Gorgeous

While we were on the east coast, our front yard started blooming in earnest. The rhododendron is pale pink, we have three lovely dark pink azaleas next to the walkway, five medium pink azaleas by the driveway (and one discordant purple one by my window that I'm trying to ignore), and many buds on one of the bushes next to the driveway. Also, the two hydrangeas are leafy and madly growing, despite the December massacre. It's incredibly satisfying. We'll see if they bud this year?

From the middle of the front yard:



Kevin caught a bee on the rhododendron with his macro lens:



And from the street:



You can see that the view and yard quite shaded due to the neighbors' Japanese maple. (I'm actually standing next to branches that drape down to only two feet off the ground). Which brings up an etiquette question for all of you. You are allowed in Redmond to cut tree limbs and shrubbery that hang over your property, even if the trunk of the plant doesn't belong to you. The trunk in question actually belongs to a rental house with four guys in it, and we've never met the owner. Do we just cut away the two offending branches, confident in our new tree pruning skills and equipment? Do we try to get the guys to give us the name of their landlord and ask permission? Any opinions?

First summer weekend

Here's what this weekend looked like:


A book, an icy drink, and a duo of chairs carted around to a sunny or shady spot. On Saturday it got up to the mid eighties, and today was about six degrees cooler. There was sun screen, bare feet, and yard work. I cleared the side garden of weeds (you can see the nice clear patch above Kevin's head), to prep for herbs, beans, tomatoes and zucchini. The lilacs (we have two in the back, and one in the front!) have bloomed. The flowers haven't quite opened up enough to be able to smell them, but every now and then a breeze would carry the beginnings of lilac scent. It's going to be wonderful in a week or so. (That smell will forever remind me of doing calculus homework – graph paper out with the windows open on a spring night. Funny how memory works).

Our rhododendron just started blooming. Here it is glowing in the afternoon sun:


I love the blue flowers in the foreground – they're so vibrant and lovely. To the right you can see the Japanese Maple (top) and a fern (bottom), clearly not fazed by the recent pruning efforts.

We're totally inundated with small (¼") blue flowers. I don't know what they're called. They look like this:



(shot by Kevin with his macro lens), on a nine inch stem. The first few looked a little bit weedy, but lovely, and since then, they've taken over the entire rock wall. We decided that they could have the two ends, but couldn't be in the middle. This photo is called "one minute before I ripped out the ever-present blue wildflowers".



Much better:



:-) You can see the irises starting to really shoot up in the back!! Half of them are transplants from last year, and half were here already. I can't wait to see what we have! Also, the mini azalea has started to bloom – I love the pink. And our red primrose (bottom-left) is still going strong.

Mystery creature

What is this?



Every time I pull up a weed, I seem to find one of these guys underneath. They're a bit over an inch long, and have a hard red shell. I suspect it's some sort of grub or larvae, but I'm curious how worried I should be, since our soil seems to have reached saturation levels on these dudes. Any ideas?

Procrastinator's handbook: How to plant Daffodils*

1. Buy a house in October.
2. Buy a bag of daffodil bulbs from home depot. Place in the new, spacious garage on a nice shelf.
3. Let sit ½ year. Until the flowers bloom through the mesh bag in the dark and cold out of desperation.



4. Guilt.
5. Plant in real soil under actual sunshine. Water.
6. Wait and see...

* also works for tulips.

The logic becomes clear

It turns out that our big white-flowered bush on the side of the front yard has a pink flowered twin in between the windows! It needed to be massively pruned, and it looks like we chopped off all of the buds but three, but next year will be so pretty!



It's also making me appreciate some of the other shrubbery more. There are two bushes with these odd pink flutes on all the new growth. It almost seems like a tropical-leaning burning bush.

See here for a close-up. I've been sort of unimpressed, especially since they haven't really been taken care of so they're bizarre stunted little things. But now I see that they're meant to complement those huge pink flowers. How pretty that will be! They just got a new lease on life. :-)

Backyard flowers

I've been meaning for the last few weeks to get a picture though one of the windows in our living room. The flowers, top to bottom through the pane, are just so great, if a bit hard to capture.




