spring garden planning

This spring has been so fickle. I thought for sure that our wet, cold (and even snowy) April would bring warmer temps and drier weather for May. That hasn't come true, so far. It's been mostly chilly, damp, and rainy. I feel like we'll never get the yard cleaned up and mowed, garden beds mulched and flowers planted. The positive side: everything is so green now!

 Can't wait to make a strawberry-rhubarb crisp with my own rhubarb.

Clematis has really taken off, but right now it looks like a tangled mess. Pretty soon it'll have huge, purple flowers.

Peony about to bloom...

This past Tuesday after physical therapy (which is going OK...slower progress than expected, but no surprise there...it always is for me!), I stopped by the garden center even though it was barely 50 degrees with whipping winds. I wanted to see what was available right now to plant in flower pots and perhaps pick up some herbs. I was walking around with pots of basil and cilantro in my hands and one of the garden employees said to me, "I hope you're not planning on planting those right now!" She said it was still too cold for the basil. I asked about the cilantro and she said it was too windy. Sigh. I put the plants back. No use in buying anything right now and then having to keep it in the garage.

 Every spring on my first visit to a garden center, I get a little excited and want to buy every plant and flower I see. The adult version of a kid in a candy store.

Who can blame me when there's all these bright, beautiful colors?

 Gerbera daisies - one of my favorites.

And beautiful, romantic dahlias.

I've been thinking about what I want to do for Zippo's memorial garden. When we had Zippo put down last November in our home via mobile vet, Brian buried him in our back yard. It's a spot close to the back pine trees, near the composting bin and by the neighbor's fence. It's a bare, weedy spot, so needs a lot of work. In the meantime, I ordered this plaque on etsy.

I was thinking Forget-Me-Nots would be appropriate for the memorial garden...

 and perhaps some catmint, too.

There was another day that I visited a couple of nearby antique shops during their garden days spring sale. I poked around, outdoors and in...

and ended up coming home with this.

I haven't decided yet where I'm going to use it outdoors (hung on the fence?) or what I'm going to do with it, but it's all part of the spring garden planning that's going on.

Well, I wrote most of this post yesterday - Thursday - and today when I got up, I was happy to see the sun was shining. Granted, it's only 43 degrees, but I'll take the sunshine and dry weather after so much rain. I read that the farmers are behind in planting because of the flooded fields, so I shouldn't complain about not being able to plant flowers just yet.

Have a wonderful weekend!