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I can make it rain

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Why is it that whenever I pull out my garden hose and start watering the garden it suddenly starts raining? If this keeps happening I’m going to begin to think I’ve got magical powers!

Seriously … we haven’t really had any rain over the last week and a half to two weeks. Oh sure, every day has called for showers, rain or thunderstorms and it’s definitely rained in other parts of the city, but hadn’t rained here.

Yesterday there were dark clouds all day, but when by 6 pm it still hadn’t rained I decided that it was time to water the garden. We hadn’t watered since Saturday so the garden was really dry.

Ironically, approximately two minutes after I started watering the front garden beds it started spitting. The rain soon began to fall harder, but I knew if I stopped watering the rain would stop. All in all it rained here for about 15 minutes, but it wasn’t enough for my garden. By the time I got to the backyard it had pretty much stopped raining and I could still see lots of dry areas in the garden beds. So I continued to water.

Strange though, how it happens to rain whenever I pull out my garden hose!

Does that happen to you too? You get frustrated that it hasn’t rained for a while (even though the forecast says it should), go to water and it begins to rain or it starts raining shortly after you’re done watering? I’d say it happens to me maybe 50% of the time!






Blooms and greenery everywhere

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Join Green Thumb Sunday

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Every time I look out my kitchen window or go into my backyard I’m amazed at how much it’s filled in.

It seems like the plants are growing within hours … not just days! That’s one of the things I love most about Spring – how fast things change and green up.

This is a photo of one of my raised garden beds in the backyard.

The “oval” as I call it separates the patio area from the lawn and garden portion of the backyard.

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There are even more tulips throughout the garden beds than there were when I took that photo.

The Pasque flowers that I have in a very small area near the side of the house are blooming now too. Here’s a shot of a Pasque flower bud. The flower opened and started blooming on Thursday.

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Unfortunately these flowers don’t seem to last very long so I expect they will be finished by sometime early next week. Maybe longer if the cool weather sticks around.

For a peek at my Grape Hyacinth (Muscari) and my Daffodils take a peek at my other blogs.

A little yard work

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I couldn’t stop myself … I couldn’t resist … On Monday I finally went outside and did some yard work! First Spring cleaning for the garden this year!

Of course I had to pick a rather cool day and naturally, as per usually, I didn’t go out during the afternoon when it would be warmer and brighter … nope, Chris and I waited until it was about 7 pm before deciding to go outside to take some pictures of the Crocus and other plants that we spotted coming up and that of course turned into what was supposed to be a short lawn raking session.

All in all we were outside for close to two hours and the temp fell to -1 Celsius (30 F) by the time we came back indoors tired and frozen!

Most of the leaves and dead grass has now been raked off the front and back lawns. There were a few areas, shady areas, where the ground was still quite hard and the leaves were a frozen mass stuck to the grass. LOL

We even started to take some of the leaves off of the garden beds. I was surprised at how many of our plants were growing! Now that we’re getting some rain and it’s above zero most of the time I expect to see a lot more green – perhaps by the weekend.

I discovered that the Sedum had little green nubs coming up, there were some tulip leaves, maybe some Grape hyacinth leaves, our two hydrangeas have leaf buds, and the Chives had doubled in size from when I first discovered them last week. I also think some of the German Iris leaves had started to come up and green as well. There’s so much life in the garden hidden under a thin layer of leaves.

Have you been out in your yard doing any Spring cleaning yet? Discovered any plants that you didn’t expect to be coming up yet?

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