Bunny Rabbit Problems

Bunnies are cute. Bunnies are happy. Bunnies eat plants. Bunnies are killing my beans, roses and pinks. GRRRRRR. Saturday monring I looked out and saw Mr. Bunny eating on my moss phlox in the front yard. Ok. I'm not going to take special precautions there because I have tons and they could use a little pruning. However, this morning I saw one munching on the pinks. They are almost to the ground. We are spraying the beans with soapy water and the roses with insect killer. We're going to start on the pinks as well. Every night.....Stupid bunnies!!

New Plants

List of new plants in the garden:
1 spirea along the front walk
5 campanuals along the front walk
1 shrub althea by the south east corner of garage
4 roses by the new arbor
1 hydrangea by the deck steps
1 butterfly bush on the north east corner of the house
3 bridal spirea along the east side of the garden

Too Much Rain

We've had rain off and on for a couple of weeks. The ground is saturated and even the grass doesn't look great. Our vegetable garden is bogged. However, all the new plants are growing well.

Campanula

Name: Campanula
Variety: Campanula white clips
Type: Perennial
Height: 4-6"
Color: White
Light: Full Sun
Bloom Time: Mid-Late July

I purchased these flowers many years ago when we lived in Saline. They were so impressive, growing in poor soil and having a very long bloom time. However, they were quite expensive so I only bought a few. They grew and did well. I decided to try them along the sidewalk border. I have not had a lot of luck with flowers there. I purchased 5 plants and all did fairly well. This year I purchased 5 more. Now I can get them for under two dollars so I will keep adding to them until I have a nice border.

Day Lilies

Name: Day Lilies
Variety: Hemerocallis Stella D'oro
Type: Perennial
Height: 12"
Color: Gold
Sun: Full sun
Bloom Time: Early June

These are shorter day lilies and the variety that is suppose to be continuously blooming. I purchased two pots several years ago and planted them by the larger day lily. They didn't do very well so this year we transplanted them into three areas. I purchased two more pots and we planted those as well. They are doing much better this year and I expect to see a lot of blooms over a longer period of time.

Daisies In Bloom

Name: Daisy
Variety: Chrysanthemum superbum
Height: 6-12"
Color: White
Type: Perennial
Light: Full Sun
Bloom Time: Mid June

I purchased this daisy many years ago when we lived in Saline. Camilla's favorite flower is daisy and so she insisted that we dig them up and take them to the new house. So we put them in Martin and Jessica's yard until we had a place for them. About 5 years ago they dug up a piece, which I split in two. They have grown and flourished and now need to be divided again. These are shorter daisies than the normal shasta daisy and a little more compact. I wanted something to go in the front of the bed. These work wonderfully. If I dead head them, I can get a little longer bloom time.

Beans

Wayne planted two of the 8 bean plants that are growing. As of yesterday nothing had eaten them. The garden is looking better after a week of no rain. We've had very cool weather, though, so only the zucchini look like they are growing--still they aren't dying.

Spirea In Bloom

Name: Spirea
Variety: Goldflame
Type: Deciduous bush
Flower Color: Dusty Rose
Height: 3' by 3 ' wide
Sun: Full Sun
Bloom Time: Late May Early June


The spirea are in bloom. They are a lovely fushia flower and each of the 9 shrubs is covered with flowers. I clipped the blossoms off the newest one so that it would concentrate on roots not flowers. So far in the garden something has been in bloom since the daffodils in April.

Working

Last night Wayne mowed the lawn and I weeded around the garden. Our plants, which have large stems have yellow leaves--too much water. The garden is too far into the bog and we need to let this dry out. I'm also concerned about the honeysuckle vine--it too has yellow leaves. Hope we don't loose it and the vegetables and flowers. There was a short rainfall this morning.

Arbor With Gate

We once again tackled staining the arbor Wednesday night. The weather was perfect and we got quite a bit done. Tonight Wayne is out there again. Most of what was left was high stuff for him to do. It's looking really great.

Rain

Wednesday morning it rained quite hard until after lunch. Then the sun came out and things dried out a bit. Still the grass and garden was very wet.

Weigela

Name: Weigela
Variety: Weigela Florida Java Red
Color: Pink with dark leaves
Type: Shrub
Height: 5' x 4'
Sun: Full sun
Bloom Time: Mid May

We purchased this for about $6. It was a small shrub and has taken awhile to grow. It's suppose to get taller than the spirea, but right now it's smaller. Still it flowers out beautifully in the spring time and has interesting foliage in the summer. It doesn't have a good fall show.

Tulip Tree

Name: Tulip Tree
Variety: Liriodendron tulipifera
Type:Decidusous Tree
Height: Tall--70 to 90'
Light: Full sun
Flower: Yellow
Bloom Time: June
Location:  Front Yard parking strip 
Care:  Prune dead wood as needed.   Apply 2 fertilizer stakes for flowers in spring.

