What is going on around here April 25, 2017

My title is what Brian, the DailyAudio Bible man says after he read the passage for the day.Well, a lot.

•  Tom has been trying to figure out how to do the drip system in the back garden. No success yet.
• The lilacs are in full bloom and smelling great but it is too cold to sit outside in my "summer office."
• I've been digging around in the dirt, trying to pull out the netty, weird roots.  
• I've planted 15 perennials.
• We went to Ace for their sale and I purchased 26 4-packs, 99 cents each. It was a zoo there. I tried to buy the petunias that were short, not spindly. I did get two spindly ones and those are already in the ground as they looked bad yesterday
• The Arugula is starting in the garden. These were the only seeds that were not from the Dollar store. One of my frustrations is that my assistant and the controller tends to do things on the cheap. If nothing comes up by next weekend, I am putting new seeds in. I sure hope that does not happen.
• I have tried to keep track of costs. Tom spent about $100 for the irrigation systems.  I spent $26 on the annuals; probably close to $100 on perennials and seeds. 

Here are the latest pictures:

Rained last night. so barren compared to Paula's garden

needed a few pansies just because it's spring

I put a perennial here and still hope for the gladiolas near the fence

Paula's garden

Bought some snapdragons there to the left. A perennial

Hooray for the lilacs. We'll need to trim them when we get back from Asia

Added two perennials near the Baileys, one is a columbine. It won't bloom much this summer but maybe will come back

Had to try another poppy. eager to see Paula's

Hope the lily comes back and the purple flowers that are out at Paula's are not quite out at our house

so barren

arugula

Here is one of those spindly petunias. I might have to put a pot over it if it gets cold

It's spring 2017 - April 16 report

Last year, due to a lot of traveling, although I cannot remember where I went (!), I did not plant a garden.  There were other reasons as well. For one, the dirt in the veggie garden.  Over the past twenty years, the vegetable garden dirt had deteriorated significantly. Oh, now I remember where I was....we were in New Zealand, then I visited Will and family for the last time as they were moving to Singapore, onto Atlanta for some teaching/training, then to a family reunion. Hope for a week then off to Family Gathering in C. Springs. Left from there for 3 weeks, wedding in San Diego, visiting Catherine and family having moved to Los Angeles and then meeting Beau in August.

I had planted some petunias but somehow I had not communicated clearly to a couple friends who I thought would water my petunias. Added to that, when we left, Tom had inadvertently turned off the sprinklers. We drove up mid August to burned grass and dead flowers. I actually broke into tears.  Some neighbors commented that they noticed the grass burning up. Why had no one emailed me?

Oh well, water, well, no water actually, under the bridge or as it was....in our lawn. Saved some money on the water bill but at what cost. Ugh!

So it is Easter Sunday.  But the story begins on Dec 26.  Last June our back neighbors told us they were cutting down that infernal cottonwood tree.  But they never did it.

Fast forward to Gigi and Pop in California for Christmas. I happened to glance at my phone and a FB message had come in from one of the other neighbors. "Hey, Lisa, the Dows are cutting down their  cottonwood tree. They need to use your backyard as a staging area. "No problem," I texted back.

Yahoo!  The tree was gone when we got home.

Since there would now be sun on the garden, we decided to get the BOSS compost that master gardener Laura recommended. Tom put that in March 16. The soil looks great. So it has been a month and Tom is putting in a soaker system.

Yesterday I returned from Tacoma and was back from the airport at 3pm.  We headed out to trim some branches from John and Debbie's yard that were also blocking our garden.  Tom had the chain saw. I had the rope pulling the branches to the yard. It took us 2 hours to clean it all up but glad that is done. We also trimmed the pine tree and the crab apple tree.

Now for some details:

 gladiola bulbs

near the fence.
Seeds near the house: