One of my new favorite flowers

I've fallen in love with columbine. Not just any columbine - the Clementine variety.

I selected the columbine "Clementine Rose" on a whim last year from my favorite perennial stop - the Plant Ranch. There had to be 10-12 different columbines to choose from on the clearance sale and for some reason I choose this one. What a beauty she has turned out to be. It is so nice that I went back to the Plant Ranch this week and bought every Clementine variety I could find - blue, white, red and the salmon rose. I loved their compact shape and the petite blooms.

Right now, my garden lacks color. It hasn't helped that we've had a cold spring. We had rain over the weekend and that was a definite boost - now we just need warmth!

This is about the only other thing blooming - the chives. But they sure look good! I planted a lot of purple and pink this year. I wanted that soft look in my beds this year.

This past weekend my son graduated from high school. What a whirlwind week. Hubby and I worked hard to make the yard and garden as glorious as it could be for all of our open house guests. We thought it looked great and hopefully our friends and family did too. And because it was our open house - we didn't do anything drastic with that silly juniper yet!

Hopefully I'll have more things blooming in my next post ...

What to do with this juniper?

We planted this juniper shortly after we moved into our house in 2003.

I thought it would provide a sturdy anchor for the front landscape. But it is getting quite tall and too narrow for my liking. Recently, a blackbird created a nest in it and everytime I went out to garden, I'd have the mother bird flying around the tree, chirping - just to make sure I knew her eggs were inside.

Neither one of us huge fans of birds anyway, my husband and I carefully removed the nest and put it in another evergreen away from the house. The mother bird found it and I think she's just as content.

Can you cut the size of these down? Would I damage the tree by doing so? Would it look awkward? I'm clueless.

Maybe an arborvitae would have been better for that more round look. What's that cliche, "hindsight is 20/20"?

So some advice please - can you reshape it (or shave off some of the top) - or should I leave it as is? Is there a special technique? I don't want it to look as if Edward Scissorhands got a hold of it!

Happy Mother's Day to all

My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune.
- Graycie Harmon

Today, I will celebrate Mother's Day with my family - mainly outside - working on projects that need our attention. The sun is shining and I can already feel it will be a nice and productive day. My hubby and our teenager have a busy day a head of them with my to-do list.

I think one of the cutest Mother's Day traditions is the school projects kids make. Flowers seem to be the central theme which would make me smile anyway. My oldest daughter decorated a terracotta pot with translucent beads and sparkles and filled it with snapdragons and pansies. That's a keeper.

Mommy's little helper, a first-grader, could hardly contain her excitement when she handed me a large envelope. In it was a poem, her handprints and a packet of seeds. She told me her teacher gave her three flower choices. She chose cosmos, she said, because she remembered I liked them because we had planted some together at home. What a sweet Mother's Day memory. That encapsulated what Mother's Day and the love of gardening is all about for me.

It made me think of my own mother. I'm sure today she is busy tending to that big garden in the sky and how glorious that must be. I posted a photo of impatiens today - one of her favorite flowers - in memory of her.

I read this quote recently and I think it's quite fitting. Happy Mother's Day to all of you. Enjoy your day with your moms, your kids or in the great outdoors.

If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden.

- Claudia Ghandi

My garden, my friend

I am enjoying getting lost in my garden again.

I can't wait to get home from work and see what grew in those eight hours since I last checked them. It's such a welcome reprieve from the stress that I feel lately - like when I'm having a bad day at the office, or the family is driving me nuts or when life is giving me lemons and I'm too exhausted to try and make lemonade.

It is then that I turn to my good friend - my garden. She rarely disappoints me, and if she does, I'll always find a reason to forgive her. She has been with me in good times and bad and no matter what comes my way, I can always find comfort in her. And this week, I need her.

Enough of my drivel. Let's look at what's happening outside ...

This lungwort is almost blossoming and is very lush. I think the pink blossoms are a week away. I love the spotted leaves.

This terra cotta-colored yarrow is getting quite big already for being only early May. I hear these spread rapidly. God only knows what this will look like in August. Yikes!

I transplanted this perennial bachelor button (Centaurea montana) this spring. I was a little nervous having it in the backyard after all the deer feasted in their growing area so I moved it to the front of the house. It transplanted incredibly well.

