couldn't make it.  It will recover and hopefully get nice and strong and big! I love the dill, its so fluffy! And for those of you that keep up on the garden progress and knew the marigolds were just starting to recover right before I left... I have a picture for you!!!!!

WHOOT! WHOOT!  More to come!!!!

From your loving gardener in the forever spring!

-Tine!

P.S.

Guess who's growing! (Mom found him while culling at home!

Excitement Ahoy!

More babies on the horizon! That's right guys, the seedplugs are sprouting!!!

Now first you have to understand, my eyes are not so great to begin with, so I'm pretty proud of myself when I get those tiny seeds all measured out into only 2 seeds per plug, but the chamomile seeds? Nono, those things were almost smaller than pinheads, so I merely got what I could in and was fairly certain only a few would come up since the seed packet was mildly old. This my friends... This means I was right mistaken. I now have over 20 chamomiles making residence in my 4 seed plugs. Well more babies for me! I have to do some research and find out how they grow with companion plants but it shouldn't bee too difficult. But in addition to those babies who have been up for approx. 2 days, I now have some thai basil making its appearance! YAY! Baby Basil is so exciting I have to say. Bijou, the lavender is also making a wonderful rebound form her purchase state and already has a few new sprigs coming up. Such a great start!

Oh yes, so many great things that these are only the things happening in MY house. The garden at work has been doing even better! The grape hyacinths are up and beside their bigger bolder cousins they look magnanimous! Its a great addition to the garden, however there have been some requests lately and it looks like I'm going to have to work extra hard now to get the front and back really nice. Not sure why, but hey!

ALSO! The Crumpacker/Lovell house is in full bloom now. Chives were so unruly they were in desperate need of a hair cut, which I of course am pleased to supply since I have adopted them as part of my herbal repertoire. They are so nice with their hair trimmed. Hopefully the buds will come up nice and strong this year and I will get to press a few of the flowers. I could put them in the book with the others! So exciting. On top of that, the lavender planted there last year, the one I couldn't keep because of his fuzziness giving mom allergy problems! He's got new sprigs as well!!! So proud of my baby!

This spring is going to be a grand thing. Already planning out the big box. So long as I keep my head up and above the water, I'm hoping it will last.

Babies!

Well I know its been some time since I last reported in, but some of you might not realize, we actually how CAN'T you realize! just how nice its been outside. It literally still is the winter months and I'm sleeping with windows open at night. This is a grand thing everyone and just over the last few days at work I have great news!

Because of the lovely days we've been having I have been enjoying some time out in the garden with the kids during work, cleaning out all last winter and falls leaves, only to reveal... BABIES!

These are the hyacinth bulbs that I had planted last autumn. I planted eight and they have all arisen! Along with another 40 something bulbs of babies that are happily springing forth with tiny buds. On Saturday I also worked, but I spent some more time in the garden and I happy to report NO MORE ROSEWEED! People can claim all they want that rosebushes are nice, I think they are scrappy and annoying. I yanked them forth after a nice hard rain and tada! The bench corner is now ready for some mass lavendering! So exciting.

Tomorrow I will draw a scheme for the rest of things, but we have a great amount of work ahead. We were given the go ahead for the front yard as well. Time to get working!

A Splash of Color

My latest gift from mom was this beautiful clearance plant from menards! I love it. They are orange mums. My favorite color on my second favorite plant. Its truly amazing how cheap they were considering how many blooms and how inspiring they are. I love them so much! I just can't help but love them because God gave me this precious gift and I never want it to be squandered. So lovely. So perfect. Thank you! And thank mom for buying me these amazing little suns in a pot.

On a nice note, Nicky's sunflowers made seeds! That's right they got all huge and upright and bees came and went. Now they have tons of seeds. Well not tons, the blue jays came after they smelled them and ate most the seeds, but there were lots of bees and I love bees! I can't wait to see what my sunflowers look like now that they have had more time to open!

Its such an interesting thing, working in ones potted garden. OH! And speaking of pots I was also gifted with some new ceramic pots from mom. They are so amazing. She understands my taste in pots I swear. One is a vibrant deep blue and the stains look like its raining. The other is mint apple, my favorite nail polish and tall with a lipped edge. I am allowing Emma to transplant in the blue one so that her strawberries (which have finally gotten a growth spurt), can be moved to. The other green one, is going to be the new home to a Thai basil plant. I planted seedlings with Emma on Monday, the babies are sprouting now. Very nice to see.

This thing is also making seeds now, and I'm waiting before a little bit of more time goes by so that I can harvest the seeds, as well as with a single basil plant that I allowed to make flowers. Its the stoutest and bushiest. The more seeds I take from the busier plants, the more bushy they will get from being harvest and planted from those perimeters. At least that's what I'm hoping.

Its very relieving to finally have some time to sit back and smell the basil.