Dear Carol, Mary Ann and all other gardening friends, I hope you had a good weather week. Other than the hail on April 6th, and the one cold, but not freezing night, I think we are "go" for spring. A couple of the tomatoes I planted too early have succumbed to hail damage. I knew I was planting them before I should, but I'd watched the weather for low nights and found none. Who expected a stupid hail storm? Not I. So, today, I will pull them up, take the tags back to the store and buy new plants. Lesson learned again. Just wait.  Although, we could still get another hail storm. Meanwhile, most of the lettuces are on to their second set of leaves, and I planted a salad bowl on the deck with a few varieties including 'Forellenschuss' and a mix from Renee's called Garden Babies, a butter...

Did you know at least some Japanese maples bloom? They do.  Many of mine are now sending out tiny, hovering umbrellas under which only a fairy could find shade. Do you think the fairies hold tea parties beneath and carry their Lilliputian parasols aloft as they sip cups of Sencha or Gyokuro ? I like to think so.  One more. Interestingly, it's only my green ones which show this tendency, and the blooms are more prolific in those trees which get morning sun.  These blooms give way to winged samaras (seeds) later in the summer. I can't wait to see. This is gardening's true gift.  The ability to see something new everyday. "Walking around an early spring garden-- going nowhere." - Kyoshi To continue your Sunday Stroll, please visit Aisling at the Quiet Country House.

It's a fine spring day.  Time to do chores, like removing the leaves from the shade beds, feeding the roses and daylilies, and putting shredded leaves on the garden to break down. I've finally pruned nearly all of the roses and inoculated some with diatomaceous earth to try to stop cane borers.  I wrote about growing roses chemically free on the Lowe's Grow Along blog this week. I'm trying a new rose food this year on a few; it's Mills Magic Rose Mix, which the company sent me.  I like that right on front of the package they have the ingredients in fairly large letters:  "alfalfa meal, fish meal, steamed bone meal, cottonseed meal, blood meal, activated sludge, and an organic compost activator." Its NPK analysis is 6-5-1, so it has a balance of nitrogen (to get those leaves growing) along with phosphorous (for bloom production)  with a small amount of potassium (drought protection).  ...

Once, in 2008, when referring to the redbuds blooming along the rural Oklahoma roads, I said my world was purple and gray.  Although it seemed much earlier that year, actually they didn't start blooming until April, and it looks from the pictures as though everything else held off that spring.  Last year, they bloomed in March and were bitten by the late freeze. Oh, but this year is the best bloom we've had in a long time, and they are just past their prime.  The rest of the Oklahoma landscape is turning green with them, and it's this nice contrast of the two colors, spring green and vivid purple which makes them so popular. I'm often asked how to grow the native redbuds, Cercis canadensis 'Oklahoma', often from people who purchased a small tree in bloom, planted it, and watched it die that summer, or in a year or two.  ...