T Stands for Tuesday-Gardening at the Lake

 Hi Everyone,

      With the break in the weather-high 80's f instead of the mid 90's f and no storms as predicted, the lake out our windows Saturday was crazy busy. I spent the whole day planting what I had picked up at the greenhouse (see previous post) so I just mostly heard the loud boat noises-especially the race boats. People are really crazy out there.

   I managed to get all this garden soil down the hill and steps-with a little help from a friend-thank goodness. The soil in this area is really really bad-hard clay and stones In the back left corner is an old tree stump that we will be working to get dug out soon-so I can build my kitchen space for cast iron dutch oven cooking. and to the right of that are long bricks we salvaged taking out a couple of  partial walls into the living room-those were really bad-I think they were suppose to be indoor planters of some sort.

   The iris's here are beginning to bloom, and in front I planted snap dragons, and a couple plants for the butterflies and hummingbirds. All of the iris's in the photos I dug out of one these hills that eventually will need lots of rock to cover it-the goal is to get rid of weeds and grass here.

I moved all the bottle greenhouses over. Most are doing well especially all the creeping thyme ground cover, but I do have several that did not grow-will replant those I was disappointed that the dwarf black eye susans did not grow-except for one plant 

I bought a flat of impatiens thinking I wanted to plant them where the bottles above are-but too sunny there-so planting them in front of these iris's and in that back area of iris's and lilies This area is to the left looking out of the front door. Another pretty iris in bloom

This area is just to the left and back of above photo and another pretty iris

The pink I believe is a peony, I brought over one big clump that had come from my farm girl grandma's farm that I had brought to the woods home when we retired back in 2003. It has finally settled in this year with the first bloom here at the lake house Makes me happy

I had only brought to the lake a couple of my many clay pots I had-this one the bottom is almost gone now, but still useable. Petunias in here and along this edge on top of a stone wall is my very old lavender plant I brought over-still growing, and some mint in here too along with rocks we have collected over the years-do you collect special rocks too?

I planted some of the impatiens in that smaller clay pot

I did straighten out the big copper pot so it is no longer leaning when viewed looking from the front of the house, filled it up with lots of petunias, and over on the old tree stump is another large clay pot filled with petunias as well

   In front are lots of herbs-mints, thyme, lavender, oregano, rosemary and some ground cover type flowering plants, along with some wild violets Over in front of the stump are the three very small hummingbird mints that are already flowering. They should be tall plants-will see what happens. and that green to the right in front of that other rock wall all needs to come out, and more rocks need to go on the wall as well.

 

   I have become a bit overwhelmed with my large gardening project-to get rid of all the grass here and replace with flowers and ground covers. We just had a very long period of cold and so much rain before this warm spell finally. Felt a little better after getting all of these greenhouse plants in the ground. Lots of pretty blooms now

Below is lemongrass, looking it up online it says this will grow very large and spread but I don't think it will survive the winters here Have never planted it before so wanted to try it for tea-any tips on using it?

The three hummingbird mints-which are suppose to get quite large-and one already has flowers

 I am so thankful that we missed the worse of a huge storm on Sunday. We got around an hour of it early in the day, but we missed the worst of it when the storm split near Springfield Mo late afternoon.  The storm was to bring large balls of hale and damaging winds.

You know summer is almost here when you see the pirate ship-this is part of a restaurant on the lake-they pick you up and then take you back home after your meal

We always see these very expensive new docks on the lake going to their new homes

  We have been enjoying the full moon, although I only spotted it when I was bringing in the hummingbird feeders peeking through the tree limbs a couple days ago. Tonight is the blood moon but we may not have a clear sky-we'll see

     For my drink share, after a long gardening day, I made us another strawberry and blueberry margarita Saturday-so sharing my same photo from last week I love these cups as they are insulated and keep our drinks cold. I made a vita-mix pitcher full so there is enough for a glass on Sunday too (smiles)

  The orioles have migrated on, except for a very few of the orchard orioles, and I have not seen any of the grosbeaks for a few days so they must have moved on as well. We have just a very few hummingbirds, it takes awhile for them to find a new location of feeders. We did get a surprise over the weekend seeing a pair of doves enjoying the seeds. 

 

  Happy T and new week.