Summer Redbud

For every one of the beautiful flowers a seed pod developed. This is the first year that has happened. It was incredible. Wayne and I spent at least 15 min. pulling seed pods off the tree. I'm not certain what would have happened, but we don't want it to expend energy making seeds. We prefer it to grow up.

Summer Pear

The pear trees have also lost their flowers have fully developed leaves. They seem to be healthy. After nearly 5 years they are now over 10' tall.

Summer Lilac

The flowers now have died. There was a wonderful show. However, the leaves are always a lovely cool addition to the summer garden. Wayne clipped all the dead blossoms so as to direct the growth to the roots and to better flower production next year.

Rain

At 5 pm last night a huge storm blew through. In some places there were 70 mph winds. We got hit with strong winds and then a down pour. The plants weather the storm fine. Only one spirea looks a little ragged. Now it is terribly hot. The worst part was the fact that the power went out and still is not on.

More Working

Thursday we ran out to the new arbor and started to get it stained. I got behind the vine and so now we won't have to worry about it climbing up the unstained lattice. We only finished about 1/4 of the work.

We planted the new shrub althea on the south east corner of the garage. It looks healthy and we're not moving it.

We dug up the old butter fly bush and planted a new one--this is a compact and should be a little smaller. I carefully read the instructions. We did a better job of conditioning the soil. Hopefully this will live. I'm posting instructions so I don't forget what to do. I think this is a warmer climate plant and needs to be treated with more care--like roses.

We moved the wrong hydrangea to the south side behind the new peonies. Hopefully it will be shaded enough to grow and doesn't get transplant shock. The nightly rain will help it. We then planted the hydrangea to match the other two. It's all leafed and blooming. The other two are growing slowly. I think it takes awhile for them to wake up, but they do have healthy growth.

The roses roots are leafing out finally. We have good growth on all but the scrawny one. Still it has a few leaves.

We discovered that redbud tree was covered with seed pods. Rather than let them mature and fall, but pulled them off. There was a considerable amount.

Wayne put in the basil, finally. That just leaves the campanulas to plant.

We dug up the burning bush that is wilting. We augmented the dirt and raised it up. Wayne and also dug a ditch for water flow. We cannot imagine what has happened to it, but too much water. There was nothing on the web to help.

Rain

It rained a good deal Friday night and then last night we also had quite a bit of rain. The walks and roads were really quite wet. Good rain means we don't have to chug that hose around the yard---at least Wayne doesn't have to.

Rain

I started sprinkling yesterday afternoon, but stopped by 5 pm. However, shortly after I arrived home, there was a down pour for several hours.

Lots of Work

Last night Wayne mowed lawn and I planted more flowers. I did the big urns by the front door, park bench and the pots on the front steps. I still need to do the cala lilly. Next I planted the dianthus in small pots in the back. I had three extra so those went into the perennial beds in between the chedder pinks and the astilbe. They will be fine there until I can transplant the asters from the front.

I dragged the hose up the deck and thoroughly watered pots. Some plants were in distress--the hanging basket, the oriental poppy and the New Guinea impatiens. I washed off some chairs and tables but more cleaning needs to be done before it's set for the summer.

I also trimmed the veronicas a third . They get really leggy and do much better if they are trimmed.

After Wayne finished the lawn, we planted the red althea. It is healthy and hopefully will do well on the southeast corner of the garage. The soil is deep top soil and it will get plenty of sun, so it should.

The rose bush that had the water issues I was concerned about is leafing out already. The others have lots of new growth but no leaves yet. Maybe we should drown more of them.

Troubles

We discovered that one of the new burning bush was dying and the other was also withering. We've trimmed off all the dead but it hasn't stop the spread. Next thing is to dig it up and see what we can find. Are the roots too wet or is this bug?

Also we have problems with drainage around the roses. With the trench all the water drains into them from the lawn. We're going to need to dig another trench, fill with lava rock and then a french drain at the other end. It worked before, it will work again. I don't want to lose the roses.

Planting

On Friday afternoon we planted the following:
12 tomatoes
16 peppers
1 container small unions
4 cucs
4 cantelope
4 zuchinni
still to plant--beans
basil

Flowers:
16 impatients
1 new guinea impatient
4 petunias + 2 vines in each of the 4 deck boxes
4 petunias + 1 white ground + 1 spike in each square deck planter
6 begonias in 6 clay pots
4 tall and 4 short zinas in the kitchen window box
still to plant:
6 front boxes
4 small clay pots
large white deck pot

We purchased:
5 white campanulas
1 red althea
1 purple butterfly bush
1 orange poppy
1 dianthus chedder pink neon star

I didn't find any lamium, so I'm going to try and split the one I have.

Rain

After more than a week without rain, we had considerable Friday night. The lawn needed it.