From top to bottom that’s:

1. Pink and red blossoms and copious moss on the fruit tree.
   
2. Forsythia (the small yellow buds on branches underneath the pines).
   
3. Pink buds on the mini rhododendron on the right in front of the forsythia.
   
4. (Purple) Periwinkle all along the top of the steps.
   
5. On the left – massive pink mystery flowers that have been blooming for three months – love them.
   
6. Far right, above the grass line: some of the primroses I planted – these are variegated white and purple.
   
7. *Mowed* lawn! You can see all of the motley grasses.
   
8. Mini daffodils in pots in front of the window – I keep pulling the bulbs mid summer, putting them in ziplocs over the winter and replanting them once they start to sprout – this is year three and they were a bit late but now splendid.
   

And I wasn't kidding about the copious moss...




And in the front yard, we have the prettiest bush. There has been a single bloom for the last week, but the rest of the buds are just oozing promise.



Kevin took this photo with his new lens (a treat to himself for his new job! Same company, new group, and he gets to manage people which is a whole new playing field.) – pretty awesome. I'll try to get a sunny photo of the full bush one of these days, though it will be hard to get organize before all of those fat, full buds bloom. Any minute now.

Feeling more like homeowners!

With Spring seeming like an ever-more-likely prospect, we decided to get our acts together and work on figuring out a lawnmower. Especially with only little teeny bits of lawn, we both like the idea of a reel mower. I was particularly enthusiastic, since they take up less space in the garage and you don’t have to worry about storing gas (two major advantages!!). Plus, I could see myself using a reel mower, whereas anything gas-powered would only belong to Kevin.

Seems like now must be the time to buy, since we found a great option on sale for $99 on Amazon, and free shipping! Nice! It arrived on Wednesday, and Kevin assembled it today. All of the online compaints that there were a million pieces turned out to be overdramatc. Six bolts, done. Then we took turns taking it out for a test run.



Kevin was laughing at me and my random walk style of mowing – no neat lines here, and it cuts faster if you attack the tall tufts from all angles. It’s perfect, and the yard looks so much shorter – actually even! I’ve never mowed before. It’s always been either my dad’s or my brother’s job. But I’m all excited about how easy and non-intimidating this is. It’s nice to have a 10 minute task outside when you get home from work (especially with daylight savings only a week away!)


PS. Like our gorgeous pink flowers? They keep getting showier. Here’s a closeup:



I still haven’t figured out what they are, but I’ve totally lost my resolve on tearing them out. Too pretty, especially for the end of February when you need the color.

Crocuses!

I took a few pictures of the new crocuses in the morning before work!



Good thing, too, because by the evening they were gone, again. :-( Nibbled down to the quick, with only a few stubby leaves and flower debris remaining. I wonder which creature is eating them. We have a million squirrels, I’ve seen a few rabbits, and Kevin’s seen a cat. My money’s on the rabbit. I wish it would stop.

I found more buds out front, so I’ll have to be eagle-eyed, and more blooms, this time in one of my planters!



Hopefully these ones will be spared for a few days.

Primroses keep getting cheaper

And I just can’t resist planting them on the rock wall, so help me.

More Spring Updates

Our primroses on the kitchen counter continue to look so cheerful. They now have company in the blue pots on either side. Amanda and Brian left three quarters of a thing of garlic on the counter a month and a half ago. It's been sprouting, and I finally planted it last week. It’s VERY pleased to be in a pot. The shoots are all about three inches tall, and they seem to grow more every time I walk into the kitchen.



I’ve been checking on the crocuses each morning and most evenings to see if they’ve bloomed – it’s always such an all of a sudden thing with them. I can’t wait to see what color they turn out to be. That surprise seems a little bit ruined since there’s lavender, yellow, and purple crocus petal debris all around the bulbs. None of the remaining ones seem damaged, but I’ll have to be extra vigilant if I want to see them flower, I guess. I wonder which creature decided to attack?

The hydrangeas in the front yard were severely cut back during the pruning when Kevin’s family was here. I’ve been worried about them since it really does seem like a lot to recover from. I checked today, though, and it seems my fears were groundless since there are green buds everywhere. Yay!



There are two unidentified bushes in the backyard with very neat buds. Any ideas what this is?



Or this?



