So, it’s summer already. I think. Our weather’s been seesawing between heat waves and cold snaps all spring, so I’m not one hundred percent certain that we’re there yet, WHICH IS FINE if it means the hell temps don’t last more than a few days at a stretch and the cold snaps aren’t below freezing.
The redbud recovered from the late frost, but looks like it crawled out from under a bender. Our abused hawthorn tree (it’s been damaged by everything from wind storms to lawn mowers but has come back from all of that like a champ!) is now in a fight with a swamp maple.
My roses have all bloomed, but they started two weeks later than usual, which means they’ll be at peak when the Japanese Beetles show up.
All of my clearance bin sourced hosta returned, bigger than ever. They continue to quietly murder the builder-installed shrubs I hate, giving me a good reason to get rid of them and replace them with more clearance bin sourced hosta. The hosta still remain respectful of the builder-installed liriope, but the dandelions are gradually taking care of those for me, even though I have zero clue what to replace them with. (Fancier dandelions, maybe?) The poison ivy that was trying to do that job for them has yet to make a re-appearance.
Yet.
Every single one of the pepper seedlings I put out last month died, and most of the tomato starts right along with them. This is after I put them into nice new garden bags with (allegedly) appropriately mixed dirt and compost and worm castings, not into the mix of ex-pasture and construction-fill-of-unknown-origin that makes up our yard, or into a raised metal-edge bed with (again, allegedly) good dirt on top of that ground which worked so well until the voles dug under it and somehow squeezed through the screening underneath it and stole all of the damn herbs by the roots, except for the mint. The mint escaped. We’re still finding patches of it in the fenced area of the yard, but there’s no risk of it overtaking the non-minty weeds on either side of the fence.
My husband has been hinting that I plant something to cover the fence before it needs to be painted.
Spoiler alert: it already needs to be painted.
Last week, during a post-weeding rage fugue, I planted cucumber and wildflower seeds. They now all appear to be sprouting.
Yesterday, I planted zucchini.
