The Late Spring Garden

Late spring is one of the best times in my flower garden. Irises and peonies, my favorites. I went to the plant nursery this morning to buy vegetable plants for the vegetable garden. Picked up afew perennials, then came home and weeded the flower gardens all morning. Very therapeutic.

Rhododendrons


Red Rhododendron. Very pretty flowers, but this plant has never grown very large.


Spiderwort. Just planted this today


White iris


Variegated Weigela


The first peonies


Lavender Iris

The bees have arrived

This morning we welcomed 10,000 or so new members to our family. At 6 am the phone rang. It was the local post office informing us that our bees had arrived. They seemed rather eager for us to get there as soon as possible to remove them from the post office.
My husband had set up the hive last weekend in preparation for their arrival. After reading several books about beekeeping, he'd decided that he didn't really need any protective equipment other than the bee hood (bees will attempt to crawl into your nose and ears). Plus we'd seen a really good movie called Ulee's Gold, starring Peter Fonda as a beekeeper. Peter Fonda walked freely amongst the bees ( which were probably computer generated) sans gloves or any other protective gear. My husband was going to be the Bee Whisperer.
The bees arrived in the wooden and mesh cage pictured above. Several were loose and clinging to the cage, so the person at the post office happily gave us the plastic USPS tote that the cage was in and sent us on our way.
Our next door neighbors had bees for several years, so they had all of the gear. When it came time to put the bees in the hive, I suggested to hubby that he go next door to borrow additional safety gear. "No, I don't need that stuff. It's all about remaining calm. They won't sting you if you stay calm". Ooookay. For protective gear, he opted for a fishing raincoat and the bee hood.
The queen bee is in a separate little box. The box is corked, and after you remove the cork she is still kept in there with a piece of sugar "candy". Within several days, the worker bees will eat the candy, releasing the queen. Hopefully by then they will have decided that they like her, and will take care of her. If not... we have to get a new queen. After she is placed in the hive, it's time to install the rest of the bees.



When it comes time to release the bees into the hive, you basically kind of bang the cage until they come out and go into the hive. Turns out bees don't really like being banged around. The Bee Whisperer ending up running and getting stung once. I was 40 feet away, and one bee ended up stuck in my hair, which involved running and flailing.


In the end, the bees were safely transferred to their new home. Our neighbors kindly brought over their unused bee equipment, including a full safety suit which will be used from now on, or until we learn the art of remaining zen calm with bees crawling on us.

Growing Seeds

We have a large garden every year, bu other than sunflowers and pumpkins we don't generally do a lot from seed. In the past when I've tried seeds, I tend to lose interest and forget about them, so normally I buy plants from local nurseries right before planting.
Several weeks ago we had a beautiful warm Sunday and I was itching to plant something. Garden planting season here isn't until after Mother's Day, so I decided to go to Lowes and pick up afew packets of seeds. While I was there, I ended up buying 2 cherry trees and 2 bare root roses, so a trip to buy $10 worth of seeds quickly turned a lot more expensive!
I put the planted seeds in our sunroom and was somewhat surprised to see that most of them are actually growing. It probably would have been better had I bothered to label which seeds I planted where, but I guess I'll figure it out.
The larger pot is an "Italian Herb Garden" mix with fennel, oregano and basil. I also planted summer squash, broccoli, brussel sprouts, artichokes, and I think some lettuce.

Eager to start gardening

It's been warm (50s and 60s) for the past week, and the sun has been shining! I"m feeling the urge to garden, but it's still almost 2 month away from being safe to do any real planting of vegetables and flowers. Mother's Day is usually the benchmark, though we had frost after Mother's Day last year.
I decided to go to Lowe's and buy afew seeds to start indoors. Once I got there I also decided that I needed some pots, some bare root roses, some cherry trees.... $7 worth of seeds turned into $120, but that's the way it goes sometimes I guess!
The cherry trees are pretty big and look healthy. We've tried planting cherry trees before with dismal results, but I think the place we tried them just isn't a good spot. These will go on the other side of the property, near my $10 Big Lots dwarf pear tree that has flourished despite being almost completely neglected.
I got some little peat moss, plastic covered "greenhouses" and planted broccoli, spinach, artichokes, romaine, squash and some sunflowers, plus basil, fennel, and oregano in another pot. We'll see what happens. I tend to lose interest in seeds as time goes by. I usually buy most of our vegetable plants as established seedlings At Pettitti Garden Centers in Tallmadge Ohio (http://www.petittigardencenter.com). They always have a nice selection of vegetable plants.
Last year a persistent groundhog decimated all of our cruciferous veggies and lettuce, so we have to re fence the garden this year before planting.

The Garden is blooming

Almost summer, our flower beds are starting to bloom. Rhododendrons are at their peak. The peonies are almost ready, looks like they are going to be really nice this year.


We replanted some new roses after losing 4 last winter, due to my negligence. The vegetable garden is in, now if we can just keep up on the weeds! We don't use any weed killers, so that makes it a lot harder. Some of those weeds seem to able to grow 2 feet in a day.

Lilacs

The lilacs are blooming, late spring is here (I hope)! I'd love to bring a vase inside, but the cats would just tear them to pieces.