More Flowers

Wow! My window boxes turned out great this year! I grew these Shockwave Petunias from seed. They have a trailing habit which looks really good in these planters.
The geraniums that I started from seed are getting big and look like they're growing strong but still no sign of any flowers. That's a little disappointing.

This Rhododendron was planted three years ago and this is the first year it bloomed. I was pretty close to digging it up and trashing it, that is until these gorgeous flowers appeared.


The Osteospermum that I started from seed are beginning to get flowers too. It's nice to see my hard work in the garden paying off.

2009 Container Garden

I had everything planted by mid-May. Now things are beginning to bloom.

New garden area

Well, my dad finally took away the pile of boards that was against the garage. Of course since they had been there for years there was no grass growing underneath them. To solve this problem, mom decided to give me another gardening area. Woohoo! It's covered in shade most of the day. I don't have much experience gardening in shade, but now I'll learn.

I couldn't get the stupid edging to go in straight. There must be rocks buried underneath there or something. Oh well. I still think it turned out good. I got it all planted today and I put down cedar shavings for mulch.

Tulips

Tulips are blooming in front of our house now. Spring is really here!

I think spring might finally be here

Perhaps all that rain we've been having was worth it. Check out the tree in front of our house. All this leaf growth just happened in the past week. Spring might actually be here. Everything is greening up nicely.So far, the forecast for this weekend looks good. I might actually get to do some planting outside if I'm lucky. Yea!

Garden Plans

This is my plan for the garden in the front of the house this year. I've got lots of plants ready to be moved outside. The soil there is heavy clay, so I looked up some plants that are supposed to do okay in clay and poor soil. We'll see how it goes.




And this is my plan for my secret garden behind the garage. I bought a bunch of bare root plants to put back there this year. Getting bare roots was the cheapest way to go. I just hope that they grow since the soil isn't too great back there either. There are lots of rocks, broken glass, and roots in it. The perennials that I planted last year are already returning this year so I guess that's a good sign.

Will it ever warm up?

Oh, how I wish it was warm enough to start planting outside!

I've got lots and lots of plants that I've started indoors that are just begging for me to transplant them to outside but it still gets too cold at night to do so yet.




I really went overboard this year. I guess it's because I've got the time on my hands being unemployed and all. Gotta keep busy somehow. This is a list of the seedlings I've started inside:

25 geraniums
5 lupin
17 cosmos
10 pentas
11 snapdragons
3 four o'clocks
5 delphiniums
10 rudbeckia
9 osteospermums
34 shockwave petunias
17 salvia
5 shasta daisies
14 asters
5 catchfly
5 coneflowers
8 dahlias
12 wild flax
21 zinnias
19 petunias
7 nasturtium
2 zucchini
5 mini belle peppers

Spring Fever

If you live in Milwaukee you know about how unpredictable our weather is. Getting snowfall as late as May is not that unusual. Sometimes it feels like spring will never get here.

When I was a kid and cabin fever was really starting to set in, my mom would take my brothers and I to the Mitchell Park Domes. There we could run around without our coats on for at least a couple of hours. It's a good way to deal with Spring fever when it feels like it's never going to warm up.

We took a visit there with our friends Gigi and Jane when they were in town. Here's some of the pictures I took just with my little digital point and shoot. Enjoy!

First is the TROPICAL DOME which is by far my favorite one.









Next we went into the ARID DOME.







And last we went into the SHOW DOME which is my least favorite. It's display changes with the seasons. Here it's set up for Easter.

new tile in shower

When mom first redid her bathroom, she used small glass mosaic tile. It looked pretty but after a while the tiles started to detach in the shower. It was really upsetting for her. She decided to take action and got her shower retiled with larger white ceramic tiles and also had a new glass block window installed.
Now the bathroom looks great. The white tile really brightened up the small room. She also had white ceramic tile installed as the baseboard. It really ties it all together. The old tile, the new tile, and the white fixtures look like they were meant to be together.