My good friend Ang gave me this special breast cancer-themed dahlia. Problem is.... the tag doesn't indicate if it's a perennial or annual and I've never grown dahlias. Can someone tell me what to do with it?!?!? Is it better potted in a container or in the ground? This plant has extra special meaning to me as my mom (aunt and first cousin) all had breast cancer.

I'm trying to keep the field rock look in my backyard and took out all the pavers around this portion near the deck. For Mother's Day, my husband said he'd create a nice sunny corner for me near the deck too (pictured below). I can always use another sheltered sunny location.

Any ideas for this area?

And now to my "What is up with this?" section:

This cushion spurge is barely there - I'm afraid it has winter kill. Does this look healthy to you?

Same goes for the Russian Sage - I see it starting to come up all over town but not in my backyard. Does this look like it's gone? Is it OK to Miracle Grow these plants - or is it too early?

Computer withdrawals and a seed update

"Flowers changed the face of the planet. Without them,the world we know. . . would never have existed."

- Loren Eiseley, US anthropologist

I have been computerless at home for nearly a week. Some awful virus attacked my computer (no thanks to a file-sharing software that one of my wonderful children installed). Well, after a week's wait and $140 later, here I am finally able to post again. I have learned some valuable lessons this week: Don't download any file-sharing program, make sure all of your photos and music are backed up (which I thought I did but then later found out I didn't) and have a good anti-spyware program. Sigh ...

Anyway, on my last post I told you I was going to start some seeds indoors and in one week's time - I have healthy sprouts. The last to appear was the cleome. Like the seed packets suggested, I put the California poppy and the nigella straight in the ground. Apparently they like a cooler start and I live in the perfect climate for that. This is the kind of weird weather North Dakota has: Last Thursday it was 83 degrees and then the next day - in the 40s! Only here!

It didn't deter me much, I still worked out in the garden beds and even moved a few perennials around. I also sowed the blue larkspur too (thanks Kerri!).

Now it's just wait and see ... if only I was a patient gardener!

Sow what now?

OK all you gardeners ....

Is it too late to start seeds indoors? When I had wanted to start seeds indoors it was the height of the flood. Now I'm about 3 weeks behind and wondering if it's even worth it.

Typically, it's not safe to plant seeds (or any potted plants) until AT LEAST Mother's Day around here (Chris from ND can vouch for this). Some years, it's not safe until Memorial Day. Even if I started the seeds for 4-5 weeks, is the seedling going to be strong enough to survive the spring transplant?

I wanted to start cosmos, bush morning glory and maybe even my cleome. I don't have a sophisticated set-up for my seeds indoors - just lots of sunlight in a south exposure window.

What do you think ... wait and just sow the seeds in mid-May or get a headstart now and take my chances with some grown indoors for a few weeks? Help!

Happy spring!

These beautiful green buds from a Siberian Iris was a welcome visitor this Easter Sunday. After nearly six hard months of winter, this was a lovely sight.

Temps are in the 50s for the next few days and much of the snow has melted - all but the front of my house which faces north and still has lots of compacted snow. So today, I got out the shovel and moved the snow around to sunnier locations. I'm sure my neighbors were wondering what the hell I was doing shoveling the grass and garden beds. I'm just getting a jump start on gardening people!

I was out with Mommy's Little Helper who watched me shovel while she skated around in her new inline skates she received for her birthday. It was a great morning to be outside - the sun was shining, the sun was clear and it instantly uplifted my spirits. I was surprised to see a Red Cross truck driving around our neighborhood again - I'm sure they were checking to see if there were any people working on our dike and were offering beverages and treats. How nice of them to come by on Easter ...

Anyway, here's some of the things I found underneath all that snow ....

This is one of my geraniums.

I believe this is a pink columbine?!?!!? Regrettably, I did not mark my plants last fall and I planted SO MANY new things and now I am lost as to what and where I planted. This is atypical of me and I am so frustrated! I think back to September when I would normally do this and I was so sick with my gallbladder. So that's probably why I neglected this garden chore. Oh well - it does add an element of surprise to spring ...

I haven't had much experience with grasses. This is one of my prairie grasses and not sure - do I cut this down even more. Do I wait for new growth to come and then do away with this?