While we’re playing “name that plant”, the entire corner of front yard erupted in what looks like two sorts of bulb.



Here are the closeups (click on them for even bigger) – any ideas?

And finally, the holly tree is still, incongruously, covered in berries and looking very Christmassy. Right in front of it, though, is a bush positively covered in buds. I was puzzling over it when I finally found one that had actually bloomed! I know this flower!!



We have a forsythia!

Too fun

The other day it got sunny in the late afternoon (a rarity) and without our dense layer of clouds it didn’t get too dark to work outside until about 5:30! Huge progress! I’m still chipping away at the enormous branch pile, so I’ve been outside more days than not in the last week, despite the gloom.

It’s so neat – we’re just now seeing the first signs of Spring. Usually it irks me to no end that Spring starts to appear in February instead of the far more civilized April, but apparently I’ve finally adjusted to the seasons out here because these glimpses seem so welcome and encouraging to me. I have a bunch of theories (more snow this year, looking forward to evenings spent in the yard and on the patio, general attrition...), but regardless of the cause, I am so delighted to present: Crocuses!!



Yay!! And these plants, which I hated in the fall because I had to cull off all of the slimy black leaves that rotted underneath the plant, are now budding. Definitely winning their way into my heart.



I have to say, while the previous owners of the house were incapable of mounting anything (toilet paper holders, electrical outlets, towel bars, etc.) at level, they had a genius for landscape, or hired someone who did. It has been so fun to me to watch our yard change – even through the winter there’s so much going on, and with the number of buds I’m seeing already it seems like the next few months will be genuinely riotous with flowers and color. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

My potted mini daffodils are making an appearance, love the little bulb nubbins:




Other notes: the primrose came back after the snow, happier than ever!



My parents brought three more primroses when they arrived, and they’ve been living in the kitchen window until it gets warm enough to plant them. (I’m almost sure they’d make the transition to outside now, but they look so pretty in the kitchen that I don’t want to risk it.) I wouldn’t have chosen the colors of the one in the rock wall (maroon and gold), but it looks so cheerful from the house that I can’t wait to have more next year. The store up the street just put out a bunch of new colors, including many blues and purples. I may have to swing by tomorrow and pick up a few of them. I think the blues and purples would look so pretty with the yellow that my parents brought, and the pinks and reds would make another great spot.

In less happy news, the bamboo is sending up shoots like mad. Does anyone have advice for getting rid of it? Should I just dig? I’ve been searching online and not coming up with many shortcuts that seem viable...?

Mystery Flowers

Despite persistent cold and rain for the last few weeks, we seem to have a little patch of flowers growing in amidst the mushrooms by the front walk!




The visible roots and green sprouts look like irises (though why they’d be growing in November is a puzzle), but I haven’t a clue what that little mystery flower is. The red is so pretty. The entire plant is about 3” across and it seems to have appeared just in the last week.




Any ideas??

Sorry that it's been so long

Oh, man, I’m far behind. I got lulled by my lack of bloggable photos and didn’t post, and now all sorts of interesting things have happened: the start of (fantasy) football and the related knitting, the back deck gardening success, the baby born (and sweater, etc. revealed, finally), the quilt progress and regression…

Usually I cope with lack of posting by just putting up five posts in a night (RSS feeds be damned), but for some reason this all feels intermingled, so this will be the longest post ever. Sorry?

So first of all, I went to the Farmers’ market a week ago Saturday. My intention was to pick up flowers, peaches and veggies (all of which were accomplished with the typical farmers’ market glee), but there were a few fun additions. I ran into Pam from my knitting group at the skirt stall, fun. And then after I was done shopping, I returned to the booth and bought one! (My Christmas stocking had a bit of fun money in it, and though we’re a full ¾ of the year later, I found something great to use it on. :-) Nice! )



Here are the farmers market flowers with the front of Isabella. I’ve finally made it to the lace – the knitting is so, so much more interesting now. I’ve made quite a few more rows since this photo and they’ve just flown by. All of the football in the last week hasn’t hurt the progress!



The plants on the back deck have been entertaining. The tomatoes are going strong. I’ve picked five so far, and there are at least 10 more in various stages of ripening waiting in the wings. The beans keep appearing – every time I give up and expect the end, I see 7 more waiting to be picked. No complaints! Best snack ever.



