Volunteers and forgotten seedlings

Last fall Mindy and I were walking through the Italian cultural garden on MLK Blvd. and I saw some perennials with interesting seed pods. I didn't know what they were, but I decided to harvest a few pods and try growing the seeds. So I planted them about 4 inches deep in my new bed with the ornamental grass clumps and black-eyed susan (see the posting about my patio for a view of the bed). This spring I checked for them anxiously many times but never saw any signs of life, so I just assumed they weren't going to come up; but this morning I was walking around the yard eating a bowl of cereal and I noticed these tiny little blade type shoots and remembered my mystery seeds!

And here in my herb garden there are a number of volunteers: Chives at the base of the mother plant that reseeded themselves from the multitudinous purple ball flowers of last year.

I am amazed at how quickly in the spring the chives are completely covered in blooms. Normally I'd be pleased, but the herbs stop producing new foliage when they go to flower.

Last year our parsley completely stopped producing leaves there were so many flower heads. Fortunately there are some Parsley seedlings this year.

Also Dill - this is the second year dill has volunteered.

Potential new patio

This is a photoshopped image of my backyard showing a possible patio made of paver stones. My workplace is planning to install a green roof, which would make these pavers available cheaply, so I wanted to see how they would look in our yard.

And here it is with furniture! Pretty cool huh? This was all done during my lunch hour yesterday.

Rainbarrel

I've been excited about installing a rain barrel since last fall. I bought this used barrel from a lady who makes and sells pet hair care products, so I had to wash and rinse it thoroughly. The red hose you see coming out the top is for overflow when the barrel fills up. The first time it rained after I installed it was just a gentle sprinkle that lasted most of the day and it was completely full when I got home from work! I've used the water collected on plants already - plants like rainwater much better than city water. Of course it is kind of ugly, but I hope to put a trellis around it and grow some vines to cover it up.

Handmade Trellis

The last couple years I have been using a rose trellis for my two clematis plants. The bars on the trellis were too wide for the clematis to grab onto, so I decided to make my own. I like to use branches and twigs from my yard as climbing aids for other plants, so for the uprights I used branches from a Mulberry tree that I plan on cutting down sometime, so I didn't mind cutting off some branches. The woven part that the clematis will actually grab onto I used twigs pruned off the maple tree in the front yard in February. They are nice and straight and flexible. The only drawback is it takes a long time to make, and now I've run out of Maple twigs. But I just discovered a small Oak sapling growing along the fence in the back yard that I can harvest. I'm sure it'll come back again so I can keep on using it.

Hornbeam hedge

My last post about the hornbeams was a picture of them in a wooden trough over-wintering in the coal cellar. They were planted last Spring and all but two survived the Winter. Last year at least four got cut down by deer, and two of those didn't come back, so I've replaced them with new plants that arrived in the mail last week. They were tiny 6" twigs with half a dozen leaf buds each. The year old plants have already leafed out.

Here is a tiny new hornbeam plant