Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Updates and The Brother is Coming!

The daffodil is taking off, in anticipation of the brother coming to visit! He arrives tomorrow and I think he's going to be very surprised to see that the daffodil has grown so much, plus with blossoms!

And look at the Arbor Walk! Last time the brother was here this was a patch of weeds. Actually there was a whole different house on this lot last time the brother was here. How surprising is that?
Also, let's not forget about the nectarine tree, which is absolutely POPPING with blossoms. The brother will be impressed.

Here's another angle of the Arbor Walk. It's a work in progress. Maybe we can get the brother to help while he's here "resting".

Here is the front right patch. I just fed it so hopefully it will start taking off more. Probably after the brother leaves, though.
And I think I owe Hugo an apology. There's a little plant in this section (below) that I saw her eating, but today it's completely gone with snail slime all around. And if I'm not mistaken, cats don't ooze snail slime while eating plants. I'll check with the brother while he's here, just to be sure. He knows more about cats.

Speaking of the brother, won't he be surprised to see this little garden area that the husband has recently planted? It looks like a professional was hired, but he WASN'T!
Of course, Hugo had to watch me while I was taking the pics. She's very excited about the brother. She's heard so much about him.
(The chairs are covered in plastic while it's raining in honor of THE BROTHER.)

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Putty Tats and Daffodils

It's spring! It's spring! No it isn't! It's winter! But this weekend it was almost 75 degrees and we gardened absolutely the whole time. It certainly felt like spring. Which reminds me of putty tats and daffodils because look! The kitty found a new, safe place to watch the mean dog who lives up the street and comes over to roll in our grass. Is she the cutest thing?
And here's the part about daffodils. After my amaryllis spent itself, I decided it would be easy enough to "force" bulbs in the house. So I read up on it and it sounded pretty complicated - stick in the freezer, put in 3 inches of potting soil, store in a dark place for 3 months, etc, etc. So I decided what the heck. I took three bulbs and shoved them in a pot with some soil and put them on my window sill. A week later after I killed the plants that were in this little wire castle, the husband put the pot in the castle and it took off! It loves it in there. These pictures were taken during consecutive days this week. The first one (above) was taken at night, the one below was the very next morning. The following two were the next two mornings. Can you believe how fast these things grow? I was trying to see if I could catch it growing by staring at it but I had stuff to do so it didn't work out. I took these pictures instead.








You can just see the little flower opening up! That was about three hours ago. Not much change since then.
Speaking of flowers and spring, the nectarine tree thinks it's spring.

This is the nectarine tree two days ago (above) and here it is this mornng (below). That groundhog was right this year. Frollic, frollic! I always frollic a little bit in the spring.