The strawberries just started blooming again a few weeks ago, and the fruits are closer and closer to being ripe to pick. And, exciting to me, the poor pepper plant that got overrun by the beans, is actually making peppers regardless. How cool!! Definitely runty and late, but I’m just delighted by every sign of progress.



And finally, I’ve been working on the pine trees for the quilt. They’ve been weighing on me ( a classic case of unexecutable vision), and I finally charted and started to construct them last weekend. Here’s the result about a third of the way in…



Since then I’ve been finishing and ripping back squares without quite finishing anything. I LOVE the deep-dark pine tree colors up close, but against the lake and land business, they don’t really work. I’m struggling to come up with a reasonable solution… so far I’ve tried improving the tree/water contrast (helps, but not enough). Next up is mixing in more medium greens to go with the darks. I may have to switch to mountains and hills and then return to this – I love the squares but they just don’t fit the quilt.
I meant to write about the baby knitting as part of my catch-all post, but then realized that it would be easier to have my pattern notes separate. So, to be carried on in a later post… :-)

I am not a spider person

... and pacific northwest spiders are a force to be reckoned with. They've been increasingly ever-present for the last month (I feel like I'm dripping in spiderweb shards whenever I leave the house, since they love our front and back decks). Unfortunately, the biggest one I've see so far this year has taken up residence in the tomato plant.

Kevin took a picture:




It gives me goosebumps just to look at it. Shudder.

At least the tomatoes are getting huge, too?

A garden post, now that it's stopped raining

I wish that I had more quilt squares to show you, but that has very temporarily been placed on the back burner. We're heading to Boston this weekend for a wedding (I didn't have a dress), and I just found out that I need to have gifts all knitted for a shower by the end of July (I hadn't started), so I've been being responsible and not working on the quilt, even though I wanted to.

Instead, here are garden pictures! I think the beans are just about done. I had another nice big handful last night, but I don't see any more flowers or teeny ones. I think they couldn't cope with the week of rain and clouds -- whatever momentum they had seems to have died. A great experiment though, and one I certainly intend to repeat! The new excitement is the tomatoes, which are coming on strong. There are LOTS of them, and they're getting quite big. Still green, but I'm so pleased with them. The basil is also getting huge -- time for more strawberry-basil martinis?



And because I thought it was cool, here's a ladybug in the mint!



There's a ladybug-ish thing on the next stalk. I have no idea what it is. If I had to come up with a theory, I would say that it looked like the ladybug took a page from our shrimp's book and molted, but I didn't think beetles did that. Huh?

Deck gardening starts to look like a success!

The beans and tomato plant, despite the measly afternoon-only sun, are getting bigger by the day.



And look! A baby tomato!!



Once I saw the first one, I kept looking, and found several small grape-sized individuals, and then a whole cluster!




The beans are even more exciting. The little inch-long slivers have suddenly transformed into real vegetables!



I won't show you every single bean on this plant, but it's amazing to me how many there are. Looks like we have a plan for tonight: grill salmon, harvest beans to go with! Here's one more photo -- I think this is so, so exciting, that my little experimental plant is so huge and useful now. Here, another pair of beans, ready to eat!



Both plants still have lots of flowers, so I'm hoping that we get several more weeks of beans and then the tomatoes should be ripe.

How cool.

They bloom!

The irises are blooming! This astounds me. Two weeks ago, they looked like this, and were totally stemless and budless.




In the last week, they sent up shoots, budded, and bloomed. (I love how the bud structure for each plant looks identical.)



They were looking spectacular on the deck railing, but had to be moved to the table after I woke up this morning and found that they'd launched themselves to the ground. I'm guessing that there was wind and they were just top-heavy enough? Somehow they survived the fall without any apparent injury, but I don't want them to have to go through another one.



From afar, they're striking (especially for their height), but up close, they're spectacular.



(Kevin left his camera at home... When the cat's away, the mice play with the amazing digital XLRS-or-something. :-) fun.)



The best part is that only about a third of the blooms have flowered, so this should be a fun week. I am so, so glad that they decided to bloom before we left for the wedding. To miss this would have been a disappointment.