Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary

5/11/01 - The dry weather continues--rainfall for the last month in our area has been very much below normal, and, surprisingly, since I see that I was complaining about lack of rain at this time last year, our rainfall for the last four to six weeks has been less than last year. Well, I have been continuing to water the flower beds: the front of the house in the morning and in the back in the evening, missing only when I have to be away from home. And the results seem to be good: I notice, when I am weeding or cultivating the edges of the beds, that the soil is moist and my new plants, except for a few Star zinnias, seem to be doing very well. I have been watering by hand--not using a sprinkler. I think that in this way everybody gets a "drink," and nobody drowns. I hope that it rains soon, however, because this watering cuts into the time when I should be doing other things in the garden.
         The garden changes rapidly at this time of year--all of the spring bulbs are over, which presents a gardening problem. The proper procedure is to leave the foliage of tulips, daffodils, and other bulbs to dry up before removing it; however, this makes it very difficult to place new plants in the beds and difficult for the little "volunteers" to find a place in the sun. I compromise (isn't that what life is anyway--a series of compromises) and trim back the tops of the daffodils and tulips. So far this procedure doesn't seem to have harmed my bulbs, and it is much easier than the alternative of waiting for the tops to dry up or bending them over and tying them.
         I have been trying to keep the flower beds as neat and tidy as possible. This means trimming the grass around them, using a trowel to define the edges, and pulling up grass, weeds, and unwanted seedlings. This "pulling up" can be tricky: I do know most of the common weeds that infest my garden, but there are some weed seedlings that look very much like the "good guys." It is also easy to confuse the seedlings of flowers that you want to get rid of with those you want to keep. For instance, the seedlings of white ageratum, which I want to get rid of in all but a few places in the garden, look very much like the seedlings of hyssop. So, why not solve the problem by putting down mulch as my neighbors do--well, obviously, because you are throwing out a lot of "flower babies" with the "bathwater undesirables."
         So, what is blooming in Gertrude's garden this week? Lovely blue scillas, the British call them "bluebells," are everywhere as are the fragrant lilies-of-the-valley--Gertrude's wedding flowers. The iris and columbines are beginning to show their colors, and even some of my little plants from the "basement garden" are blooming--begonias, Star zinnias, and impatiens. But the glory of the garden at this time of year are the flowering shrubs that follow the forsythia: almond bush, japonica, bridalwreath, lilac, spirea, and especially azaleas. Since the neighbor in back of my garden also has old and lovely azaleas, the view looking toward the back of the garden is spectacular. I wish that I could keep this view all summer, but it will soon be gone--so for this week and probably the next one or two I am going to show you pictures, beginning with the one below, of the azaleas in bloom

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