Spring
2007.04.13
The Lambs Ear is enormous! When I first planted it last summer, it was about a foot in diameter. Now it’s about three times as big. Sweet. The Oriental Lilly I got from the Portland Nursery bargain bin is coming up again, surely it will bloom this year. The Delphinium (also from the bargain bin) is coming up as well.
The Vinca Minor, Juniper, and Sea Breeze Seaside Daisies are all fine. The Lithodoras, which nearly died the day after planting due to hot weather, have survived that and the winter. I don’t think the African Daisies or Pincushion Flower will come back. Most of the Scotch Moss seems to have died off, there’s a little left, overrun by grass.
2007.05.12
The small flowerbed has been bothering me for a while. Although the ends are represented nicely by the Lambs Ear on one side, and the Lilly and Seaside Daisy on the other (neither of which have bloomed yet), the middle is a little rough. The Juniper is fine, but still tiny and easily overlooked. The Lithodoras are also fairly small and scraggly. The African Daisies and Pincushion Flower are nothing more than grey stumps now. The rest has been overrun with grass or is just bare.
So today I cleared out all the junk in the middle while trying not to harm the good plants that remain. Inevitably I had to extract some nice soil, so I dumped in a bag of compost and a bag of topsoil and spread around.
Along the back, I planted some Gladiolus corms (they are annuals). They are supposed to get 40 inches tall. Then I planted a red Gerbera Daisy (annual), a yellow African Daisy (annual), and a pink dwarf Lupine (a perennial).
The Lupine had some damage (all of them did at Lowes, I chose the best one I could find), so I had to trim off quite a few broken stems, including the main flower stalk. But two more are already forming, so it will bloom again soon enough.
“Now, no false moves please. I want you to hand over all the lupins you've got.”
“Well we haven't got any lupins.”
“Look, my friends. I happen to know that this is the Lupin Express.”
– Dennis Moore (from Monty Python)
Winter