SPRING = STARTS

The more philosophical bloggers have been writing about spring. Seems spring = renewal, rebirth, fresh starts. I love all that! I love opening the windows and sitting on the deck and listening to the birds. And I love our yard ... we tried (try) REALLY hard to keep it pretty low maintainence. We certainly don't claim to be gardeners around this homestead.

Case in point: here are 4 pots that I dutifully filled with the very special, enriched soil that we bought at Home Depot ... imagine - BUYING dirt. And I very carefully arranged (according to the instructions) my seeds - 2 of these will (God willing) be sunflowers and the other 2 will be ... ummm ... some other yellow flower. I think it's called Rubekia. These rubekia seeds were really little so I threw in a few extra. I lined up the pots, unwound the hose to add a little water and promptly knocked one of them off the steps. So I scooped up the special dirt and threw it back in the pot. 2 of these pots have sprouted!!! 2 of them haven't - 1 is probably the one that got dumped. Now, my dilemma ... I don't remember which seeds I planted where.
This little baby I planted 2 years ago. 2 weeks ago, there was just dirt here (not the special dirt we paid for). Last fall, the Cute Husband was SO distressed by this plant. It had become totally unruly - grew up the side of the house, over the porch railing, under the porch, around the tree and was starting to attach itself to the wicker chair. I trimmed it a little, then a little more and then a little more and finally, we just cut the whole thing down to the ground ... and look ... it's back!!! It will have really pretty purple and white flowers at least until the Cute Husband gets a hold of it. He thinks it's possessed. Now - azalias ... can't go wrong with them - they grow and flower ... real easy. My kind of plant!

And roses. I always thought roses were hard to grow. They seem so snooty and elegant. I don't know what kind of roses these are but I can't kill them. They grow and flower and grow and flower and grow and flower. I wack them down and back them come. This is the very first rose for this year!

I hope you enjoyed a little stroll through the start of my garden. I posted on Facebook (a lot) about the mulch in our yard, please take a moment to admire it around the azalia. Mulch became a HUGE part of our lives for a whole weekend. lots and lots of mulch.